July 23, 2022-New Record Temp Ride and a big change for BJ in the future.

Just an update, I decided that I wanted a lighter trike with "indirect steering" instead of my current Terra Trike Rover X8 which is a Heavy Duty trike and has "direct steering". I went to our local recumbent dealer, Angletech: www.cycledifferent.com and started looking at the USED trikes they had for sale. I found a older Greenspeed GTO that fit what I wanted and was in a price range, where I could put it on "Layaway" and pay it off in 3 or 4 months! Well after the service dept. did a check up on it, they found the "front end steering system" had major damage and found the parts needed were being just to hard to find so they let me know the GTO was DOA!! :( They didn't have anything else at the time but I just had them keep my deposit on file. Yesterday they called and have a older, used Terra Trike Tour with the 26 in. rear wheel that might be a good match for me. We rode up to Angletech on Saturday and checked it out and I decided to buy it instead!! 

It had what I wanted at an even slightly lower price so it's now officially on the layaway with my name on it. The color is "Sparkle Red", now these older TT trikes "do not" have an adjustable boom, they have booms in 3 different sizes: small/medium/large. The trike came with a medium boom but at max reward seat adjustment it felt a bit "cramped" for me so they thought they might have a "large boom" in the warehouse, they only problem if they did, it was a YELLOW in color. Well, being "colorblind", I really don't care if the trike has mixed colors, I will just get some red and yellow auto paint and "stripe" different color "bands" on the frame and boom. LOL, I will surely KNOW that this TT Tour is mine!!! ;) Here is an example of the TT Tour (note: this one has the smaller 20 in. rear wheel, mine has the larger 26 in. rear wheel), : 

If they don't have the yellow large boom, they can still "order" me a matching red boom, size large from Terra Trike Inc. Lucky for me that the top of the line, TT Tandem Pro still uses the "3 different sized booms" and is a currently manufactured model!!! :) 

Now about the ride, it was HOT right off the bat, even at 10 AM it was 90 F and climbing! It's "very rare" for the temps to reach triple digits, here in Colorado Springs, CO. in the Summer but on Sat. we officially broke a long standing "high temp record" for the day and it was now 100 F by the time we left Angletech!!! :O We headed directly to Panera Bread for a large and COLD unsweet iced tea to drink and eat our home made "trail mix" snack. 

We were going to ride down to the south ending point on the Mesa Springs Trail but the HEAT, felt like a blanket slowly closing around our bodies so we decided to "head home"! Our apt. is little but has good air conditioning! We called it a wrap for the ride!! 100 F, mostly sunny and HOT!! 13 miles total. Still a good ride and we got a lot accomplished, now it's "kick back" time!! :)

 

July 16 & 17, 2022-More HOT day rides, the temps are up but so are we, Let's RIDE!

Both Sat. and Sun were in the mid to high 90 F, Sunny with just a chance of rain but none fell! Saturday we headed west to ride up the North Cheyenne Canyon to the Starsmoore Visitors Center at the start of the road up the canyon. It's a constant uphill grade once you leave the 8th. St. bike lane and head up towards the Starsmoore Center!! We stopped to take a water and shade break when shade came out to the bike lane! We got to the center and found a bench in the shade to eat our brown bag lunch.  Note: you can ride up the canyon road to Helen Hunt Falls and Gold Camp Road but, it's thin, with no shoulder or bike lane so you have to Share The Road with the traffic, not our idea of a fun ride!). After that we headed back down and over to the new portion of the Creekside Path over to Nevada Ave. headed for the Southgate Panera Bread for a large unsweet iced tea to share! Lucky for us they have a small patio area in the shade up front so both us and the trikes were out of the HEAT! 

 On Sunday we did a multi-trail loop, started by heading south on the Mesa Springs Trail over to change to heading west on the Midland Trail to 31st. St. Picked up the 31st. Bike Lane over to the start of the Foothills Trail that goes by the entrance of the Garden of the Gods Park. Note: as of now the Foothills Trail is undergoing construction due to the rerouting of 30th. Street so you have to ride thru a slightly ruff GRAVEL entry area over to the other side of the Gateway Rd. into the GoG Park, then you can re-pick up the Foothills Trail over to 31st. and Garden of the Gods Road, heading east to pick up the Sinton Trail. We stopped at Angletech, the local recumbent shop and although it was closed we used their employees picnic area table in the SHADE for lunch! Back on the Sinton Trail we rode to the Pikes Peak Greenway and turned north, again heading to a different Panera Bread for a large unsweet iced tea!! Got our tea and outside table in the shade on the patio, ate our homemade Stevia sweetner and Coco cookies with our tea!! (Note: we have a Unlimited Sips Club Membership at Panera Bread so we stop there A LOT), after our tea and cookies we headed back south on the PPGW and back to our apartment. 21 miles 97 F HOT, sunny. The HEAT is quite a drain on our 67 year old bodies but it was still a GREAT day to RIDE! :)

  

July 10, 2022-HOT Ride Part 2 the Movie, and the HEAT goes on!!

 On Sunday we already knew it was going to be a continued day of HEAT, maybe even up to 100 F, which is quite rare for Colorado Springs!! We decided to just take a cruise on the PP Greenway, then head to Manitou Springs via the Midland and Creek Walk Trails as that path has quite a bit of shade!! We did take several shade stops and drank a lot of water with Nunn tablets for added electrolytes, which actually does help when riding in HOT weather. :) We also use "water bandanas", the have a soaking center cloth strip so you get them WET and warp them around your neck to keep you head cooler!! 

