May 27 daily ride reports :)

Yay! Back out on the road at last. Today I headed for the botanical gardens. Didn't find the turnoff for them. Was too distracted by other pretty sights. I'll try again next week, which I've been advised to do anyway because then the roses might be in bloom.

I rode from home up Mineral Point and Whitney to Odana, then around and through the Arboretum, along Wingra Creek, around Monona Lake, stopped for lunch at the bike shop and checked out prices etc. again on the bike(s) I'm longing for*, then up Capitol Hill to catch the tail end of the Saturday Farm Market, across the isthmus and along the Mendota lake shore, then back up Highland to Regent Street and home, with a quick stop at the local bakery for a blended mocha and a cookie. It was a lovely jaunt. Not a lot of wildlife, but I did see some Canada geese with dozens of goslings. Also mallards with ducklings, some baby squirrels, the usual city birds, and heard a woodpecker but couldn't find it in all the foliage. Also saw two 20'-high welded iron peacocks ... :eek: :D :p . Really fun.

Aaaand ... I spun every dang hill except the last one, which was a detour anyway to get to the bakery. I'm still not exactly a hill-climber, my hr goes into overdrive for even a little hummock, but I stayed in the saddle in my middle chainring and made it up all but one. Yippee!

*) Now, about those bikes. They'll give me $150 trade in on my clunker and $50 off because I'll be moving and won't use the free tune-up. I'm thinking when the insurance guy calls Tuesday, I may find I can afford to get a bike I'd like to keep. I'm looking at road-end hybrids -- lighter and faster than what I have, but still the upright seating position I need. But which one? Trek 7.6 with compact double? 7.6 but have them put a triple on it? 7.5 which has the triple as standard, has lower gears but is a bit heavier? Or a 2005 7700 they have marked down to $1200 (would be $1000 with trade-in etc.), also with the triple as standard and somewhere in between on weight? Any suggestions?

My bike was still being looked after by the kind people in Surrey who helped us out when I had my little Peslake adventure. Couldn't go get it until my new helmet arrived, which happened on Wednesday. Didn't do any particularly noteworthy riding - house to train station, train station to home - but that's not the point. Also did a little visiting at the bike shop near the station in London and spent money I don't really have on stuff I don't really need... :rolleyes: But hey, the dude in the workshop did a little tweaking on my mushy brake lever and sticky shifter for nothing, so I didn't mind giving 'em some paid custom, and if I wasn't supposed to have that cute little top, they wouldn't have invented Mastercard. ;)

Met up with the Team Survivor tri training group for a "brick" workout. It was dumping down rain, but about 20 women showed up. (there are 80 on the list). Some of our group were new riders and it was raining pretty enthusiastically, so we only did a 9 mile ride at an easy pace. Then we walked or ran for 3 miles. Saw a sea lion cruising along in Lake Washington/Union under the University bridge. They swim in from the ocean through the locks. (one scared the bejeebers out of me last year when I was paddling around in Lake Union, came up right under my paddle!)

Now, usually my rack is enough to keep me dry. Not today. Muddy water everywhere, even up into my helmet. My Ibex top and Ibex riding capris saved the day.

The woman ahead of me stayed amazingly dry. She has fenders. I learned. Bought myself the cheapest fenders at Recycled Cycles, they clip on and off. We'll see how that goes. I'm a bit worried they'll fall off while I'm riding, so I'm gonna run them through the lumpy grass and see if they stay on before I do a real ride.

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Originally Posted by KnottedYet

Now, usually my rack is enough to keep me dry. Not today. Muddy water everywhere, even up into my helmet. My Ibex top and Ibex riding capris saved the day.

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Ooh yes, that skunk stripe! Like a brown badge of courage. ;) Good for all 20 of you for going out there! Hope it was all good clean mud!

With me, I think even mudflaps wouldn't help. I'm a dirt magnet. Remember Pigpen, the cartoon character? Back when I did a summer archaeology dig, I used to be able to shake sand out of my bra from under 3 layers of clothing. And when I worked at a shrimp packing plant my Mom made me hose off in the yard before I even came inside to shower. Today I made it home before the rain started. Prob'ly for the best. No hose outside, beige carpets inside, and I park my bike on a flattened box in the kitchen.

Today was a 20 mile group ride. I and another gal got dropped pretty early on (we were the only females), but we went on ahead and rode anyway. The honeysuckle is in bloom and smells heavenly. We averaged only 14 mph, mostly because we had never ridden together before this and we kept slowing down for each other! About halfway through our ride, I decided to speed up a little, then she sped up, then I sped up.....FINALLY we were biking like we should!

