Today's Short-Trip Tracking
Today was a very short trip mileage-wise, but notably longer in effort and time-wise.
Our LDS Church Children's Organization (aka the Primary) is sponsoring a morning Easter celebration in the next couple weeks at a forest service picinic area that is not very far away from us. It's a route we have ridden before, and I had no illusions about the distressingly long demanding demoralizing climb, but Jacque and I decided we want to ride our Tandem Recumbent trike to this Easter festivity. However, it's been years since we rode up that way.
Thus the effort to do a preliminary "Dry Run" to make sure we could do it and see how long it would take.
It's only about 5-something miles from our place, but first we have to climb the dreaded short but serious uphill to the Post Office, and then cross North-14, a very busy highway, and then resume even steeper climbing for the last 2+ miles to the picnic area.
my blood glucose was too high when we took off, which is almost as bad as low blood sugar, and I had trouble getting any energy going to my legs, so it was even slower going than normal for the first mile or so. We had to stop for repeated breaks for water and oxygen, but we slowly made our way up the mountain.
It took so long we had to stop and give the girlie dogs some "relief" as well. At one point the GPS indicated we were averaging 2 - something miles per hour, meaning we could have walked faster...... of course we had additional water, food, radios, and short-stroke-legged doggies so walking would doubtlessly have NOT gotten us there any quicker. Eventually I burned off enough of my high blood glucose that I felt better and was able to pedal stronger, but it was still a very long slow climb. The BUGS are taking advantage of early spring warm weather and were TERRIBLE today. Swatting them took up too much precious oxygen and energy that could have been better applied to the pedals. Passing motorists doubtless thought I was having seizures, with my arms flailing left and right trying to kill the little buggers. Thankfully, this is a TRIKE, meaning I can actually turn loose of the hand-grips for short bursts of murderous bug-smacking without veering head over heels into the ditch.
Visually this is a lovely area to ride, but since I again left the GoPro safely at home, I am unable to share ay pictures or video today. As Usual.
We finally arrived at our designated picnic ground, 1.5 hours for less than a 3 mile ride. You may well guess our tiredness and gladness to finally arrive, get into an unused Group Shelter with tables and lots of welcome shade. Jacque had constructed a couple of egg salad sandwiches just for this trip and stowed a couple of diet Root Beers in a thermal pack, and everything was still wonderfully cold. That is, except for us overheated humans. A fine feast for the weary.
This was no speed run and we had nothing pressing upon our time at home so we ate our lunch and people-watched and walked the dogs around a bit before saddling up for the return ride.
Going steadily down hill for almost 3 miles can be quite thrilling....... IF:
-You're still young and bullet-proof
-You're NOT riding a long trike that gets unstable and twisty over 25 MPH
Since the above did not apply to us, we gently rode the brakes much of the way down. As far as we know we didn't lose anything, and we did not encounter any asphalt turbulence during re-entry.
I'm sure this is the fastest we've ever coasted with this beast. The uphill trip consumed 1.5 hours and the mostly-coasting return took about TEN MINUTES.
Of course since we had a good excuse we had trouble bypassing the Shell Station Snack Break, so we forced ourselves to eat a couple of ice cream treats.
Ride Started: 10:51 PM Ride Ended: 1:37 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.2 Ending Voltage: 13.2 Lowest: 12.8 (Need to check this battery again)
Lowest Temp 64 F Highest Temp: 78 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 4.96
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
2.5 MPH 4.2 MPH 35.9 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
1 hour 58 mins 1 hour 10 mins 47 minutes
No comments:
Post a Comment