This ride is also fairly FLAT as it's one of the true "rail trails" we have here in Colorado Springs, as stated before most of our trails are "Urban" trails remade into bike/walking paths. Even with the HEAT it was still a nice day for a ride and we found a picnic table in a shady spot at the park in Manitou Springs to eat our brown bag lunch! Had a nice conversation with a elderly gentleman for a bit then headed back east on the trail into downtown Colorado Springs with a stop at The Good Neighbors Meeting Place for some unsweet iced tea to go with our homemade Stevia sweetened/Spice cookies (yes, I, BJ made these cookies for Jo since she's a Type 2 diabetic and can't eat most store/bakery cookies!!) for our afternoon snack. We use Whole Wheat Flour instead of "White Flour" and yes, they have some carbs but when you "exercise/cycle" in the HEAT you still NEED some carbs to keep the blood sugar levels from "dropping" too much!!! 

Heading back via Shooks Run we stopped at Safeway food store to pick up more grapes for the dinner meal fruit as we try to use fresh fruit instead of "canned" fruit that has a lot more sugar! Got the trike put away in the apartment and man, the air conditioning sure felt good!

July 6, 2022-A multi-trail and under passes ride in the heat, then the heaven's opened up and we got drowned like RATS!! :O

Jo hemmed her sister Katy's dress to fit better so we decided to deliver it back via the trikes. We headed out over to their house using the Rock Island, South Homestead, (Canal) and Sand Creek Trails. I decided to take photo's of the several "underpasses" these trails use for street crossings to show their "condition". The underpass at Circle Dr. was FULL of Water and the gate was closed. It has a very poorly designed drainage system!! Next, the underpasses at both Palmer Park Blvd. and Murry Blvd. are USELESS, full of small boulders, deep sand and debris!! They need to be shutdown and lighted street crossing built, JMHO. The underpass at Chelton Dr. on the Sand Creek Trail is good and the new lighted street crossing on Fountain Blvd., is excellent!

A REAL Problem is the Academy Blvd. underpass on the SC trail, it's been full of homeless and trash, we had to ride around 2 homeless folks ASLEEP on the trail itself and trash!!!!!! The city says it's a POLICE problem, the police say it's a CITY problem, nothing get's done, it's very sad, NOTE: didn't take a photo due to homeless giving us the evil eye as we passed!!! Good news, they are FINALLY getting to construction of the finishing of the Sand Creek Trail to Hancock Expressway and adding a marked street crossing to be able to continue to the Southern Extension, YEA!!!!! The two underpasses on the south SC Trail extension over to Las Vegas St. are clear and very useful. The rest of our ride was mostly on city streets, we went thru the playing fields just off the Pikes Peak Greenway to get over to the overpass at the Harrision Exchange in the pouring RAIN!! We discovered you HAVE to go thru the Harrison High School lot to get to the entry to the overpass so we just found a traffic crossing light at Lake Ave. and Cheyenne Rd. and headed to the Southgate Panera Bread for iced tea. It was raining so hard that the bike lane was totally under water!!! we had to Share the lane with the car splashing us, it sucked!! We were soaked but made it to Panera Bread had our Stevia Spice cookies I baked and iced tea and waited out the very heavy RAIN!! It finally cleared so we headed home via the Tejon St. bike lane and the lovely Weber St. bike lane and were totally dry with VERY dirty/gritty recumbent trikes to wipe down and do a re-oil of the chains, cables, etc. It was a wild day to RIDE!!! 20 miles total sunny, hot, then massive RAIN.

July 4, 2022- We ride in a local Independence Day Parade and then headed out for a Lunch Ride!

 Well, the rest of June we did a few local rides on mixed trails and loops. We live on the outskirts of a older area of Colorado Springs, CO. called: The Historic Old Northend. Lot's of very expensive old Victorian type homes dating back to the mid 1800's in the days of the Gold rush in Cripple Creek, CO. The millionaire's built their mansion's on Wood Ave in growing Colorado Springs. LOL, no we live in a older 1970's apartment complex at the very norther edge of the Old Northend no mansion for us! ;) We found out there local neighborhood association has a little July 4th. Parade and has done this for the last 50 years!!  We found out about it too late to be a part of it last year so we decorated our trikes and joined in on the festivities!!

 We stagged on Wood Ave. at Bonington Park, lot's of kids on bikes, scooters, etc. and parents with strollers, wagons, etc. The Ave. had flags up and down the park had tables with treats for the kids after the parade. It was a 1 mile loop around the area a really big crowd showed up and we headed out. It finished back at the Park, from there we headed out to do a lunch ride and just enjoy being out riding our trikes on a beautiful Independence Day! Here is a video, sorry but due to a "camera or operator ERROR", I only have footage of the "stagging for the parade and NONE of the actual parade, RATS!! The rest is of the lunch ride! 

After 20 miles we headed back home, put the trikes away and pulled out the little indoor George Forman Grill to cook up some Hebrew Nation Jumbo Hot Dogs, Potato Salad, Zesty lentil crips and sliced apple with unsweet iced tea, YUM!! Hope you Independence Day Holiday was grand, Sadly we aren't near any of the local area fireworks displays so we watched the Macy's Fireworks show from New York in a dark living room on the TV, just a excellent day to be alive and ride a Recumbent TRIKE!! :)