More July rides

 Mainly just "kick'in" around rides lately. On July 14th. we were supposed to ride to a PPRRN "Meet & Eat" event at Rudy's BBQ and Country Store BUT it was cancelled due to 100 F early afternoon forecasted temps! Instead, Jo and I got up at 5 AM and after walking to the storage area, getting the trikes loaded up, we headed for the PP Greenway and rode to Panera Bread in the coolness of the morning!! After a great breakfast sandwich, we headed east doing the Nevada Ave frontage road trail and then headed back south on the PPGW to the T-Gap Trail, over the new concrete bridge. Stopped at some asphalt trail damage to take photos for GoCOS, trail maintenance website, hoping for a repair soon! 

 

July 16, Decided to ride the T-Gap trail, heading EAST, over Nevada Ave up to a pit stop at Portal Park. Continuing east, the trail, bends to the north and you get to a "junction" where you either go straight or turn left. We picked the straight trail, then jumped off on the Flintridge Rd. Bike Lane up to Academy Blvd and a Starbucks for iced tea and our infamous "brown bag lunch", LOL! Headed back to the T-Gap and turned north to the end of this fork at Ranch Road. Headed back down the T-Gap to the Junction, then took the LEFT fork, which turns "east" over the drainage canal, up two steep inclines to again dead end at a particular street. So we showed you both "ending points" of the T-Gap trail. Here's a couple of photos and a Video, enojoy!

July 18th. Just a weekly Food Ride, hooked up the cargo trailer and headed to the Walmart Neighborhood Market for the week's food and supplies. Afterwards, the clouds parted so we headed out to the McDonald's on Garden of the Gods Rd., via the PP Greenway and double wide sidewalks on the GoG Rd. Got a BOGO double cheeseburger and black unsweet iced tea. Sadly, while eating on their patio area the black clouds came over Pikes Peak, so we headed back to the storage unit, tucked the trikes in and walked the 1.2 miles home in a off an on lite sprinkle! 

July 19-20 "NO RIDES", the storage area was closed so the complex could be repaved, so no unit access till today, Sunday the 21st. BUT, it's pouring on and off rain so we've been regulated to short walks between storms, RATS! Maybe Monday but Tuesday thru Thursday looks good so we can get "back on the Trails"! :)

July 2024- A ride on the 4th. and more, for now, just hiding from the HEAT!

  It's been of and on, HOT or afternoon thunder storms! On 7-2 we did a short lunch ride due to the 90+ F heat on the PPGW and the Nevada Ave access road trails. 

Here are some photos, etc. on our ride in the Historic Old Northend 4th. of July Parade. We live just on the edge of the boundary of the HON of Colorado Springs, CO. The parade is a lot of kids on bikes and area parents with kids in strollers, wagon's etc. They set up a snack & drinks table in the open space along the old Soccer Field. It's a bit crazy as some to the kids zoom past and get a little "too close" but still fun! 

July 6, 

Other rides were short in duration due to the HEAT, on July 9th. we did a short area ride but didn't take any photos or video, sorry and then on July 11th. we decided to just get in our weekly FOOD Run to the Walmart Neighborhood Market to get food and supplies for the week ahead! We have another PPRRN (pikes peak region recumbent network), Meet & Eat at Rudy's BBQ and Country Store over on 31st. St. and Highway 24 at 11 AM, July 14th. We decided to try a "SUNDAY" to see if more members "might" be willing to show up but LOL, "who knows"! ;) Temps over 95 F for the next 4 days so we will probably NOT be out riding again till Sunday! All the best, hope you getting in lot's of "Miles of Smiles"! 

June 26, 2024, PPRRN Meet & Eat on the 22nd. and a very HOT ride (96F) on the 25th.

 I have been trying to get the riders from our Facebook, Pikes Peak Region Recumbent Network group to "gather" for a monthly, "Meet and Eat"! LOL, so far it's not caught on well but I will keep trying! A Meet & Eat is where you pick a "location" to meet and eat and let the "riders" figure out what routes they want to ride to get to the destination as so far, we don't have any weekend volunteer "RIDE LEADERS" step forward. I set up the event on our Facebook Page for Saturday June 22nd. at 11 AM at the Red Leg Brewery Complex. It has several different Food Vendors! It was a beautiful morning for a meet up, Jo and I as host's were there about 10 minutes early. Sadly, it was just US but we had an excellent Turkey sandwich from Oliver's Deli with the usual unsweet iced tea. We then headed out to see if the Sinton Trail South was passable, due to road construction closings. Got lucky and the path was open, from there, we headed down the PP Greenway over to the Weber St. bike lane to get more iced tea in a late afternoon stop at the Good Neighbors Meeting House. 20 mile day, hot and sunny, enjoyed it! 