The hills were a lot easier than they were last year. I used to ride up them 4-5 mph, today we rode up them 9-10 mph! Those indoor cycling classes are paying off!

Tomorrow's ride is a portion of the Katy Trail with my family. I have my oldest son to "convert" into a bike lover:D

Lorie

I did 30 miles this morning. The wind was blowing 20 to 30 miles per hour. I thought about staying in, but I figure if you don't go out when the wind blows you'll never get to ride because it's always blowing in Kansas. That seven miles into the wind nearly did me in, but I kept looking down at my new bike and it made me smile even when I was crawling along. Great ride, went 5miles over my personal best.

Started out on a nice ride today, and got caught in rain! It was my first time in the rain, so it threw me off a bit. I rode for awhile, till sweat was mixing with rain and getting in my eyes, so I pulled over at our little airport here to wait it out. While I was out there waiting a man came out and said 'it caught ya huh?'...lol. I looked like a drowned rat! Then he asked where I was going and seemed surprised that I was just out riding for the sheer joy of riding. He said 'well, if you need a break I've got donuts and coffee inside'...I said thanks and waited it out! Very nice man!

In the meantime my hubby was scared...I called and he'd left to look for me, and hadn't taken a cell phone with him! So my son let him know that I called and was ok. Figures that today of all days I don't go my normal route, but I'm off looking for new places to ride and he comes looking for me! He said there were a ton of cyclists out on my normal route though, pedaling away in the rain! LOL. They must have thought he was crazy that he slowed down at each cyclist trying to see if it was me or not.

Only got 12.6 in though :( I was soaked and freezing, so I figured it was better to head home than catch pnuemonia again (had it in April) even though I really wanted to keep riding!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Kim

A friend and I started out early on our "30" mile loop. We began from my house and headed down the hill into the Orting Valley. Then it came . . . the rain! We had no choice we were already committed so on we went. What were we any way? Wooses? Not me! So with the rain coming down we rode on. Actually it was fun. The time seemed to fly and before I knew it were on South Prairie heading towards the small town of Buckley. From Buckley it was only 10 miles back to my house. Wow! what a ride! After our ride we decided to stop in at the Bonney Lake Starbucks for a nice hot white mocha! Mmmmmm it sure hit the spot!

Our local weatherman says improving tomorrow and Monday. I hope he's right. I would love to ride again tomorrow without the rain! :p

I had planned to join the cycling club for my first ride this morning, but DH was off in the morning and couldn't tag along. He wanted to ride and I enjoy his company, so I printed out a new map and off we went. Little did we know one of our turns was completely shut down for construction. Road work is an ongoing fact of life in Austin, we should have known. We rode on for a while and decided we needed to turn around so DH could get showered for work.

Instead of a nice loop we had to go back up a monster of a hill and into a headwind. With the hills, humidity, heat and wind it was a very challenging ride. I have been sore all afternoon, but I am glad we had to work so hard.

I wound up doing two rides.
Ride #1:
I lead a club ride in the morning. it's a fairly small club (about 50-60 folks). I had 6 riders at the start (4 men and another woman). It was raining off and on (In Southern Califronia? No way!), so the other went back and got her rain jacket (she lives across the street. We did about 8 miles to first rest stop. The other lady had turn back to go to work.I had a flat shortly afterward. One of the guys held my bike while I changed it. We made it about 5 more miles beore it started to pour. I decided to cut it short. We went to a bagel shop and had some coffee. The we went across the street to a bike shop. One of the riders had lost his mirror and he wanted to buy another. Plus, the shop had recently changed hands and we wanted to see how the remodling was going along. Ater this , the testostrone fest started. I got dropped going 20 mph. Such fun. Made it back to the start. Only one rider there. He had gotten dropped, too. Rode back home and had lunch. About 40 miles
Since I am going to attempt a century in two week that has 8,00 feet of climbing (Ride Around the Bear), I decided to get some mile in. I did a quick (1 1/2 hour) spind down to a airport. I also did some multi tasking, since I have put in charge of attracting "slower" rides to our club, I was checking out a new route. Should debut in July. We usually do shorter rides then to avoid the heat.

