A couple more rides, one solo and one for the both of us! April 25 and 26, 2022

 On the 25th. Jo had a doctor's appointment, so I headed out solo and decided to head south to ride the Canal, Sand Creek Trails and come back on the gravel portions of the Pikes Peak Greenway to get back to downtown, then home. I first headed east on the Rock Island Trail to turn south on what I call the South Homestead Trail, but the city just calls it the Canal Trail over to Murry St. and then the Airport Rd. bike lane over to the Sand Creek Trail. Sadly the trail is starting to attract homeless and it was really bad were the trail goes into a underpass beneath Academy Blvd.! I was hoping they would have started to trail work to finish the Sand Creek Trail to Hancock Expressway and a to be built "lighted crossing" of the Expressway to get to continue on the Sand Creek Trail over to the Pikes Peak Greenway. Well no luck, it still dead ends in a dirt lot and has lots of homeless camps. Had to back track up then ride thru a little shopping center to pick up the Astrozon Blvd. bike lane over to the expressway, cross via the light, use the sidewalk over to where you can pick up the trail again. Finally got to the PP Greenway and headed west. This too use to be a very nice backwoods wide gravel trail but it's now full of trash and more homeless camps! :(  There are still some decent sections along Fountain Creek but it's gone downhill over the years. 

Took Tejon St. Bike Lane into down town over to the Weber St. Bike Lane back to our apartment. 21 miles.

On the 26th. it dawned sunny and the least windy day in the last 25 days!! Jo and I took a wandering ride over to Manitou Springs Swimming Pool Park to eat our brown bag lunch. Bummer the camera didn't get set up right to run a video to the park so I did get in a shorter one on the way back into Colorado Springs on the Creekside/Midland Trails. Headed north of the Palmer-Mesa Greenway back to the PP Greenway back to the apartment. We needed to get home a bit early so Jo could cut up veggies for our steak fajitas we are having for dinner, YUM!! 17 miles and lot's of smiles as we just took our time and wandered as we went. Couple of photos at the park and a 30 min. "one the way back video", enjoy! :)

 

The INSANE WINDS continue, April 21 & 22 2022!!!

Wow, it just continues to be WINDY here, it's been like this for a solid month, that's not normal! On the 21st. we headed up Sinton Trail over to Angletech to get a couple of adjustments done on my TT Rover trike and use their picnic table to eat our brown bag lunch. Since the wind wasn't quite as bad we decided to go ride the Foothills Trail over to the entrance of the Garden of the Gods Park and check out the "progress" of the construction that is being done to improve 30th. St. and entry to the GoG Park. Well it's still a MESS, They have equipment park all along the concrete portion of the trail and you have to use a very rocky and bumpy dirt/large gravel road to get over to the Bike Lane on 31st. Street! LOL, it's like riding in a rock tumbler! Then we headed south to pick up the Midland Trail heading east back into downtown C. Springs. Headed over to the Shooks Run Trail and over to the Neighborhood Meeting House for some unsweet iced tea with our afternoon trail mix snack, (Cinamon Rice Cake, broken up, raisins, no sugar dark chocolate chips for BJ and add Almonds for Jo), it's good! :)  Around 17 miles RT and the day was Sunny and windy.

On the 22nd. it was REALLY WINDY, sometimes gusts up to 65 miles per hour with a very strong sustained wind speed of 30 mph!! Jo needed to get some "liquid embroidery" to add a "In memory of Eric Hess) to our T-shirts for the Walk to Defeat ALS, Colorado Springs, we are doing on April 30th. at 10AM in Memorial Park. We got sand and dirt blown into our faces a lot on our way to Walmart then headed back to the Pikes Peak Greenway, using the Bijou St. bike lanes into downtown over to the PPG. We headed north as Bike COS & Criterium Bicycle Shop were having a "earth day event" at 4PM. 

We were fighting a ever increasing WIND all the way there, they had a Mexican style Food Truck there and some display's of commuter bicycles and a couple of small giveaways and shop specials. LOL, we had to eat our really tasty grilled pork and pineapple quesadilla while holding on to our Styrofoam dinner ware!! The winds got worse and the skies darker due to a brush fire in town so since we didn't have any "spending money" we just chatted with Paula of Bike COS and then fought our way home in a very strong head wind!! 21 miles RT, 80 F temps and sunny but the WINDS just wore us out, we were quite glad to get the trikes and the utility trailer back into the apartment, make a small mixed green salad and be out of the WIND!!! No video cause all you would have heard was the WIND noise! Hope your weather is less windy, till next time, we hope you have "Miles of Smiles", GO RIDE! :)  

April 19, 2022- A short and very WARM afternoon Ride, LOL yes the WIND is still strong but who cares when it so WARM!! ;)

 We get a monthly Food Supplement from Silver Key as we are Seniors and with living on our very meager SS Retirement Income we really don't have enough money to buy food for the whole 4-6 weeks between pay day's so this little bit helps!! We use their vans for transportation there and back and normally we just go for a walk after I get back. It was going to be 80 F by late afternoon, just too nice sunny and warm NOT to go for a short ride!

