September 2023, Continued-Hot Ride in the City!!

9/6/2023 Headed out on the Templeton Gap Trail, at one point, it has a fork in the trail so we took the right fork and headed to it's north ending point on Ranch Road. Then we headed back down the trail, across the bridge to the Flintridge Bike Lane, heading east up to Academy Blvd. and a Starbuck's for unsweetened iced tea and our brown bag lunch. Back down Flintridge to the T Gap, then south to the tunnel under Union Blvd and east on the T-Gap to Portal Park for break and afternoon snack. Back to the storage unit and tucked away the trikes. 20 miles, HOT 90 F Sunny!

9/8/2023 Multi-Trail ride on another HOT 90 F day! Took a few photo's at the Pike Revisor and along the Pikes Peak Greenway heading back to the storage unit, then walked home. 

9/9/2023 Had to take a ride all by myself as Jo stayed home, nursing a mean sinus headache. So I headed out north on the PP Greenway and then the Cottonwood Creek Trail and back for lunch, as I had a $2.00 off a sandwich Panera Bread Membership I needed to use before it expired. Got a excellent Black Forest Ham and Goda Cheese Melt, YUM! Stopped to get photo of the Front Range foothills with Pikes Peak to add as a start up for my video. Had to use the backup GoPro Hero 2 as the GPH 3 didn't charge, not sure what happened? Turned off the PP Greenway and headed west up the Sinton Trail up to 31st. Street, turned around with a quick pit stop at Angletech https//:www.cycledifferent.com talked to Kirk about different tires for the front end of the trike for bit softer ride in the future! Then back to the storage unit. 19 miles HOT again, 87 F, Sunny and the 1.2 mile walk home.

 

Here's the Video, ENJOY!

9-2023- No particular place to go!!

9-2-2023: Here's a video of our 24 mile total miles ride!

9-3-2023: There are times when we don't have a particular ride in mind and today was one of those times! We haven't gone south much lately so we just headed down the Weber St. Bike Lane thru downtown Co. Springs on Tejon St. Bike Lane. We decided to stop at the Co. Springs Pioneer Museum in their garden area for some shade and eat our morning snack.

 

Looks like it's undergoing heavy renovation at this time. We enjoyed the shady benches ate our snack and then headed south back on the Tejon St. Bike Lane over to Ivywild area and the old Southgate shopping center to get an Iced Tea, unsweet of course at Panera Bread. Then we headed back, picked up the Cheyenne Blvd. Bike Lane over to the 8th. Street Bike Lane. It's a hard uphill incline up and over 8th. Street, then picked up the Pikes Peak Greenway to America the Beautiful Park for rest break. 

From America the Beautiful Park, took the elevator to the Sky Bridge, then back street to the Pikes Peak Ave. Bike Lane to pick up the Weber St. Bike Lane and headed to the Tasty Freeze Drive Inn for a 2nd. iced tea and afternoon snack! (Jo is a type 2 diabetic, she has to have a small amount of food every 2 hours to keep her blood sugar levels from crashing during exercise!!). It was again, a HOT ride 90 F so as it was 2 PM. we decided to call it a wrap and headed back to the storage unit, then the 1.2 mile walk back to the apartment. Just a ride on a nice day during Labor Day weekend! Hope your weekend was excellent! :)

August 2023-Summer comes to an end, Sadly!! :(

 August 28-31, Well for Jo and I we consider September as FALL, so our summer riding season is over. Lucky for us the HEAT is sticking around a bit longer as it's been back in the 90 F temps. So we've gotten out as much as possible and earlier than we usually start our rides. So I will give you a brief rundown of the rides of the last few days!

August 28, Here's a few photos:

A fun ride over to Nancy Lewis Park via the Templeton Gap Trail here in Co. Springs.

August 29-

LOL, being a bit lazy we just headed out for a ride on another nice the end of summer day!

The photo is just a shot sitting on my trike as Jo ran into Safeway Store for a couple of items.

August 30-

We rode to Manitou Springs via the Midland Trail and Creek Walk Trail, rode to the end of the Creek Walk Trail extension that will one day take you farther into Manitou Springs via trail instead of having to use back roads! We stopped to eat our brown bag lunch at Schryver Park but we headed to the other side of the park for different view!

August 31- 

Todays ride was a "Mission Ride", today is Jo's Mom's birthday, alas she sadly passed away in 1994. We do our best to get to her memorial rose garden area were her ashes are inturned.

Just some photo's of the moment.

We plan on taking a "day off" riding for September 1st. as we've been riding in a lot of HEAT and need a break. The great, hot weather will continue Wednesday next week so we got much more "end of summer" riding to do! Hope your getting in lot's of miles of SMILES out on the trails and roads! :)

The Dog Days of August and now the Monsoon Type Rains left over from Hurricane Howard, Gray Skies, Chilly Temps!

