Loop Route with different trails

We decided to head out and ride the Sand Creek Trail, well as much as there is of the Sand Creek Trail at this time, it's on the east side of Colorado Springs and from our storage unit it's not easy to get to. We start by taking back streets to pick up the Rock Island Trail heading north up to the junction with the southern extension of the Homestead Trail and take that south till Galley Rd. Where again you have to pick up back streets and bike lanes over to Murry Blvd. Heading south on Murry and then east on Fountain Ave. Bike Lanes up to Crestone St. and thru Sagebrush Park to finally pick up the Sand Creek Trail heading south. The trail abruptly ends at Hancock Expressway but you have to go around a little shopping center and pick up one more bike lane to get there. Then west for 1/4 of a mile on the Expressway to pick up the new southern extension of the Sand Creek Trail which takes you over to pick up the Pikes Peak Greenway heading north. Rode the Greenway up to the Tejon St. Bike Lanes then heading east again to pick up the Shooks Run Trail heading north. Stopped at the Good Neighbors Meeting House for iced tea and a banana, then headed up the trail and back to the storage area to tuck in the trikes! 23 miles, sunny but with a lot of gray clouds at times, still felt quite warm. The Sand Creek Trail we don't ride often but it was a FUN ride and it let us do something a little different! :)

 

We had to go ride the Pueblo Reservoir Trail 05/23/2020

Ok, I admit we were evil, I fess up as we are in a Safe at Home status for the COVID-19 Virus but it's been 2 months now and we are just BORED with riding on only our area trails!!!! Technically we are suppose to stay within "10 miles of home" to recreate and at least stay within our County borders, well shoot us we decided we wanted to go ride the Pueblo River/Reservoir Trail in Pueblo, CO. which is 40 miles south of Colorado Springs, CO. where we live! We needed to see the Arkansas River which the trail follows thru Pueblo, CO. The trail is from the campus of CSU-Pueblo to the Pueblo Reservoir and Marina it's 16 miles one way but we usually don't do the North to South part of the trail which mainly goes thru the "city" of Pueblo, we ride to the East end of the trail first, turn around and ride back to the West end of the trail which comes out to 20 miles. :)

We stopped at the Kayak Park area, which is a cool man-made breakwater/Rapids build up for Kayaks, so they play in the water and we got a stone picnic table and ate our brown bag special while watching them run the rapids!

Our table for two at the Kayak Park

The first of 5 different man-made rapids structures that kayakers go over along the Arkansas River the Trail follows!

From there we headed East on the trail, it's all concrete with several wooden bridge crossings along the trail. With many excellent spot's and views along the river we headed to the point where the trail turns North to go into the city of Pueblo, CO. but here we turn around and head back to the West end of the trail at the Pueblo Reservoir itself. One stop on the way back is at Runyon Lake, a large fishing hole that's just off the trail to use one of the only restrooms on the trail (it's in bad shape sadly but useable),

Runyon Lake Fishing area a Restroom Stop!

We got back to the Reservoir itself on the West end of trail, (note: it actually hooks up with the road into the Pueblo West area outside the city of Pueblo itself!) headed back East to where we had the truck parked, reloaded it and headed back to Colorado Springs, only stopping a McDonalds for a LARGE unsweetened iced tea! It was party sunny by the end of the ride and almost 90F, so we were a bit worn out by the heat, unloaded the trikes at the storage unit and headed home to fix a frozen dinner and veg! :)

Sprucing up JoLynn's Trike and a bit of a ride too!

We rode up to Angletech to have a upgraded E-assist Display Unit installed on her trike. After that we headed out for a ride on a very sunny and WINDY day but it felt great to be out, even with having to wear a mask! :) We stopped for Ice Tea and then headed back to the storage unit. After adjusting my front derailleur a bit and packed all the stuff up in our little pull cart and walked the mile back to the apt. for dinner. 15 miles RT!

The same old ride but just as enjoyable!!