6/25 It was a really HOT day, 96 F degrees for a high temp so we did a shorter ride along the Rock Island Trail, heading east to it's current ending point just before Powers Blvd. Did a turn around and picked up the Academy Blvd Pathway over to the Mavrick Station for iced tea and a brown bag lunch on their patio! Felt great to get out of the burning sun, filled up our 2–24-ounce water bottles with ice and water and headed back down Rock Island Trail over to the Tastee Freeze Drive Inn for, you guessed it "more unsweet iced tea" and afternoon snack homemade trail mix. Too hot to continue, headed back to the storage unit and then a HOT walk back to the air-conditioned apartment! Sorry no new photos or video as it was just "TOO HOT" to shoot them, BJ

June 19, 2024 From HOT to Chilly, Bi-Polar SPRING here in Southern Colorado!

 The weather has gone from HOT 90 F+ to 60 F chilly and lite rain, arrugh! Not a lot new, mainly getting in errand and FOOD rides with a recreational ride here and there. We did a video on what it takes for us to get those food and supplies.

It also shows the 1.2 mile walk, pulling a cart with batteries, etc. to be able to ride. It is a bit of a disadvantage to not have a garage or a closer storage unit. Still, it's a lot easier to not have to drag two recumbent E-trikes up and down 2 flights of stairs and thru several doors to get them into our 2nd. floor apartment!

On Father's Day, June 16, we headed over to the Cottonwood Trail as there is a good amount of shade on that trail. It was a VERY HOT day. 96 F was the high, of course we stopped at the Academy Blvd. & Cottonwood Creek Trail Starbucks for our brown bag lunch and ICED tea! 

On June 18th, we did another Food and Supplies ride but since it was a cooler day, mid 80 F temps, we added a ride down to America the Beautiful park and up the Weber St. bike lane to the Tasty Freeze Drive Inn to get a cold iced tea to go with our afternoon diabetic trail mix! Just 22 miles of cruis'in the greenways and enjoying the "not so hot" weather! Sorry, no photos of videos as we don't normally do them on a Food & Supplies Ride. 

Today is June 19, it's gray, cloudy and lite rain so no ride, tomorrow on the 20th. we have a service appointment at Angletech New front tires for Jo's trike, rear tire for mine, she is also getting a new rear suspension "elastomer", new-used seat cover and an alignment. Then in July, I get two new front tires/alignment, she get's a new rear tire. When you buy and have 6 tires installed it's a bit expensive!! Well that's it for now, the temps start going up again tomorrow, back into the 90's by the upcoming weekend. Sometimes the HEAT is kinda tough on us Seniors but I will take it any day over COLD! ;)

June 12, 2024-HOT Ride in the City!

 It's been several days of Wind and Afternoon Rains! Today was a day with a very small rain chance but the HEAT is back! 90 F, Sunny, breezy. One of our normal rides with the most shade along the route is the Midland Trail. Headed downtown over the Colorado Ave bike lane to America the Beautiful Park, stopped for a shade break and to fill water bottles! Butter'ed up with sunscreen and headed west towards Manitou Springs. We rode the Midland until it turned into the Creek Walk Trail, headed to the current end of the concrete trail, turned around by the Manitou Springs, Chamber of Commerce over a bridge back to the trail.

Headed East back to Schryver Park for break and then headed back along the Creekwalk Trail back to the Midland Trail. 

Stopped at Field's Park to get a photo of the trikes with the new giant flower statue, that's also a "Contemplating Bench" for kids! 

