Riding has been sparce due to a "family tragedy" in Oct.!!!

 Hello all, well we haven't ridden much as of Oct. 26, our Son, Steven passed away unexpectedly!! :( So, except for a video and a couple of photos of a quick "clear the head ride" I managed to get in while my wife Jo and her family were doing "legal" stuff, that I as Steven's "step-dad" wasn't needed to be a part of! Here is the last ride video we shot, it's letting you know what it takes to be without a "truck", ride recumbent trikes and live in a 2nd. story apartment and a bit of a "errand ride" with the cargo trailer hooked up to go get FOOD and supplies! Yes, you lose the "convenience" factor in your lifestyle when you can't AFFORD a truck to haul the trikes around in or go to the FOOD store, etc. You have to PLAN every ride, even the "Errand Rides" but hey, at least you do the bonus of "getting to RIDE"!! ;) 

On Friday, while the wife and Steven's "blood legal" family were doing the "legal" paperwork, etc. for Steven's Cremation Plans, etc. I got a small window of time and took a Clear the Head ride, just to try to get a couple of hours to "think" about the "GOOD TIMES" my Son, Steven and I had as he grew up, His first bike, when we started Mountain Bike Racing together and sharing a motorcycle ride adventure out on the road before it became, "Not Cool" to hang with the Old Man and his friends became more important, which is very natural as your kids grow up! :) Steven was a Chef at many different levels and even a Kitchen Manager for some fancy restaurants at times in his turbulent and up and down career in the Food Industry!! Loved to have him cook for us, as Jo and I eat normal food we prepare but Steven's dishes had flair and imagination and were just sooo good!! :)

I, we will miss him dearly and I do regret that he and I didn't get to "RIDE" much together in his later years, he was just to busy, working the long hours his craft demanded! :( Still I have great memories, what else could I want! :) 

  

Here as the photos from my "clear the head ride", which I believe was on Friday, Oct. 28, on the Pikes Peak Greenway heading back to the Apt. You can tell it's FALL as the leaves cover a lot of the trail! 

October 18 and 20, 2022-PPRRN ride thru the GoG and later, Search for Shot Ride!

On Oct. 18th. I meet up with a few riders on the Pikes Peak Region Recumbent Network at Angletech. We headed out to ride the Garden of the Gods Park here in Co. Springs. Will, Ron, Rodger and I headed up Sinton Trail over to Foothills Trail to the Gateway Rd. entryway into the GoG park. It was a stunning fall day and the ride was really enjoyable. We came back via the Midland Trail and the Pikes Peak Greenway, the rest headed back to Angletech but I left a bit early and headed over to the Good Neighbors Meeting House for my brown bag lunch and unsweet iced tea. LOL, there was supposed to be a video but alas, I forgot to load the battery into the camera so here's a couple of photos!

 On Oct. 20, we headed out to see if the Mobile Covid Shot Center at the Citadel Mall had the "Moderna BA-5 Booster Shots". The Moderna isn't easy to find, and Jo had a really BAD reaction to the Pizer shot booster we got back in May. They did have the right booster shot so I got it but since Jo had the bad reaction the head nurse (El Paso County Health Dept.) refused to give Jo a booster shot, RATS!! :(  We have a request into our doctor for her and Jo to review the problem. The nurse said Jo needed to be at a clinic, where she could get help if she had a bad reaction and wanted to make sure the doctor agreed that Jo should get the shot, as the nurse is afraid that Jo has built up an immunity to the Covid 19 boosters and could now be "allergic" to them, that SUCKS with BA-4 and -5 on the rise in the USA!!

We left the center, stopped off at a McDonalds got a cheap "double hamburger", yes you can still get them, but it's not listed on the menu!! Headed back to the Rock Island Trail then over to the Templeton Gap trail, Pikes Peak Greenway and home. A busy fustrating day but again the weather was awesome, love when we get an Indian Summer here in So. CO. in Oct! Sunday is looking ugly and Monday I have a doc apt. for lab work so hope to get in a last ride on Sat. although it's supposed to be very WINDY! BJ

2nd. Week of Oct. 2022-Misc. and Lunch rides with something special coming on Sat. Oct. 15th.!

 Kinda got lost again, the weeks are starting to fly by in the Fall of 2022! Probably missed a ride but I'll start at the 12th. We headed out for a ride downtown to our bank and then to the Walmart Neighborhood Market Place for the weekly Food Ride, of course pulling the trailer. Got back to the apt., put the cold items in the fridge and freezer and the trailer, then headed out to a "special lunch". We've had a nagging debt that's been hanging over our head for YEARS and we finally paid it off! We celebrated by going to Bird Dog BBQ for some BBQ Ribs!! The day was perfect, warm, sunny and only a slight breeze! The Ribs were great along with coleslaw and potato salad and of course, our unsweetened iced tea! We then headed south on the "Search for", Sugar FREE ice cream but alas, we never found ANY place in town that had it, ended up with 32 miles for the day, awesome! :)

On Friday the 14th. we rode a "Errand Ride", CU for money orders, to the Post Office to mail off the monthly BILLS and then stopped and paid the cell and internet BILL, so sad to see all that go out so fast! :( Decided to spoil ourselves and head to Panera Bread for a 1/2 BBQ chicken sandwich and tomato bisque soup, YUM, LOL, tired of PB&J so NO brown bag today! :) From there we headed north up to Criterium Bike Shop, then up the PPGW to Cottonwood Creek Trail up to the Vincent St. bridge, along the Nevada Ave. bike trail and lane back over to the University Village Colorado Center to pick up the PPGW south and back home. 22 miles RT. 