It's been rainy and cloudy over the last two days but Sunday turned out to be a very nice SUNNY day, it was already 72F. by 9AM. so we loaded up the cart and pulled it to storage area and set up the trikes, took air pressures, hooked up the batteries and away we went. We decided to do a ride we really like but yes, we do it a lot! We had a bit of mission as we needed to stop at the Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort and pick up a type of bicycle chain lube, (Blue Barry Cycling Lube), I really like the way it foams while going on to keep track of how much you apply. It's also a self-cleaning formula while you are riding, etc. Well it's only available thru the Lodge so it's on the way into Manitou Springs which we can ride the Midland Trail off the Pikes Peak Greenway and we have a couple of parks we like to stop at for our brown bag lunch and a empty picnic table. :)

Us at the Buffalo Bicycle Lodge Resort! 

We arrived at the Lodge and meet it's fantastic owner, Torrie, she and her kids run a local bicycle group named after the Lodge and the Lodge is set up with bicycle backgrounds and artwork. If your in Colorado Springs and want a place that really treats bicyclist/Trikers well, this is the place! http://bicycleresort.com/ After a quick chat, we headed into Manitou Springs and decided to use the Skateboard Park picnic tables for lunch. We then headed back on the Creekside/Midland Trails into America the Beautiful Park and taking back streets to pick up the Shooks Run Trail north and rode to the Good Neighbors Meeting House for some excellent iced tea and banana break! Then continued north on Shooks Run to back streets over to Wood Ave. and then into the storage area to put the trikes away. 20 miles RT with fabulous weather, (I might have a slight sunburn!!) that's the end till next Weds. when we have to ride the trikes up to our local recumbent dealership/service dept. to have a updated Display for her E-assist system! :) 

E-assist system test #2, The Garden of the Gods

On Saturday we decided to give the E-assist systems a bigger test buy using them to ride thru the Garden of the Gods Park, here in Colorado Springs, CO. as it has a really nice bike lane all the way thru the park itself with several STEEP inclines which without E-assist I was usually in my lowest gear setting (22x42) and just crawling up and over! Our basic 350W. systems continue to impress as did most of the inclines using 1 and only the steepest inclines did we go to level 2 and we kept a solid 6 mph and didn't have to work super hard at it! A lot of people get a E-assist system to be able to ride FAST enough to keep up with their ridding buddies on their diamond framed road race bikes or they just "Feel the Need, the Need for SPEED"!

We don't want to go FAST, we just wanted help on the hills and long uphill grades so we don't have to feel like we are being pushed to hard and can't enjoy the ride! We like to go slow enough so as to enjoy our surroundings when we ride as we ride for FUN, not really for fitness or exercise. The day started out cloudy and cool but it did finally become partly sunny and around 60F by Noon so it was good, we stopped at a couple of places in the GoG and took a couple of photos of the Garden Plaza/Parking area with the new observation deck and at Balanced Rock and Steamboat Rock where the road continues out of the park and into Manitou Springs, CO. We stopped at a park and found a empty picnic table for our brown bag lunch and then headed home the Creekside and Midland Trails to our storage unit to tuck the trikes back in. The dark/gray clouds came back over Pikes Peak and we did get sprinkled on a little but it didn't really rain so we got lucky!

 The newly Installed observation deck in the Garden Plaza Parking Area.

Steamboat Rock (left) and Balanced Rock (Right)

The first test of the new E-assist system!

Well finally got the rear hub E-assist system installed on my trike, after we got the system for JoLynn's trike with income tax refund money and we started saving for my E-assist but figure we thought it would take YEARS to get it, then we got the Stimulus money and decided that NOW was the time to buy my system with money we never expected!! We did our part supporting a State of Colorado Company and a local area company that specializes in recumbent trikes! :) So we feel good about where the funds are going!

We had it installed on Fri./Sat. but the weather was rainy, cloudy and WINDY so my first ride was Sunday and I got luck with good weather so we went out on a 20 mile ride and WOW, I'm quite impressed with the E-assist system, our's is a low level system, 350W. 32V battery with a rear wheel hub motor. With even going to a better level display unit it's a total, including "INSTALL LABOR" by a trained recumbent/E-motor tech, equal $1500.00! That's $1000 dollars cheaper than the Bosch or Shimano E-assist (bottom bracket) systems! We've found that 350W is more than plenty of power for a single trike, anything more is just wanting to be able to SPEED or keep up with their "Diamond Frame" Road Race Bike friends, JMHO, YMMV.