We headed up the PP Greenway over to Criterium Bicycles for a break and refill the water bottles then headed south on the detour path to Pandera Bread for an unsweet iced tea to go with our homemade trail mix snacks. Then we headed back down the PP Greenway over to the Palmer-Mesa Greenway to it's end close to downtown Colorado Springs. Headed back north and rode to the current end of the Palmer-Mesa Greenway. 

Then turned around and headed back to the PP Greenway over the Popcycle Bridge back to our apartment, go home around 4PM. 80 F, Sunny and windy but it felt like SUMMER for the first time in 2022!! LOL, of course it's going to turn cold and lite rain on Sat. afternoon, then lite snow on Sunday, Arrugh!! :( Come on Summer!! :)  

More Mid-April Rides: Food and Maintenance Runs

 We've had a lot of WINDS most of March and April with the normal Spring Time weather up's and downs. On the 13th. we pulled down the trikes and utility trailer and headed to the local Walmart Neighborhood Market Place for food and supplies. The wind the day before was really bad, not so strong today and it was sunny! Normally my "trailer hitch" just slides over the end of the axle and is held on by the wheel quick release or nut for non-quick release but the axle on the new SA 3 speed rear hub set up wasn't really "long" enough to be able to keep it on and the last few threads stripped out, YIKES! I had to grease the end of the axle and use a thinner nut but it went on real tight. I decided to build a "hitch mount" so you don't need to have the hitch on the axle:

So this was the "test run" to see if my hitch holder would work. There was a detour on the trail we use to get to the food store and we had to go down a huge hill, then with a full load of food/supplies in the trailer I was a bit worried as it was quite steep and long going back up the hill!! Worked out great, the holder never budged and the trailer pulled well! :)

On Saturday the 15th. we had a service appointment at Angletech for both trikes, alignment and toe-in check and the re-tap of the threads of the axle and a new large acorn nut applied and tightened! Jo's trike had the steering head bushings "greased" and the alignment and toe-in check. It was another very WINDY day but again sunny and was really gusting as you headed north so LOL, we headed south down the Sinton Trail over to the Pikes Peak Greenway and a favorite picnic area by Fountain Creek along the trail for our brown bag lunch! 

Then we headed north to Criterium Bicycle Shop for more water and break. We decided to take the detour trail over to the University Shopping Center and pick up the Pikes Peak Greenway and head south. We only got so far as Jo noticed she lost her "computer"!! Well we doubled back and with luck found the computer on the trail! YEA :) The we headed back south again over to the Bonn Shopping Center to pay Jo's trike loan bill at ENT Fed. Credit Union then to Safeway. We headed back home but decided to finish the ride by going down as far as the Fontanero Street Trailhead. We ate our afternoon snack (cinnamon/apple rice cake), while sitting on a wall and just looked at the mountains!

Spun around and then headed up the path back to the apartment, 19 miles RT, still very windy but nice! :)

4-8 and 9, 2022-A couple of good longer rides between cold and Heavy Winds!

 There has been a lot of Heavy Winds and Chilly Temps for early April but we did get a couple of really nice days on Fri. the 8th. and Sat. the 9th. On the 8th. the horrible winds finally backed down to decent breeze level with 55 F and lot's of SUN! We just headed out for a loop ride of several of the local trails and ended up with just over 24 miles. Here's a 1:30 min. video of the ride, I have to say I'm sorry that it's almost impossible to "HEAR" me talk, I have been trying to find a way to make the "MUSIC" much quieter, making it more like "background music" to have music and talk at the same time! BUMMER, I found a volume control on my video production program BUT it didn't affect the music at all and it made my "Talking" almost undetachable, arrugh. There will be totally quite areas of the video and the music is still louder than I want, sigh, back to the drawing board!  Enjoy the video anyway and thanks! Here is a link for the local Network: Pikes Peak Region Recumbent Trike & Bike Network

On Sat. the 9th. it dawned rather cloudy but the temps were in the 70 F's LOL, we even got to wear shorts and short sleeves and put on sun block for the first time in 2022!! Again we headed here and there on different trails, bike lanes, etc. Stopped at Angletech and used there employee "picnic area" to eat our brown bag lunch. We ran into Rodger Reddish and found the he "took" over the admin job on a old recumbent group Jo and I tried to start so via website and Facebook. 