 Now to the Special Event, on Saturday Oct. 15. the local recumbent shop, Angletech (www.cycledifferent.com) here is hosting "Honza and Crew" from AZUB Trikes made in the Checz Republic in Eastern Europe! It's a Meet, Eat and RIDE type of event and as we are good customers, we got an invite to the event/ride!! AZUB Trikes are my favorite recumbent trike but like ICE, HPVelotechnic, Catrike, etc. they are "premium level" trikes sadly out of our meager Social Security Retirement Budget! :( We ride "used" Terra Trikes, they work well but are more entry to mid-level machines and even then, we could only afford USED trikes! Oh well, we plan on heading out for Noon to 5 PM event and ride and getting to meet Honza and crew and DROOL over the display of AZUB trikes anyway! Oh and of course, partake in the consumption of any FOOD, LOL ;) Plan on taking video of the ride and gathering so stay tuned, have a great weekend! :)

1st. week of October 2022, rides

I rode for 3 days in a row on the first week of Oct. the last ride on the 6th. Jo got to join me, the two rides before she had appointments both days. Just local area trail loop rides in our area so I will just list a video and some photos. The weather has really started to feel like FALL here, temps in the high 60 or low 70 F but until yesterday (7th.) it was sunny and excellent days to ride! On Sunday Oct. 9th. is the "Motorless Morning event at the Garden of the Gods Park. From 5am to 12 noon, they will allow "NO CARS" in the park and riders and walkers, skater's, etc. get to use the roads so that's the plan for tomorrow. No, I won't be there at 5 AM, probably get there about 9 am do the loop of the park. It's a fun event that only happens two time a year! So, here's the vid and the photos, enjoy! 

This photo is a tale of two parts, usually we only ride the Cottonwood Creek Trail up to Cottonwood Regional Park, but we decided it was such a nice day we'd ride the 2nd. half of the trail to its current end at Powers Blvd. The 2nd. half starts as you go through the "The Tunnel" and has a lot of uphill grades sections and is in the open area with little or no shade in sight. So, in the heat of the summer, we don't normally ride this part of the trail when it's HOT!! On this day, it was only 65 F so we enjoyed getting to the end and it made a 27 mile days ride!! :) FUN. Of course, we stopped at Panera Bread on the way home for unsweet iced tea and ate our homemade snack and then headed south on the PPGW to home. Just a excellent day to be "Out and About on the Recumbents"! ;) 

October 1st. 2022, Just a ride, checked out the "Skybridge" and the "Flame Cafe" at the US Olympic & Paralympic Museum, Co. Springs, CO.

Well the weather guessers said we'd get rain by early afternoon today, so we headed out early and headed up north on the PP Greenway to Criterium Bike Shop and over to Panera Bread for a early brown bag lunch and unsweetened iced tea. Decided to head south back into the Springs and head to the US Olympic & Paralympic Museum to get some photo's on the "Skybridge" from the Museum to America the Beautiful Park. After the photo's, we decided to "spoil ourselves" and get some "sweet potato fries"! Ate out on the patio at the "Flame Cafe" on the museum complex, YUM! Well it started to get quite breezy and the chill of fall was in the air, the clouds were building heavy and dark so we took off through the down town area to the Cascade Street bike lane, heading north. Got back home, the trikes snug in the apartment before the rains!! 18 miles and fun and easy enjoyable ride for the 1st. of October. Glad we packed the windbreakers in the panniers as the breeze let us know that the season's are changing. Fall is quite pretty here in So. CO. but it's a very short season and the winter is Loooong, bummer. Sure hope it goes by fast this year. Oh well we enjoy even the short and sweet rides, being out and about on the recumbents. :)

 

September 23-24, 2022- Failed video mic test ride and the "Search for Pantyhose Ride"! ;)

 LOL, as usual I'm playing catch up with our Vblog so here's a couple of late Sept. ride video's! I switched from the video cam mounted to the front boom of my trike to a helmet mount set up, hopefully to get, "LESS road noise" on my vid's!! Well I must have turned off the mic setting in the camera so there's no sound except for the intro I added while making producing the video, so you all get music, enjoy!

We got invited by Jo's Sister, Barb to join them at her WHS Class of 1972, 50th. year high school reunion. It was held at the new Great Wolf's Lodge in northern Co. Springs, CO. They did a excellent job setting up the reunion, great food, excellent dance floor and DJ and wonderful displays! Jo and I are a year younger and we are WHS Class of 1973 grads, but I seriously doubt we will have anywhere close to the 50th. Year HS reunion gathering that the Class of 72 had!! :( Oh well, that's life, LOL! We had to take a ride and got iced tea for our brown bag lunch, then headed out to a ROSS store to get Jo some pantyhose for her new dress for the reunion. Headed back home to get ready for the reunion starting a 5 PM. on the 24th.

Here are the videos: 

Hope you enjoyed the videos, the weather was excellent both days for these rides! On the 25th. we got picked up by Barb and Rick to go to the "All Classes WHS Alumni Picnic in Woodland Park, CO. Jo entered a "pumpkin decorating contest", LOL, she didn't win but had fun and the Food and company was excellent! A very busy long weekend for us! :)