We have only used level 1 or 2 out of 5 and it's really great, you end up being able to ride "further" (more miles) with the same amount of physical output without E-assist!!! I think we might even be able to try multi-day TOURING, something we haven't even thought of since 2011!! Now if we could just get this damn COVID-19 virus to go away we hope to get out on the road! The photos is where where we stopped for lunch on the Rock Island Trail here in Colorado Springs, CO.   IF you've thought about a E-assist system, it's worth every penny!! :)

My Terra Trike Traveler with rear hub motor e-assist

JoLynn's Trident Stowaway II with rear hub E-assist system!

April 28th. ride and updates

We got in a ride on Sunday April, 28th. we decided to try and brave riding a local trail, which since the virus have been so Over Crowded that we've stayed away from them but it was a beautiful day and we wanted to ride the Cottonwood Creek Trail to see the newest addition as it heads farther northeast! We headed out in shorts, YEA and were enjoying the ride up the Pikes Peak Greenway to get to the Cottonwood Creek Trail Head and it was pretty mellow till we started getting closer to the Vincent St. underpass then the volume on the trail just got MORE as we headed north towards the Cottonwood Creek Recreation Center/Park. :( Oh well we did our best to keep social distance and we ALWAYS wear masks when we are outside riding or walking!!

We decided not to go all the way to the end to check out the new trail extension as the trail was getting really packed! We stopped over at the empty baseball diamonds on a stone bench around a tree but sadly even there a lot of walkers and riders we going to and fro as they say! We ate our brown bag lunch since we can't use "drive up" food services on the trikes, which sucks!! We headed south and really enjoyed the sunshine and "downhill" incline of the trail, letting the trikes fly! We usually stop at Criterium Cycles for water and a restroom break but they are only letting in a few folks at a time (no more than 10 bodies in a business during the new Safer at Home virus status we are in now!) and they had a long line of folks waiting so we just kept going. Lucky for us we know where the "very few" porta-potties are stationed along the trails, LOL, when your 65 years old you NEED that kinda information!! ;) We've put our trikes back in a storage unit, it was to hard trying to get them up and down stairs of our 2nd. floor apt. especially now that they have E-assist systems attached which make them 10 lbs. heavier!!! Put the trikes away and headed for our 1 mile walk back to the apt. Fun day, even with the crowds but we will do our best to "Stay off Trails" from now on! :(

Our lunch stop, as far from the overcrowded park as we could find!!

It's Friday May 1st. and I should be getting ready to RIDE some miles as the Mileage Challenge on the Love to RIDE USA site starts today BUT my trike is in the shop getting (finally) the "new E-assist" system installed!!! :)  LOL, of course it's going to be BEAUTIFUL today 80F sunny to partly cloudy (more clouds by late afternoon), SIGH! :( Oh well, I've got some re-arranging to do at the storage unit and having one less trike to deal with moving makes it a bit easier. :) Sat. is suppose to be a bit on the stormy side but Sunday looks good so I should be able to ride and TEST out the E-assist system then! :) It's the same as JoLynn's set up, 350 W rear hub motor with both E-assist steps and throttle. Mine will be silver instead of black to match my silver rimmed front wheels. Hope you get to ride today, put in a extra few miles for ME! :)

We are hoping this damned virus finally dies off for the summer months soon (hopefully it won't return in the FALL!!!!), we want to go ride a out of state trail some where or now with the E-assist systems, we'd like to try some "touring by trikes" by riding from Co. Springs to Westcliffe, stay the night and come back, 2-3 days on the ROAD as it's been a VERY long time since we've done any touring, (last tour 2011). Right now they want us to stay in a "10 mile radius of your home", that SUCKS since you wait all the LONG winter months to get warm weather and really finally get out and about and away from having to ride the same old trails and roads over and over! I hope it's so as we like most of us I'm sure are really getting "cabin fever" syndrome!! :(