Unlike my ride a couple days ago, in the which - when confronted with lightning a few miles away - I turned and ran, today I got started early enough to get in a few decent miles before the afternoon monsoon rains start again.
Our new puppy "Lilly" is a bit small for the belly harness and has not yet realized what fun biking is, so Tinkerbell, our little old lady, was the only one to ride with me today to keep me out of trouble.
My Garmin 350 GPS has been getting finicky on me the last few months, sometimes responding to screen finger-commands, sometimes not. Recently it has refused to respond to ANY commands except on and off so I had to swap the other one out from the Tandem Terratrike and thankfully it worked OK without any grief. Meanwhile I await another one ordered from a friendly Ebay seller. I also ordered some miniature Torx drivers so I can disassemble the cockeyed one and see if I can fix it somehow.
Trying to Find a Riding Buddy
Coming back east from the Post Office, we stopped for a short shade-break at our sole local Bike Rest Area Shelter, then Onward and Eastward for our "normal" loop-ride.
We saw only a couple other riders today, beautiful though the weather was. They were on the erstwhile bumpy bike-path and I was maybe fifty yards apart from them on the highway shoulder. The bike path has become so rough from repeated weed encroachments and tar-ribs put down by the county that it is NOT fun to ride unless crawling uphill in Grandma Gear trying to stay away from road traffic. At any speed other than a crawl it is a nightmare to ride. This couple were pointed the same direction as I was, West, but evidently had bike trouble of some kind and they were just remounting as I passed them. I expected them to come roaring past me like most everyone else does but they quickly disappeared, making me think they turned around due to bike trouble.
The sun was just at an angle that there were few shady spots within which to take breaks, so when we finally came to one, we used it, even though I prefer to wait until the halfway turnaround point. The actual halfway point is off the main road almost a mile and hundreds of yards from the nearest houses, so we always stop there for doggie pee breaks and sometimes me too. But there's no shade there, so it's only good for short potty breaks. It was hot enough today that we ran out of water - 2 bottles worth - and Tink happily drank from my hand even though she's normally fairly finicky about such unsanitary habits. She also happily ate a few crumblings from my mid-ride cookie snack, which she is NEVER finicky about.
I had to stop and visit with a couple of people we encountered along the road. At the Post Office a nice lady complimented Tinkerbell on her riding ability, calmness, etc, and another fellow along Frost Road was just getting his mail. He commented we had ridden together in a group ride several years ago so we had to stop and visit for a few minutes. Tinkerbell didn't complain and neither did I.
Tink and I struggled a bit coming uphill at the end of our ride. It's always surprising how quickly my stamina poops out after a bit of easing off on the riding. Gotta get more serious about it: My belly is starting to protrude again.....
Ride Started: 10:52 AM Ride Ended: 1:48 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage: 14.2 Ending Voltage: 13.2 Lowest: 12.8
Lowest Temp 75 F Highest Temp: 87 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 13.72
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
5.3 MPH 8.5 MPH 32.1 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
2 hour 12 minutes 1 hour 23 mins 48 minutes
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