Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Tinkerbell Missed Tuesday

Today's Tuesday Tracking via Magic Technology

Jacque went a-quilting today, so Lilly and I took a trike ride starting around noonish.  Tinkerbell, the elder wonder-dog, missed out because SHE went with "Mom".
First we rode up to the Post Office, to pick up the mail and deposit an ougoing envelope in the hopper.
Onlookers seem to think it's special that Lilly rides in a belly-pack on my chest, but she's a bit blah about it.  She tolerates being bound up in the papoose thingie, but she absolutely HATES being left behind.
Without Tink around to engender jealousy, Lilly actually does pretty well, and even moderates her excitement and outbursts when encountering other dogs along the way.  She even decided to totally ignore a couple of noisy dogs that she usually gets excited about.
LOVING this balmy break in winter weather around here.  It was at least in the mid-fifties today; sunny  with only mildly blustery breezes, and I had to take off the windbreaker by the time we arrived at the Post Office.
After a short water break we zoomed back down the hill towards home, but rode on another several miles in a vain attempt to rack up bragging rights.  I was mildly shocked to receive a call on the ham radio from ANOTHER cyclist - way down in Las Cruces.  It was Thaddeus, KG5ES, an old friend of many years that we have not SEEN in years.  Bicycle-to- tricycle radio conversation, very nice but rare indeed.
Still not qualifying as a "Real Ride", it was - as usual - fun and invigorating.

Ride Started: 12:04 PM    Ride Ended:  1:19 PM
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  8.66
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
6.7 MPH                               7.3 MPH                   28.8 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 15 mins                      1 hour 10 mins          5 minutes

Monday, December 12, 2016

Unplanned Monday Riders

Today's Partial Tracking via GPS and Ham Radio

Bike and trike riding has not been in my calendar of activities since the week before Thanksgiving.
Jacque and I went to Utah for a week to visit my brothers and sister and a few of the nephews and nieces, but primarily to attend the Temple wedding of my brother John's daughter Katie to her lucky choice Abram.
Since we were already near most of the fam and Thanksgiving was only a few days after the wedding, we crashed John and Danese's Thanksgiving feast.
Since I love Barq's Diet Root Beer, and it is not sold anywhere in New Mexico in cans, I always buy out several store's worth during a visit to Utah and bring home a vehicle sagging under the weight of dozens of cases of Barq's.  We also brought home nasty head colds, unfortunately.
Thus I haven't been on the bikes since then, trying  avoid overdoing it and causing a relapse of the dreaded drippy-nose disease for which there is no cure but time and sleep.
I have slowly begun feeling strong enough to ride in the last few days, but the firewood pile and the Stihl chainsaw have been strongly calling my name, keeping me much too busy to get any decent exercise.
I hadn't planned on getting a ride in today, since I had volunteered to spend the morning vacuuming the floors of the Albuquerque LDS Temple.  I assumed (1) I would not have time and (2) the weather would be nasty in the afternoon, as it has been the last couple of weeks.
By the time I got home, however, it was absolutely balmy outside and shirtsleeve weather.  I invited Jacque to ride HER Catrike along with me and she decided to come along.
Unfortunately, by the time we got the trikes down to the pavement of Frost Road, it was nigh past 3:00 PM and the wind had come up and the temperatures had dropped a bit short of shirt-sleeve caliber.  Being tough, we saddled up and rode eastward anyway.
We had only gone a couple miles when I remembered why it's an even worse idear to ride this late in the afternoon:  The Going-Home Commuter traffic is AWFUL starting at 3 PM or shortly thereafter.
So many residents out here in the East Mountains work in Albuquerque, and a large majority of them at Sandia Labs or Kirtland Air Force Base, that the so called flexible hours result in hundreds of commuters clogging the roads after 3 PM.  Most are courteous and careful, but the sheer number of them whistling by, only a few feet separating us, makes it too unpleasant to do unless it's an emergency.  So, we turned around early and only got about 5 miles accomplished coming and going.  I was great to be stretching our wobbly legs again, but too worrisome with all the traffic.  I had gotten almost a mile ahead of Jacque and pulled over to wait for her to see what she thought about turning around early.  I waited several minutes and still didin't see her coming so I decided to keep pedaling, but planned to call her on the cell phone while rolling.
(We are both ham radio operators and radios would be much easier to use for communicating between bikes, but I have not gotten around to installing a radio on HER ride.)
Unfortunately, as I pedaled along, I realized my cell phone was NOT in my possession.  I had stuck it in one of my cargo pants pockets but now it was nowhere to be found.  I wheeled across the pavement and turned around, and spotted the phone lying on the road shoulder only a few feet from where I had been waiting for Jacque.  It had fallen out either just before or just after I pulled into that spot.  Thankfully no crushing of the device had occurred, and I again turned around and snatched up the phone while rolling and called her.
Of course, by now she was less than 100 yards behind me and laughed at my antics.  We agreed to keep chugging for another mile or three, but by the time I topped the next hill, the traffic was worse than ever and I had enough, so I again turned around.  I was at the top of the hill and she was just starting to climb toward me from the bottom.  She saw me and kept coming for a few dozen more feet and then turned around in front of me  back toward the bike-hauler only a few miles away.  We didn't have to say anything; we both knew it wasn't worth it.
STILL, short though this ride was, it made us feel perkier when we got back.  As usual, a short ride is much better than no ride at all.....

Ride Started: 3:06 PM    Ride Ended:  3:47 PM
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  9.31
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
6.3 MPH                               6.7 MPH                   22.7 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
41 minutes                            40 minutes               1 minuto