I saddled up the tandem Terratrike Pro this evening for a preplanned ride from work to the Loma Del Norte Park where we enjoy letting the dogs play in the dog park and do their business.When I started to ride away, however, the trike seemed extremely sluggish and noisy. As I glanced around to see what was the problem, I noted the left front tire was almost entirely FLAT. I tried to air it up but it would not hold air..
So, I borrowed one of the used mission bikes in our facility and rode the route with an unfamiliar upright Diamond Frame (DF) bike.
It got me there and back but it was not a pleasant ride. The bike had recently been worked on and the seat adjustment screw was loose, allowing the seat to tilt back when I tried to find a comfortable spot to sit and pedal. I tried tightening the screw with my Gerber pocket plier-multitool. but it only improved things slightly. The reason for the ride was to try out a Google mapped bike route to the dog park from our office.
This route was not too bad, though it pointed up several undesirable aspects of Albuquerque's sputtering bike-friendly attempts:
-Jefferson now has a mostly decent bike lane, although it has bollards so close together it is dangerous and sometimes impossible (for a trike) to enter the bike path off Jefferson without blocking vehicular Jefferson traffic, endangering all involved.
-Anyway, this ride took me from Jefferson to the Ellison intersection, which wasn't bad at all.
-Ellison has NO bike lane, but it was not terrible due to less traffic....
-Then, at the intersection of the East Frontage Road, Ellison, and San Antonio, the cyclist must divert off the pavement up onto the SIDEWALK at the SE corner of this intersection, which gets you started on the bike path that leads about 100 yards parallel to the Cracker Barrel parking lot, then hard-lefts to the east running parallel to San Antonio. There was a homeless guy flopped at this left-hand right-angle bend, who was still squatted there when I came back when it was almost dark.
-Like most bike paths in Albuquerque, this one is seldom maintained and has lots of rough bumps and potholes as you pedal merrily along.
-This route had me ride all the way up to Louisiana, then turn North. Louisiana has a mostly rideable bike lane, with the occasional stretch of rocks, trash, and gravel.
-Coming back the other way involved quite a set of risks. At Louisiana the bike path is right on the corner, with pavement, sidewalk, and bike path all conglomerated into a small space difficult to find and navigate. I made that with only one failed attempt, but at the bottom of the hill at the intersection of San Antonio and the dead-end of the bike path, one is forced to stop, wait for no traffic (HAH!), and carefully walk the bike ACROSS the traffic lanes so you can be found waiting in the left turn lane to get back on Ellison. I did not manage that one so well, and likely in future will ride up into the Cracker Barrel lot and turn around and cross Ellison there with a bit of a gap away from the derned crowded intersection lower down. The City seems to have non-cyclists designing and laying out such avenues. I wish such officials had to ride bikes on their own creations and see just what it's like instead of bragging about how many more miles of bike paths and lanes they've accomplished.
It was only 2.8 miles each way, which won't be a bad shortie bike ride in the future on my OWN bike with a comfortable seat.
On the way back, a young lady called out to me from her car "Love your HAT!!" - Which no doubt was sarcasm, seeing how silly my helmet looks with faded neck curtain, homemade plastic oil-can long front visor, headlamp and tail-lamp, GoPro camera mount on top, and not to mention the radio boom microphone and earpiece.
My adoring public.....
Since I was riding a featureless bike with no electronics, I have no GPS speed or distance or tracking data tonight. BAH
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