 Well as usual, I'm falling behind on this blog, most of our rides have been the normal day to day runs of a transportation/recreational cyclist! Weds. the 23rd. we did our weekly Food Run and then a short ride up Sinton Trail to get unsweetened iced tea at Starbucks. It's been HOT here 90 F+ so the rides have been a bit shorter to "beat the heat" in the late afternoons. We've gone to a ride one day then walk the next kinda pattern due to the heat. Now sadly, the weather has turned 180 degrees on us, it's Gray, Chilly and Cloudy! We are getting left over moisture from the last gaps of Hurrican Howard, for us it's just weather feeling like early October not Late August!! On the 24th. we took a ride to do another "Camera Case Test" for wind noise. 

I taped off the large side hole and the tiny microphone hole in the GoPro Clear Case to see if I could bring down the WIND noises! LOL, it worked almost too well as my voice level was muted down a lot from normal using a Camera Case with the Ghost (openings) windows taped over. Here's the video: 

So now I either have to live with "muted sound", lot's of wind noise or go back to the Waterproof clear camera case, which means you Can Not hear me talking but will have zero wind noise in the background, the taped but muted non- waterproof clear camera case or take off the tape and we all put up with the WIND noise for my video's!!! Let me know what YOU think is the best way to go, thanks! 

We are now in day one of 4 that will be Gray, windy, chilly and at times heavy rains!! Hopefully by Tuesday the 29th. we will be back to a Normal Late Summer weather pattern. and back to riding!! :) Well that's it for now, hope your weather is much better and your getting in lot's of late summer rides, Bye for now, BJ. 

2023-8-17 & 19-Downtown Burger and Bags Charity Event & a long errand ride up north!

 Our local recumbent network is the Pikes Peak Recumbent Network on Facebook, we are not a club or group, no formal government, we have a couple of volunteer ride leaders and we set up "Meet and Eats" at different Events or Eating establishments. Every year the Bank of Colorado, downtown Colorado Springs has a fundraiser for United Way. For 2023, it's called the "Burger and Bags Bash", for a donation, you get a In and Out burger, chips, drink. 4 of our PPRRN riders showed up to the scheduled "Meet and Eat". This year they had a huge Cornhole Tournament along with the Burger Bash. The 4 of us had a good time and then Jo and I headed out for a ride.

 On the 19th. our ride was mainly a Errand Run, we just switched for T-Mobile 5G internet and phone to Xfinity Broadband and phone set up. We had to take the "Gateway modem", to a T-mobile store but found out it has to be returned to a "Coorporate Store", which is a long way from were we stopped for iced tea and our brown bag lunch!! It was a HOT day, 90 F so we decided to head to the coorporation store anyway! We used the detour path up to Vincent St. bridge and picked up Campus Dr. over Woodmen Ave., then LOL, back to Vincent St. the backway to Academy Blvd. Had no problems with the turn in of the Gateway at this store. Headed to Panera Bread for a 2nd. unsweet iced tea and ate our homemade engery bars for a very late afternoon snack. Here is a couple of photos from Vincent St. on the north side of Woodmen Ave.

I've started using the old GoPro Hero 2 as my Still Photo Camera, it was set for 11 mega pixles and WIDE lens but it had a bit of a old "Fisheye lens" bending at the ends of the photo!! I changed to 8 mega pixels and MED lens and it works much better! :) It was 5:30 pm by the time we headed from the storage unit back to the apartment. A long HOT ride but we got it done! Even with the heat is was a beautiful day and a good RIDE! 19 mile total. 

August 14 and 16, 2023-Unexpected detour to the Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort and the Weekly Food Run and Lunch ride

 As they say, "Life goes on"! LOL, sometimes it throws you a curveball too, we headed out to Manitou Springs on the 14th. We were heading under the Adams Crossing Bridge to the bike/ped underpass but it was full of Water and MUD!! Turned around and decided to go the back way via side streets into Schryver Park. I wanted to take a photo at the new mural painting at the Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort/Hotel and thought I'd do a video and a tour of the grounds but I goofed up and only took a PHOTO instead, DUH!! :( So we headed down El Paso St. into Manitou to pick up the Creekwalk Trail and finally got to the park. Took a break and then headed back the same way to pick up the Weber St. bike lane over to the Drive Inn for our afternoon snack and unsweet iced tea! 

August 16- Wed. is our normal weekly Food and Supplies shopping ride but today we spoiled ourselves getting a Italian Panion's wrap for lunch in downtown Colorado Springs, CO. Then we headed home via the Mesa Springs Greenway with a "break" at Monument Valley Park as it was 90 F+ with very little breeze took a break in the shade and the back to the MS Greenway and to the storage unit to tuck in the trikes and get back to our air conditioned apartment!! As we say, even a errand run can be FUN! 

2023-8-11-Errand Run and a unplanned meet up!

