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! 

April 20-May, 2024 What's going on? Ok here is the scoop!

 Hello, it's time for a bit of an update to the old BLOG! 

Well on April 24, I had Kirk at Angletech install a Bafang 500W, cadence sensing e-assist system on my 2011 ICE Sprint2 Special Edition. Combined with a 36V 14 amp hr battery and color display!! So I've finally gave in and decided at 70, I could use a bit of help on the steep hills and long uphill grades! 

April 25, decided to test out the new e-assist at the Garden of the Gods Park. Even though it has a "bike lane" all the way around, it has some really steep uphill grades. Usually I am "crawling" up the steep one's but with the e-assist on just level 2 out of 5, I can now climb steady and keep up with Jo on her e-assisted TRICE T!! It was a beautiful day for a ride, even if we did have to share the road with cars. 

Some of the steep uphill's has some steep down hills so I had to pack up the camera so I could have both hands on the brakes!! LOL, it was hard keeping the trikes at the 20 mph Speed Limit in the Park. We didn't do the double loop as it was getting time to get Jo some food so we headed for Iced Tea and a BBQ sandwich. I do like the e-assist but it will take a bit to get really use to, especially going from a 3x9 to a 1x9 drive train! 

 

May 29, Decided to try another ride that I didn't feel comfortable trying on the trike without the e-assist. We rode up the only paved road in Palmer Park to the "OUTLOOK"! The last time we rode this, we had lightweight road DF type bicycles and it was a TOUGH ride! Back then, you could drive a car up to the overlook and park along the rock wall, it could be pretty crowded! Lucky for us it's been redesigned! Now cars have to park in a parking area and you have to WALK or RIDE a bike to be able to access the OVERLOOK! Much more enjoyable. Here's a few photos from the overlook down into Colorado Springs!

May 5, We rode the upper section of the Cottonwood Creek Trail, we only usually do this section in cooler weather months as it get's HOT in the open areas in the summer!! This part has some short but quite steep uphill grades so the e-assist system really made it much less tiring ride for ME!! 

We've had several days of high winds and rain so not as much to report but hopefully the weather will get better now that were into May! Hope you enjoyed the update. I am happy that I went with the E-assist system but if had to do it again, I would highly recommend getting a system that is "Torque Sensing", instead of the "Cadence Sensing" type that I got as it does have a fast, strong kick at the start, where the other has a more "mellow" power on but it's not a real big deal, Happy Trails hope your Spring is letting you RIDE!