Running... Biking... Swimming! That makes a Triathlon!

This morning my Daughter had her High School Cross Country team Triathlon to start the season.   I rode my Sweetie's bike(Mine has broken spoke) around to catch shots of the athletes on different parts of the course.   It was a rather soupy morning!  Going to be a steamy day!  I think everyone had a Great time!

S~~

Start of the Race - Aundrea is in bottom right corner in Pink and Grey shirt

Bicycling portion around school 3 and a half times then on to the Pool!

Bike Convention!

Swimming their laps!

Cheerleaders!

Now off to work on repairing that broken spoke on my bike!

S~~

*** Update ****

Broken spoke was on the back wheel on the gear side, so I ended up having to take it to Capp's Bike Shop in Topeka for repair because I didn't have tools to remove the gears.   Just returned and bike is all ready for this evenings ride.   Hope it cools down a bit!

S~~

Riding = Fun. Walking = Not really

Broke a spoke.  Wobbling wheel.  Had to walk.

Unanimous vote:  The fun factor in walking is negligible. :)

~~H

My Sweetie accused me of pedaling under the influence until we discovered I had popped a spoke when I traversed a small canyon on my side of the Flint Hills Nature trail this evening.   Didn't want to damage my tube so I walked all the way back into town.  Just keep Walking doesn't have the same ring to it...  So I think I will avoid that in the future.

All that walking made me have to come home and hang upside down on my inversion table! :(  Which I do highly recommend to anyone who has had lower back pain issues.  Between it and some simple back exercises I have almost completely eliminated the pain that kept me bed ridden last summer for almost 2 weeks!

S~~   

Pedaling away the pissies

Today my workday made me cranky.  (Oh, who am I kidding?  Everyday my workday makes me cranky.....)

But my bike and a 10 mile ride on the Landon Nature Trail made me happy again.

A Spangles Mudslide with my sweetie sure didn't hurt, either.

~~ H

The Landon Nature Trail is a perfect place to ride on a 90+ degree day! It is shaded about 85% of the trail.  So it stays much cooler.  That is exactly why we picked it today.   Afterwards it was a treat to go have a Mudslide with my Sweetie.  Yes that is a Mudslide eating Grin!

S~~

And BTW, we are neither Simon nor Blocker, nor did we attend their reunion in 2007.  :)
That's just a bright colored shirt we picked up at Goodwill for the sole purpose
of providing visibility while cycling.
SAFETY FIRST! 

  

Flint Hills Nature Trail -- K31 to Valencia

The nature trail was just too nature-y for me tonight. Rode 2 miles west from town but decided to loop around and ride the county road back into town. That was a two thumbs up decision as not one single flipping grasshopper flew into my face and not a single spider web pasted itself across my arms. It was also a smoother ride than the trail by riding in the tire tracks.

~~H

Yeah the Grasshoppers were a little thick on the trail this evening. They seemed hopping mad at us! :) Had one attempt to check out my tonsils. Luckily my mouth was not fully open! If you want spider webs you should ride on out further west!

S~~

Sometimes its the simple things!

My sweetie this week scheduled to have the new Montague bike we picked up in Arkansas in for a tune up at Capp's Bike shop in Topeka. So while I was there I decided to take the rear wheel off my bike in to have them look at a slight wobble I had noticed. Turned out to be a Great decision! They had to realign the lock nuts so the bearings remained straight and it is a completely new bike. The first night we rode after getting the wheel back, we saw a 3 MPH increase in our average speed! The bike will actually coast down a hill now. So that pedaling we just keep doing got a little easier! S~~

Sometimes you gotta ride out half as far as you want to ride to force yourself to ride that far!

Tonight I wanted to ride 10 miles on this X-50 bike for the 1st time.   It is a little heavier than my schwinn was so its taking me a bit to get up to speed on it.   My Sweetie was feeling puny this evening so I had to ride solo.  So I rode out west from Osage on the Flint Hills Trail until my Map My Ride told me I had gone 5 Miles.  That turned out to be about half way between Docking and Davis Road.   I didn't stop to take any pictures,  so all I have is the log from Map My Ride. The spiders along the trail are probably cussing me because I cleared out a plethora of webs along my ride!


S~~

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Camp Alexander, Mud, and Mudslides!

Tonight we drove to Emporia hoping to ride a trail we read about at Camp Alexander.  Turned out to be too muddy to ride and also a little too truly off road for her taste.  So instead we decided to grab some dinner.  While searching out an eating establishment,  I showed my Sweetie my old biking course around town from when I went to ESU.  We stumbled upon Spangles which was having a special they called the American Classic combo.  A burger, fries, drink, and a Mudslide for $5!!  Yum!  We both ordered the special and Yummy it was!  There goes the diet!  Guess we will just have to keep on Pedaling!

S~~

Classic American Meal Deal $5   Burger, Fries, Drink and a MudSlide!

