It's August! Riding through the heat.

[north woods gal]

Yeah, just visited their website. My Krampus is the rather ho hum red color they had last year. Kind of like that purple.

Oh, I've been doing some road work with the Pugsley, but still not quite strong enough to push those big tires 20 miles down the road, yet. Have done 10, but that's about all I can handle, right now with a fat bike. It's been interesting to ride with my hubby on our daily neighborhood pavement rides. He only rides his Specialized fat bike with 4.6" tires. Hates anything else. Since I'm still recovering, I have a hard time keeping up with him when I ride one of my fat bikes. That will change in time. On the other hand, when riding the Gunnar with its custom built 29x2.25 wheels and custom frame, I beat him up pretty bad, especially up hills and riling down hills, too. I'm usually still coasting on the Gunnar and passing him while he's pedaling. Love those big fat bike tires, but out on pavement, they are at a big disadvantage for performance.

Actually hit 29 plus mph for a max speed on the Gunnar, today, coasting down one of my leg burner hills. The Gunnar had no problem at all at that speed. Have never been able to get any of the fat bikes to even come close to that speed coasting down that particular hill. They usually max out at about 20 or 21 mph coasting down that same hill. Two very different kinds of bikes, of course, but a good example of how easily different kinds of bikes can be to pedal and how easily they roll.

[Crankin]

Had our first full day in Wellington, on Lake Ontario. Got here yesterday around 4. This is a wonderful summer vacation area... Prince Edward County, Canada (not Prince Exward Island). No riding today, just beach, wine, eating, and walking. Doing a 40 mile loop tomorrow.

[Crankin]

Just got back from a 38 mile ride and I am exhausted. This is a ride DH planned, so he really was not sure of the elevation. We ended up doing 1,000 ft of climbing in a flat place. Basically rural farmland and at one point, we were seeing glimpses of another bay, not the lake. Not that beautiful, but nice. We stopped at an apple orchard for lunch and had soup and a muffin. After that, I realized my azz was hurting, but that’s because the saddle on the Guru is not broken in as much as on my Silque. About 20 miles to go, my chain fell off and I could not get it to go back by shifting it into the big ring. DH had to work for awhile to get it on and I had to stay in the small ring. That was ok, because the wind was relentless and so were the gradual climbs. DH will work on it later. After we drink the cider he stopped to buy one mile from our inn.
Going to stretch and shower and drink that cider. I earned my dinner tonight.

[emily_in_nc]

We rode again today, and once again cut it a little short. I think DH was up for doing our usual distance, but there were a lot of storm clouds looming, so we headed back. Ended up with just a bit over 28 miles. A good ride, though!

Crankin, sounds like a pretty tough ride. Enjoy your vacay and your dinner! I bet the area is gorgeous.

nwg, my max speed on our route is in almost always in the 19-21 mile range due to the flatter terrain here in Florida, so 29 mph sounds like fun!

[north woods gal]

Nice work, both of you.

Crankin, you might need a front derailleur adjustment if your chain popped off while shifting to a different chain ring. That's the usual culprit. 38 mile in new country is a very impressive ride, though. When I ride a new route, those miles seem to be much longer and more intimidating.

Emily, our weather has been very humid in the morning, this week, thanks to some overnight fog. Still, I don't think it compares with anything you have in Florida. I'm going to be in Florida, again, this September. Hubby has another conference in your area. Not sure whether I'll be able to do any biking, so will get back to you.

Did 13 miles on the ECR, yesterday, in the humid heat, to take a break from single speed riding. Yeah, that ECR is one of those bikes that could work as my only and my last bike, no matter where I lived or what the weather or roads. Could ride it in the snow, even, but just not in the same class as a fat bike for that riding. Definitely an apocalypse kind of bike I could load up with a ton of gear and live off it. Very comfy to ride and no road in our area can stop it (and that's saying something with our near wilderness roads in places).

Afternoon ride was with the Krampus for some trail work, after dropping the tire pressure way low for the sake of my neck comfort. Yup, another Surly steel bike, but different in character than the ECR. Pure trail bike, this one. Been experimenting with the gear ratios. Getting real close to converting it to a single speed. Not sure why I like riding single speed so much. Maybe it's because I've always been a minimalist as far as gear and love keeping things simple. Whatever. Single speed riding is just a good fit for me. Matches up with my "just get on the damn bike and ride" philosophy.

[Crankin]

So, we planned a shorter route today, since the tour company’s route covered some of what we did yesterday. After a couple of miles, we turned onto a trail more suited for my new bike! There was one point I had to put my foot down, as I wasn’t sure I could get around a large puddle, and my entire cleat on my shoe and pedal was so mud encrusted I could not clip in. Since these are SPD pedals, I tried kicking the mud out, but I had to stop. I did not want to be on this trail to begin with! After several squirts of the water bottle, we got back on the main road and decided to turn down a side street that ended up on a peninsula. It was beautiful and had some shade, with views of the water. On the way back to town, my chain dropped again. We stopped at the farmers market, bought sadwiches and ate by the water. Lovely! After cleaning up, took my bike to the LBS in the next town. The mechanic, a women was a riot. There is no obvious cause, but a weird thing that may be affecting it, that she needed to wait for the head guy to fix. We are going back to pick it up in about 30 minutes. What a pain. I truely do not remember what it is, but they seem competent. Since we won’t have our car until Monday, we need to be able to ride to our next inn tomorrow morning and to our final destination on Monday, where our car will be waiting.
The cab comes to get our suitcases at 9 am, so we will be leaving to our next stop around 10:30, after breakfast.

[Crankin]

Ok, my bike is fixed. This was DH’s fault! He put a new chain on the night before we left and he put it on wrong... Mr Genius mechanic. But, he was mortified in front of the mechanic, who told him to “own his sh!t.” She was hysterical. They did a couple of other minor things for me and charged us only 25.00.
I was able to enjoy my dinner!