I was going to paddle today, but just don't have all of the gear together yet, and I am also a pretty fair weather paddler, and the water is still pretty high and cold.
t actually dawned pretty sunny today here, which was good, because today is the day of the world famous Kinetic Sculpture Race on the North Coast!!! It consists of human powered vehicles that make a 45 mile or so ride, including up sand dunes and through part of the Bay. It takes three days in all. Needless to say,not all make it, but they all involve very inventive uses of bicycles!!

They are accompanied be many supporting cyclists in, uh, creative garb. They circle our town plaza 3 times and then head out through farmland to the ocean side to great cheering and a huge crowd. I rode with some of them for a while as they headed out through the farmland. Saw some amazing bicycles, including one that is yellow about 9 feet tall, and I've seen the rider climb up onto the peddles with a full cup of coffee! These are a few of the vehicles. A great time was had by all, and I decided to ride a 35 mile loop I do, once again asking the question: How is it that you can have a headwind BOTH ways???

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Originally Posted by bikeless in WI

Now, about those bikes. They'll give me $150 trade in on my clunker and $50 off because I'll be moving and won't use the free tune-up. I'm thinking when the insurance guy calls Tuesday, I may find I can afford to get a bike I'd like to keep. I'm looking at road-end hybrids -- lighter and faster than what I have, but still the upright seating position I need. But which one? Trek 7.6 with compact double? 7.6 but have them put a triple on it? 7.5 which has the triple as standard, has lower gears but is a bit heavier? Or a 2005 7700 they have marked down to $1200 (would be $1000 with trade-in etc.), also with the triple as standard and somewhere in between on weight? Any suggestions?

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OK, I went to the Trek website and looked at these three.

I don't know what your FUTURE plans are, but if you think you will be riding better/harder/faster/more, I'd skip the 7700 if I were you.

Both the 7.5 and 7.6 look to be pretty good bikes. The components on the 7.6 are more "road" (Shimano 105 and R440) while those on the 7.5 are more "mountain" (Deore). The 7.6 casette is a 12-26...and with a double that means no real senior gears (like you would get with a "road" triple). The 7.5 is an 11-32 and is a triple (48-36-26), which means some seriously senior gears. That's not bad and can be a really nice setup to have if you would be riding in very hilly terrain. But on the flats? Not very peppy.

But don't cha think the 7.6 is prettier?? :D

Here's what I'd do: ask about the 7.6 with a triple crank (52-42-30) and a 12-26 or 12-27 in the back. But if you want the seriously senior gears, I'd just go with the 7.5.

That red is so pretty!

Disclaimer: This is only my $0.02. Note that I am not an expert in anything except eating and wasting a lot of time by surfing the 'net.

Edited as I got the models reversed a little bit. Sorry. :o

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Originally Posted by yellow

The 7.6 is an 11-32 and is a triple (48-36-26), which means some seriously senior gears. That's not bad and can be a really nice setup to have if you would be riding in very hilly terrain. But on the flats? Not very peppy.

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Senior? Senior? As in old and gray ear hair? :p

That's exactly the gearing I run on Magpie. Fabuoso for getting me up Diablo and Coleman and Iron Mtn and . . . Just slap a corn cob cassette on for riding the flats and swap back to the 11-32 if you're riding in the hills. Very versatile.

Disclaimer: I didn't go surfing the web so I have no idea what the rest of the bike has in the way of pros/cons, beauty marks/moles, whatever.

Bikeless, where/how you going to ride this thing? Terrain? Distance? Load? Strong knees?

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Originally Posted by SadieKate

Senior? Senior? As in old and gray ear hair? :p

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Hey, I stole...er...borrowed that from someone here. Was it Slinke? Nothing wrong with "Senior". Sounds more sophisticated than "Granny". But then how about "Mature" gears?

All of my bikes are very maturely geared. Not a double in the house. Now that I live in flat-ter land, I do wish I had an 11 to go with my 52, though...

I'm guessing "senior" as in a gender-neutral version of granny. I don't have grandkids yet and haven't checked for ear-hairs, but I definitely need low-end gears for getting up hills. As for where I'd be riding ... Either the bike stays in California for me to ride when visiting family there, or it goes back with me to Norway. Both places, you can't get far without encountering hills that I find challenging, to say the least, even down to my daily commute which is a 3-mile uphill slog (though not steep). So I guess it's either the 7.5 or get a triple on the 7.6.