We followed the trail to 25th. Street and got off on back streets till Walnut St. bike lane due to "intersection reconstruction" at 21st. Street and Hwy. 24. Walnut Street bike lane to the Mesa Springs Greenway, took the pedestrian bridge over I-25 to Monument Valley Park, potty break, then found a bench in the shade and ate our homemade, diabetic trail mix. Picked up the bike lane by Colorado College to the Cascade St. bike lane heading North. Took that all the way to the turn off for our Storage Unit, put the trikes in the unit and then took a HOT walk back to the apartment! 

Note: we noticed that "Sunscreen" doesn't last half as long in 90 F heat, suppose to last, 80 minutes we put on more every 30-40 minutes and that worked well but uses a LOT of sunscreen!! Thursday, we have to go Food and Supplies, shopping, going to get and get going early to avoid the afternoon heat, 95 F is tomorrow's forecasted temps, YIKES, we now know how a piece of "frying bacon" feels like! ;)  

Early June 2024, The heat is on, finally!

 Sunday June 2, Well it's finally deciding to go from Spring to Summer, here in Southern Colorado! Sunny and warm, infact HOT! Time for short's and short sleeves, Sun Screen and lot's of fluids! Our ride was kinda a "couple of bridges to nowhere" affair, heading up the Pikes Peak Greenway, just across from the BMX track there is an old bridge, falling apart and I don't know it's history? 

Heading north we rode up to the Cottonwood Creek Trail to get to the Vincent Frontage Road Trail, Another old bridge to nowhere is the old Denver Highway bridge above the trail.

You will see it in the video above! We didn't turn left to continue on the Cottonwood Creek Trail, headed right and made our way to the Dublin Blvd/Nevada Ave trail heading over to the University Colorado Village Center and Panera Bread for iced tea and our brown bag lunch. 

We then headed down to America the Beautiful Park in downtown Colorado Springs to add to the ride. Great day out and about on the Recumbents!

 

From there we headed over to the Weber St. bike lane, heading north over to Cascade Ave and back to the storage unit, tucked in the trikes and went home.

June 3, We rode on the Templeton Gap Trail up to the Flintridge Road bike lane over to Academy Blvd and McDonalds, one of the few left with "outside" seating for again our iced tea and brown bag lunch. Heading back the way we came we headed over to Nancy Lewis Park off the Templeton Gap Road bike lane. Just stopped for a break, took some photos of the park.

Then we used back streets and the Fontanero St. bike lane to work our way over to Monument Valley Park and ate our snack, filled water bottle and sat in the shade by the YMCA pool by Stanley Lake.

From here, we picked up the Mesa Springs Greenway back over to the Pikes Peak Greenway and Popcycle Bridge, back streets over to Cascade Ave bike lane and back to the storage area, calling it a day! High 80's F and sunny, ah feel's like "SUMMER"! 

June 4, 2024, On yesterday's ride, the "mount" for the "speed sensor" for my e-assist system Broke, had to ride up to Angletech and have Kirk attach a new mount! Lucky for me I "ALWAYS" carry a few cable ties in my rack bag so I got the sensor to go back into place but had to go to the shop to get a new "mount" installed. From there to McDonalds on Garden of the Gods Rd. for a cheap hamburger and small iced tea for lunch, it was already hot so I called it a day and rode back to the storage unit, tucked in my "fixed" trike and walked home. Some rides are just errands or maintenance needed in nature so just 10 miles total but it's alway good to RIDE! :) 

May 2024, continued, Food Runs and Rides, lot's of WIND but sunshine and warmer!

 Not a lot new, getting in our weekly food runs with trikes and trailer. Thurs. May 23, we rode to Manitou Springs, decided to do a ride for MY enjoyment and not shoot any video and LOL, Jo didn't even take a photo so it's just words for that ride, windy, sunny and an enjoyable "day off" from making video's! :) 18 miles using different trails and a lot of back streets marked as Bike Blvd's., as their doing major intersection work on the Midland Trail so we had to take Pikes Peak Ave. in places, kinda a PITA but since the city/state DOT are trying to make them safer for Ped's and Cyclist's, it's worth the hassle! 

Friday, May 24, we are still having some problems with Jo's hydraulic disc brakes so we headed up Sinton Trail to, Angletech  to have Kirk re-check the brakes and he decided to re-drain the master cylinders and put in new fluid, that has seemed to fix the "dead lever" feeling! We headed up Sinton to Foothills to the Palmer Mesa Trail and the Overlook. They said they are going to tear out the old Asphalt section and pour concrete somewhere on the trail. RATS, I was hoping they'd tear out the asphalt on the first section of the Foothills Trail as it's VERY rough and NEEDS to be replaced! I wanted to see if they'd closed off any of the trail but doesn't look like they've started yet, enjoy the video!

Saturday May 25th, No video but we got out on another sunny, warm and WINDY day for a ride up the Rock Island Trail, wanted to check out and see if they'd re-opened the section of old asphalt that they finally decided to "re-condition"! It's finished and it's an improvement, but wish they'd have gone to concrete! The section was from Paso St. to Union Blvd. Now they could use to do the same from Templeton Gap Rd. to Paso St.! We headed up, took the not quite WIDE enough dirt spur trail to get to Constitution Court and Constitution Ave. to get across Powers Blvd. over to Panera Bread for unsweet iced tea and eat our brown bag lunch! Headed back the same way as the clouds were building, had to stop off at Safeway for a few food items, Love panniers, stopped at the apartment, unloaded and headed off to the storage unit. Got a few sprinkles on the walk home but no real rain! :)

That's it for now fellow Riders, hope your having great weather on less WIND on your rides, Sunday looks better and Memorial Day, we will be heading to do Ceremonies and grave visits, will shoot a bit of video to share for that day, REMEMBER, ALL gave Some, Some gave ALL! Have a "thoughtful" and safe Memorial Day, take the time to THANK those that gave it all to give us our FREEDOM!  

May 2-20, It's been a really wild month, personal and weather wise, here's a update!

Well, our personal life has been a bit hectic for most of the month of May! Sadly, my Mom, (Bertha Eldora George), passed away a bit back but we held both her "Celebration of Life" and her burial at Evergreen Cemetery, here in Colorado Springs, CO., May 11, then 13th. We wanted Mother's Day but the cemetery staff doesn't work on Sundays. We have had to have the Disc brakes on Jo's trike worked on and other misc maintenance items looked at. We do put a lot of miles on our trikes! We now both have E-assist systems on our trikes, her's is a Rear Hub Motor, torque sensing style, mine is a Inline, cadence sensing style. Her's seems "smoother" where mine seems more, "powerful"! 

LOL, this is all leading up to the same old problem, yep, I'm quite behind with the BLOG! ;)

So I will give you the photo's and video's o the rides we've done since May 1st., where I left off last time! Ride LOW, Ride SLOW, Let's Go, Ride Recumbent!

Jo had a hearing aid appointment, so I headed out to ride the Vincent Bridge route, it was going to storm in the early afternoon so I just did a short ride!

We decided to ride up to Cottonwood Park on the Cottonwood Creek Trail, we like doing this on a weekday as it's not as crowded as the weekends! Really nice, Sunny and Warm!

As you have noticed, we like the "Unsweet Green Iced Tea" at Starbuck's the best, it goes well with our Brown Bag Lunches! At a store on North Academy Blvd., we met a great person, her name is Kimi, she is a wheelchair person but she also rides a TRIKE for short distances and for "inside exercise". We got to stop and chat with her and a cool Biker, who was riding a Honda Goldwing Moto-Trike! She is on Facebook so we keep track of her there as we don't go to that store a lot! It's off of Academy Blvd and Flintridge Road, we come off the T-Gap Trail, take the Flintridge Rd. "bike lane" up to Academy Blvd. She is a really fun

personality!

  Well that fill's out the rides so far in May 2024, we've had a lot of RAINY and very WINDY days so far this month so not a lot of rides! Of course we have done our weekly Food Runs with trikes and cargo trailer! My new E-assist system is a BIG help with a fully loaded cargo trailer of FOOD and Supplies! :) Here are the VIDEO'S that go with the photo's, ENJOY! Ride LOW, Ride SLOW, Let's GO, Ride RECUMBENT!

Angletech Demo Days and "Spokes Fighting Strokes Ride" May 4th. We also lead the PPRRN "Meet and Eat Ride after checking out the Demo Days!

Cottonwood Creek Trail up to Cottonwood Park, lot's of uphill grades to test the new E-assist system! 

Templeton Gap Trail, "Chill'in Ride" and a surprise meet up with "Kimi", cool personality and fellow TRIKE RIDER!