He was leading a ride so we headed to the starting point for the 2 PM. start time and we rode with Rodger and met Betsy a fellow Terra Trike Rider and rode from America the Beautiful Park downtown over to the Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort in Manitou Springs. Ate a snack and then headed home. They stopped at Rudy's BBQ but sadly it's the end of the month and we had NO FUNDS to eat out so we just headed back to the Apt. Another 24+ mile ride so almost 50 miles in 2 days, LOL it's been quite awhile since we did that many back to back miles! Tried but happy, we made a homemade ham and pineapple pizza with salad and unsweet iced tea, ate and kicked back! :) Here are some photos taken by Rodger of the ride!

April 2, 2022-First ride in April, the "bi-polar" Springtime weather continues! :(

 It was really Windy and chilly on Friday, till late afternoon so we took a 3 mile walk instead of the ride for the day! Saturday the 2nd. was beautiful, 70 F Sunny with a mellow wind so we rode up to Cottonwood Regional Park in the northeast part of the city. Didn't stay long as they have a HUGE youth soccer practice going on, 100's of kids these days is no place for a couple of 65+ year old Seniors!!! :O 

We headed to the park via the Pikes Peak Greenway and the Cottonwood Creek Trail, we were running a bit later than normal as I wanted to "remount" Jo's Bell and Computer and it took me a while to work up mount system (using spare parts of course, LOL!) that worked well and looked semi-decent. We stopped at the open seating/eating area at the University Shopping Center for our "brown bag lunch" and then rode the detour trail over to the Cottonwood Creek Vincent St. bridge trail junction and up the CCT to the park. 22 miles RT and enjoyed every mile as Sunday will bring "more" rain and maybe some snow flurries by early afternoon as another "Low Pressure Weather System" heads from western to eastern Colorado again, arrugh! The great thing about be "poor but retired" is that you can "pick" the days to RIDE, sweet! :)

March 31, 2022- Weekly Food Run and ride for lunch

March has been a looong month and now April is here but sadly, we here in So. Colorado can still see snow and cold up until the 2nd. weekend in MAY! :( It worked out well for us Weds. was gray, lite rain and windy but thursday, started sunny and warmish. It was past time for our weekly food run to the Union Blvd. Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market Place store for food and supplies!

Here what we have to do to get ready, Out apt. is a "2nd. storie" unit, we have to get both TRIKES and our Utility Trailer thru the "not wide enough doors and down a flight of stairs to use the double doors to get out front. It's around 2.5 miles to the store via the back streets and Rock Island Trail, just slight uphill grade all the way as it is a actual rail-trail. Then downhill via back street into a parking lot and over to the store. We did have a bit of a detour as the city is "finally" fixing a part of the trail that had a huge chunk out of the asphalt, like 3/4 of the trail for a long time! It take 45 min. to a hour to do the shopping, I do that Jo stays outside with the trikes as "guard dog"! We have Hot/Cold Bags with ice blocks (plastic), in each bag for the frozen items, fresh veggies, etc. Pack up the trailer with food and stuff, then head back UP that back street, which is quite steep, (thank goodness for lower gearing) to the trail and back home. 5 miles RT.

We then take the bags, etc. upstairs to our apt. put away the frozen and fresh items, leaving the dry good in bags on the floor. Then we bring the utility trailer up a flight of stairs and back into the apt. We then head out for lunch, Most of the times it's a brown bag, PB and sugar free J sandwich, 1/2 apple and baked pea crips or other "lightly salted" chip. We do spoil ourselves at times, today we headed to a Pander's Bread store off the Pikes Peak Greenway, to share a small flat bread pizza and unsweet iced tea! :) Then we rode up the "detour" trail to Criterium Bicycles Store and back down the PP Greenway to the Fontanero Street Trail Head and back to the apartment. 

It's a "all day" kinda ride with a LOT of physical work for ME as I do all the "moving" up and down of the trikes and trailer and the heavy food bags hauling. Still the day was sunny and warming nicely so it was worth all the work and the pizza was great too! ;) Being "Car Free" isn't for whimp's but it can be enjoyable at times! BJ :)