Melvern Lake Outlet Park Take 2!

Tonight we once again went and rode the trails and roads around the Melvern Lake Outlet Park.  It was a Ghost town compared to last weekend!  Only a few retiree campers still roughing it!  Was a beautiful evening to be riding!

S~~

Marvin the Martian about to zap me with a camera ray-gun!

Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRide

The Solid tubes are History!

*** Update 09/14/2013   Due to multiple broken spokes within  a couple of weeks,  I think because of the extra stress caused by the solid tubes.  I today purchased a new rear wheel.   Bike coasts much better and rides much smoother!

S~~


Well we got up this morning with purpose and got all the pieces swapped between our bikes so that she could ride the new smaller SwissBike and I could ride the X-50.  This meant we need to move the handles we purchased,  the pedals, the kickstand, and my tires with the liner and anti-thorn tubes over from my old Schwinn High Plains to the X-50.   It took two of us to remove the solid tube tires from the wheel.  I pried the tire over while she stuck the removal tool under the tire so we could pry it over the rim. I discovered while working on the back tire that the tire is actually ruined. The sidewall had torn just above the bead and would be worthless without the solid tubes.  Here you can see:

Torn sidewall! Yuck!

 

Solid tube..  Darn things are heavy!

I was able to get the tires off my Schwinn by myself so she worked on wrapping my handles with padded tape like she had on hers.  It didn't take me long to get my tires on the X-50 wheels.  She then aired them up using an electric pump attached to her little Honda Fit.  While she was doing that I worked on mounting her handle extensions.  I had to trim the hand grips on her handlebars so they would fit on the end.  Once I had that done,  I had to add her mirror that just rides in a piece of rubber inserted into the end of the handlebar.  The handlebar on the bike was a little bit thinner than the previous bike so I had to trim down the rubber so it would stick in.  Took me a bit of finagling but I was successful.  Which made her very happy as she had grown to like her mirror.  :)

(LOVE love love my mirror!!!!) ~~H

We just rode the bikes 10 miles around town this evening and the X-50 without the solid tubes can actually coast without slowing to a snails crawl!  Still a little heavier bike than my Schwinn was, so its going to take a bit of riding to get back up to our 8+ MPH pace per 10 Mile ride.  But we will get there!

S~~
  

Mirror is sticking off left hand side of the handlebars -  Swapped Pedals over from my Schwinn-  All Set to Ride!

X-50 with tubed tires, handlebar extensions, emergency kit installed and Ready to Ride!

Old Schwinn stripped and Not so Ready to Ride!

With the ruined tire.  I didn't bother to put the solid tubes and tires back onto the rims.  When we can work it into the budget we will replace the tire.

S~~

We were busy little beavers today!

~~ H

Melvern Lake Outlet Park

Tonight we decided to check out the trail around Melvern Lake Outlet Park.  To our pleasure there is a very nice crushed limestone trail that follows along the old river channel, through a wooded area, and circles the outlet lake on the north side of the spillway. A portion of it is even paved with nice signage in this area identifying the trees as you pass.  Got to see some neat cranes, and tried to take a picture until I moved and made it fly away just as he was ready to take the picture :) . We will definitely be going back, but earlier in the day before the mosquitoes come out in full force.  We got a late start on our ride this time, but it is definitely worth the 20 minute drive to visit there again.

As an aside, I had NO IDEA that many people actually camped -- voluntarily (says the girl who more than got her fill of camping as a Girl Scout in my childhood, not necessarily voluntarily). LOL  Just. Not. My. Bag.

~~ H

Yes we definitely need to ride this one again and ditto on the earlier before the mosquitoes are so thick you swallow 10 every time you breath!  The roads around the park will also be good to ride this fall when there are fewer campers.  The trail ended up being about 3.5 miles.   So when we can add the roads to our ride,  we will be closer to the 10 miles we like to ride.

S~~

Kind of blurry, but this shows the extremely moss-covered old river channel behind me

Looking up the hill toward Highway 75

On the trail that runs right between Hwy 75 and the outlet lake

Sunset at Melvern Lake outlet park

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I'm a believer

Tires really do make all the difference in the world on the weight and enjoyment of the bike ride.  My Craiglist bike came with the foam No-More-Flat inner tubes, which part of me loves the absolute assurance of knowing a flat tire is not going to happen.  However, tonight I rode his new bike which has just plain old inner tubes.  I easily did 50% less pedaling tonight and enjoyed my ride much more, especially coasting on the downhills.  With my No-More-Flats, I am literally pedaling almost 100% of the time, even going downhill, just to keep the bike in motion.

This has convinced me that the risk of a flat happening is worth the fun factor that is to be gained by a bike that goes faster and takes less work to power, enabling me to ride longer.

~~H

Yeah what she said.  I was struggling to keep up with the speed demon tonight.  Don't know why she is referring to it as my bike. The plan is for it to become her bike because its a smaller frame and the one she has will become mine.    I will be swapping in my liners and tubes in place of the solid tubes when I move to riding the X-50.   We will then get the same setup for you to use on the Swissbike.
With our little Honda Fit,  the folding bikes will allow us to keep the bikes in the back of the car on our trips and not kill our MPG by having a rack on the back.  

S~~   

Craigslist Score after an impromptu trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas!

Last week I spotted a Montague folding bike, like she had scored a few months back, listed on Craigslist in Eureka Springs Arkansas for a darn good price. The owner was asking less than half what the bike originally sold for with a whole bag full of accessories. On Friday I inquired with the owner if the bike was still available, he informed me it was, but that it would be going up for sale in his garage sale on Saturday. So we cussed and discussed and decided we would drive down and take a look and possibly ride some trails while we were in Arkansas. I looked up and found some trails in Bentonville that we would be going by so that was the Plan. Funny how plans change when somebody upstairs decides to dump buckets from the heavens. We drove down to Bentonville, Arkansas Friday evening and stayed overnight with the intent of driving on to Eureka Springs early in the morning. I have traveled the road to Eureka Springs before and did not want to do so at night. Our trip to Bentonville was fairly uneventful. Things changed come Saturday morning. We awoke to it lightly sprinkling. We ate a rather tasty complimentary breakfast at our hotel, and headed to our car where were met by a deluge from the sky. Little did we know our little Honda Fit was part Submarine as I motored our way about 3 miles to the Local Kum n Go where we could seek shelter under their awning, waiting out the deluge. Needless to say my Sweetie and I shared some exuberant words before she convinced me that our little FIT was not in fact a HUMMER so we could not drive through the Mountains in a torrential downpour. So there we sat for a good 45 minutes to an hour. Well it finally looked like it was letting up on the Radar(Gotta love Smartphones!) so we headed out. After about 10 miles or so it started raining again quite heavily so we pulled off in much to my surprise, the Pea Ridge Military Park. I had not noticed on the Map in my hastened planning for the trip that we would be driving right passed a key Civil War battle site! There we were sitting in the parking lot at 7:45 in the morning before it had even opened for business, waiting out a deluge of rain. So once again thanks to my trusty Iphone, I started reading about the history of Pea Ridge and also discovering that they have a road that is bicycle accessible that runs through the park. We wait there about 30 minutes and the rain finally lets up and the radar shows that things should likely clear up for awhile. So we head out towards Eureka Springs. My Sweetie is clenching the door handle and her chair as we wind through the narrow mountain roads. Suddenly after we round a curve and go over a blind hump we have no chance to stop before we are right in the middle of about 1 foot of water over the road!!!! Luckily we were on the upstream side of the road as our light little car was struggling to remain a car instead of a boat. My Sweetie's exact words were "This road is going to give me a Heartattack!" Luckily our momentum carried us across the water to clear road! Let this be a warning to ALL that after a heavy rain you MUST ALWAYS be cognizant of your surroundings when driving! We got very lucky! Luck that the Guy Upstairs didn't want us floating up to meet him yet! After that we traveled slowly along and luckily did not come across any more swollen creeks over the road. When we finally made it to our destination, we found a Gold Mine waiting for us! :)

S~~

Torrential downpours, and flash floods, and mountains -- OH MY!!!!! 

He covered it all pretty well. I'm simply going to say this Kansas girl has never been a mountain fan all the way back to my childhood. And with relatives living in Colorado I had plenty of occasion to have to be a passenger in a vehicle winding around and through the rocky devils. I'm scared of heights and I get altitude sickness. There is nothing to like about a mountain as far as I'm concerned. I realize if the goal is to ride in all 50 states, more of that crap is in my future. Perhaps we need to just plan a wide western sweep and get all of the "icky" states crossed off the list in one trip. ;)

But, all that aside, we got a hella deal on this bike and all the accessories that this guy was selling as a package deal, lock, stock, and barrel.  So, all in all, it was worth it.  And say what you want about Craigslist, but we have gotten 2 incredible bikes with lots of extras thrown in from listings on Craigslist. You  have to be careful, but you CAN find gems on there, and we have scored twice now. :)

~~H

Here is our Gold Mine:

Montague SwissBike LX Folding Bike!

Bag for Bike

Bag for Bike

Nice new helmet!

Gloves!

Riding shoes with pedal mounts

Giant Saddlebags for carrying all your stuff!

Shelf for carrying Saddlebags with taillight!

Emergency toolkit full of good stuff!

Bike Fenders

Tire Pump!

2 Bike cables w/locks & keys, Headlight, mounts for fenders, Owners Manual!

Talk about a Gold Mine!   Let's just say we got roughly $1K worth of stuff for less than half what it originally cost!  We think the trip was well worth it! :)

S~~