Friday, March 17, 2017

Bosque Blessings

Today's Tracking via GPS and Ham Radio

Jacque is getting more interested in regular riding with me, so perhaps we will both get more regular in our riding.  We again chose the 30-mile trailer-pull drive so we could ride the incredible Bosque Trail  along the Rio Grande in Albuquerque and the South Valley.
This trip we used the belly-pack on my belly and carried Lilly up front with me and Tinkerbell way in back behind Jacque in the basket.  This seemed to help immensely in the whining and complaining department.
Lilly does NOT enjoy getting trussed up in the belly-pack but she calms down and rides quietly with few complaints, unlike when she's packed into the rear basket with Tink.  Being up front, with full forward view, and the blessed wind in the doggie's face, must have a lot to do with it.
The Bosque Trail is hard to brag about sufficiently.  It runs north and south next to the Rio Grande in the middle of the valley in Albuquerque, and is at least 16 miles from north end at Alameda to the south end in the Junkyard Zone of the South Valley south of Bridge Street.  There are trees and  critters galore, along with vagrants, fellow cyclists, runners, walkers, babies in strollers, little old ladies, and quite a few ridiculously cute girls and women of all ages, shapes, and sizes, to be encountered.
Tingley Beach sits right in the middle of the route, with public bathrooms, aged and youthful fishermen and women, and being operated by the city it is even occasionally open to sell chili dogs, ice cream sandwiches, and other snack.  Unfortunately, also likely because it is operated by the city and not a private entrepreneur, it is closed for sales when we are hungriest to purchase a bite of junk food on our rides.  Fortunately, the bathrooms seem to be continually open for public use, which is certainly a blessing, being the only such facility along the 16-mile route except for the "natural men's facilities" (trees and bushes to hide behind) up and down the trail.
The trail is just spectacular in its scenery, and the shady spots offered by the huge-mongous Cottonwood trees offer welcome break spots.  The rippling and gurgling of the nearby Rio and its side irrigation channels offers both lovely sights and bugs in the face.  There are only a few very mild grades to climb, so you don't have to be a skinny speed racer in Spandex on a $10,000 Carbon Fiber bike to easily ride it, from end to end and back again.
Today we stopped twice at Tingley, near the beginning and end of our ride since we rode the southern half of the trail this time.  The first time, as we pedaled toward the Tingley entrance to the Bosque Trail, we were delayed while the narrow-guage Rio Train chugged away southward from the Tingley station.  Its track runs parallel to the bike trail, separated only by a fence for a half mile or so.  The train was loaded with elders and kids, all smiling and waving at us and the cute doggies as we sat on the bike watching them chug slowly by.
After the train passed we crossed the track, chugged ourselves up onto the bike trail,  and "poured  on the coal" so we could catch and pass the train, it being sufficiently slow for us to succeed in suc a stunt.
It took a bit of huffing and puffing but we managed to pass it, waving again at the engineer and passengers, before it went under Tingley Drive on its way to the Bio Park run.
Naturally, the camera was inadvertently off during this performance, so we have no "video at 11" or any other time to provide proof that we can outrun a train on our overweight tandem trike.

Ride Started: 12:31 PM    Ride Ended:  3:09 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   13.2   Ending Voltage: 13.0 Lowest:  12.9
Lowest Temp  75 F      Highest Temp:  82 F  
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  15.6
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
   5.2 MPH                             7.1 MPH                   18.1 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
2 hours 38 mins                     2 hours 11 mins        48 minutes

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