Back Roads, Beaches, Broken Chains

Today's Tracking Along the Rio Grande

Fridays have recently become a togetherness day for us to ride together.  Since it's supposed to be our weekly date night too, it's a great way to spend part of the day together.
Last week's Friday ride ended with a chain that gave up the ghost just before we arrived back at our vehicle & trailer combination, requiring only a short walk tugging the now non-operable trike.
I replaced the broken link the next day, and today the patched chain worked fine.  MOSTLY.
We again immediately entered the non-paved packed gravel paths that wind in and out of the shady trees, sometimes adjacent to the Rio Grande with the river water flowing only a few feet away, sometimes deep into the cottonwoods.  We rode around until we got good and hungry, then turned around and rode back towards the trail intersection with Mountain Road, which when followed, takes us to Old Town and Steve's Ice Cream Shoppe.
We enjoyed a very nice snack, visits with touristas from all over the country in town for Balloon Fiesta, and even bumped into some dear Church friends on the plaza while listening to the Mariachi band playing on the bandstand.
On the way back to the vehicle, our chain AGAIN locked up:  This time it was my front chain; it had jumped its idler pulley and jammed.
After gently rearranging the chain back in its rightful channel, we made it back with no further incident.
However, after returning  home and examining the chain and idlers, I found the chains were all so worn that they allowed too much slack, allowing such things as chain breakage and jumping since the idler pulleys are no longer able to keep the chain tight in its winding travel through all the pulleys and gears.
Thus, another order to Ebay for new chains:  On these recumbents it requires THREE new chains to get enough length to thread the entire chain circuitry.  More greasy hands and busted knuckles coming up soon.

Ride Started: 11:22 AM    Ride Ended:  2:59 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   13.2   Ending Voltage: 13.0  Lowest:  12.9Beginning Blood Glucose:  157   Ending BG Reading: 159 (after ice cream) Lowest Temp  71F      Highest Temp:  91F   Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  13.89 Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed  4.7 MPH                                 6.0 MPH                      15.2 MPH Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time 2 hours 59 mins                     2 hours 20 mins           39 minutes