I test rode the 7.6 on the "beautiful bike path by the lake" (the LBS's radio ad). It is gorgeous, and it was fun going fast, but that side of town is flat as a lefse. If I do move forward with this, maybe I'll take both bikes out for a longer spin and find some hills, like out my way west of town. If I can get up those with the double, then maybe switching to a triple would get me up bigger ones. Probl'y not Diablo or Mt. Tam or over Dovrefjell back in Norway, but they're out of my league anyway. The guy I talked to today thought it over and said he thought he could put a triple on the 7.6 without it costing me more than a few bucks extra and without having to change the back cogs and derailleur. It's tempting, not least 'cuz ... yes, I do like red!

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Originally Posted by yellow

But then how about "Mature" gears?

All of my bikes are very maturely geared. Not a double in the house. Now that I live in flat-ter land, I do wish I had an 11 to go with my 52, though...

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How about "wisdom" gears?

My 48x11 on Magpie is a taller gear than the 50x13 on the Litespeed. Long shallow hills can sure make you yearn for big gearing.

Bikeless, find a long hill also so the fatigue factor will help you decide. Short rollers are too tempting to power up and not give you enough of a slog-it-out test.

19 mile ride today on Paint Creeek Trail. It is crushed limestone and I was on my road bike so I didn't get up much speed. Strangest thing I saw was another biker with a parrot pearched on his handlebars. Both rider and bird seemed to br having a good time! What a beautiful day in Michigan for a ride!

I test rode Trek FX 7.6 on Thursday evening. That red is nice.... and the bike handled like a dream but I ultimately decided against it for several reasons, the main being the the lack of a triple chain ring. Yes, they thought it could be changed, but thought it would be easier to buy a bike that already had one. However my wrists were very un-comforatable with the flat bar, which was by the way, much too wide for me. They said they could cut the handlebars down, and put on bar ends, but again, would rather buy a bike that already fits, rather than making it fit. I did ride it about 7 miles (no computer, not sure what I did unless I repeat it on my own bike, including the getting sort of lost part).

I had thought it would be a good commuter bike, that I could put racks on it, and ride the 12-13 miles one way to work. My commute has one pretty good hill for being right at sea level, but to me it may as well be a mountain. The 7.6 just wasn't going to do it for me. :(

I'm thinking now to get an aluminum road bike to use for errands and commuting, since I'm looking for dropped bars for more hand positions, triple chain ring, sturdier frame than my Pilot, and possibly tires a tad wider than 700x25, Even thinking of the Pilot 2.1 for this, or trek 1500. The shop has also suggested a Specialized Roubaix but they don't have one in my size right now for me to try.

The problem is I am so spoiled with the Pilot.... anything less seems, well, WAY less. LOL!

Sigh. Martha

I have a REALLY nice road bike, much nicer than I need. I love it and want to ride it all the time. It's the nicest thing I own, well, besides my front porch and my garden, which the bank mostly owns, whereas I own my bike outright. I went out for a 50-miler today, and only made it 10 before the sidewall of the tire blew out. The TIRE, not the tube.

The tire had some dry rot. You never know how long tires have been hanging around the shop. I got my bike in October, but the tires, while unused, were suffering from exposure to air. Check your tires for those tiny cracks and signs of age (tires, not face!)

If you read Bicycling magazine, you'll have read about this Little Rock trail in the editor's column in the most recent edition. (http://www.rivertrail.org/)

We did the North Little Rock side from Cook's Landing to the end, about 7 miles, where the trail was closed off for Riverfest (www.riverfestarkansas.com).

My husband, who has never been on a ride longer than 3 miles, did all 14 miles with no problems. I knew he could, even though he has health issues with his knees and feet. It's a rather flat ride on that side of the river--some rollers and switchbacks. But it's through some really great scenery and rugged areas and we had a whole herd of deer cross in front of us. The trail was very crowded, but everyone was friendly. I noticed a distinct lack of dogs. Lots of over-40 guys with no helmets...what's that about?

I was also happy for my hubby to see lots of guys with big bellies and butts riding them off and going fast, and on all types of bikes. He said he couldn't care less, but now he's talking about eventually riding to work! (25 miles) Woo-hoo!

(To get to Cook's Landing from Little Rock, take I-430N to the Crystal Hill/Maumelle exit. Go east (south?) on Crystal Hill, and take a right on Northshore drive, then the next right on Cook's Landing/Young road. The trail will be down the hill on the left, until they get the big scary bike bridge over the dam done, and then it will be straight ahead.*)

Karen
*Provided as a public service for folks like me who may be passing through, but need to ride and need directions. By the way, I've found the best descriptions of bike trails on websites for runners rather than city or civic group websites. And information for non-major metro areas in the South is rather skimpy.