 LOL, well it's looking like my blog posts are following the same pattern of "catch up" for the month of August. As usual the same area rides, we just try to add something a little different each time if we can. Here is a video from the rides before the 11th. 

Although this next video isn't a RIDE, as we walked, it's about a slowly coming new section of trail, called the Rock Island Trail Connector, hooking up the Pikes Peak Greenway to both Rock Island and Shook's Run trails: 

The ride on the 11th. was just an Errand Ride, we needed to pay the internet/cell phone bill at our local T-Mobile store so we headed up the Greenway over to Cottonwood Creek Trail, then took the Vincent St. Frontage Rd trail over to the Nevada Ave Frontage Rd trail and head to T-Mobile store in the University Village Colorado Center. Paid the bill and then headed to Panera Bread for unsweet iced tea to drink with our brown bag lunch. As we got our table on the patio, Will and Vickey pulled up on their ICE trikes, it was nice to see them, we stayed outside and they headed inside to cool down in the AC! :) Always enjoy meeting fellow riders when we are "Out and About on the Recumbents"!! ;) 

From there we headed south on the PP Greenway over to Fontanero St. bike lane up to ride the north section of the Mesa Springs Greenway but the entry was blocked off as worker's had torn out the concrete and taped off the area, RATS! We headed South on the Greenway picked up the Bike/Ped overhead bridge over I-25 down into Monument Valley Park. Had a snack at Stanely Lake and then headed back to the storage unit to do a couple of adjustments to my trike. The clouds were rolling in but it never rained on us on our walk home. 18+ miles, lot's of smiles, even errands can be FUN on a trike! :)

August 6, 2023-Just catching up!

 Wow, I'm really behind on updating this blog sorry, it's been hectic here lately and I've been shooting more YouTube videos than taking photos for the blog! Picked up a new older, GoPro Hero 2 with the hard to find "deeper" waterproof clear case rear door so I can use the "rear view screen attachment. Bummer is the rear door won't quite fit in the "aftermarket case" I got for my GoPro Hero 3 White so I will be testing out the GP Hero 2 to see if the video quality is as good as the GP Hero 3, if so I will use the GPH 2 for video and the GPH3 for still photos. 

Ok, rides, well since we can't afford a truck or van and rentals are insanely priced since the Covid 19 Pandemic, it's mostly just the same rides as usual but we do try to "mix and match" trails, back streets and bike lanes to make each on a little different! ;) As stated haven't taken hardly any photos so I will just add the YouTube videos since July 5th. Enjoy!

July 5-24, 2023-A bit of an update and Very HOT ride on July 24th. Even if we started very early for us!

 Hello all, well I've been bad about keeping up with the blog, sorry! I've been doing a lot of YouTube videos as I've gotten a couple of older GoPro Camera's that I'm now using instead of my old CamPark 4K Ultra camera! The first on I bought a used GoPro 3 White version and then a friend gave me an orgianal GoPro, which I called the GoPro ZERO, LOL. The GP 3 is in very good shape and is easy to use, well except of the wi-fi remote, which I'm still figuring out how to use it!

The GP Zero, came with a "attachment", rear viewing screen and an "attachment" extra battery. Sadly, the GP ZERO, has quit working, it's stuck on photo mode and won't stop taking photo's till the battery or the 16G card is full so I'm trashing it. :( Got lucky the "attachment" rear view screen and battery pack works on the GP3!!!! :) Bad news, is that the GP 0 had a extra deep rear door on it's waterproof clear plastic case to fit both the camera and either of the attachments, it won't fit on the new GP3 waterproof clear plastic case so for now I can't use either, RATS! :( 

Our YouTube Channel is the same name as our Blog: Out and About on the Recumbents, so pls. check it out to see the rides we've done in last couple of weeks, thanks!

Now for the ride we did today, We got up a 6am and were out the apartment door by 7am, walked to the storage unit and got the trikes and headed out on the bike lane on Cascade St. by 7:35am. It was actually a bit chilly, which felt great! We've had 90 F+ temps for the last few days! We headed over to pick up the Pikes Peak Greenway off of Polk St. and then north up to the trail junction with, the Cottonwood Creek Trail. We rode the CCT to Academy Blvd. and then took the sidewalk up over to Starbuck's. Since it was to early for our usual "brown bag lunch", we just at a protein bar (homemade), and drank a very large and cold unsweet green iced tea! :) We back tracked on the CCT to the PPGreenway, heading south over to the Fontanero St. Trail Head/parking area to see if they got the detour set up for the PP Greenway on the WEST side of monument valley park yet, yep, it's blocked off. The are taking out a dozen telephone poles and digging underground utilities and then will widen the current dirt/gravel trail and we HOPE lay concrete, that will hook up to Monument Valley Park/Lake Stanley, then we hope they will lay more concrete to the bridge so the whole west side trail through Monument Valley would be concrete!!!! :) 

Here is some photos crossing several of the bridges along PP Greenway north and the Cottonwood Creek Trail: