A nice Sunday ride and some info on the Shooks Run Rail Trail

Well the weather finally cooperated and we got a nice "whole" weekend! When we only get "one" good weekend day,  we have to use it for our, "motorcycle" so we can take it down the highway and recharge the battery. Sadly our "storeage area" doesn't have a "electrical plug" we could use to just attach a "trickle charger"! :(

So Sunday we went out for a bicycle ride, finally and had a real great ride, we picked a older and shorter local Rail-Trail here in Co. Springs, called the Shooks Run Rail Trail. It's got some rougher places but it's a good ride and has "2 parks" for picnics and a full service coffee shop, (Dog Tooth Coffee Shop), right on the trail. I'ts broken up by several intersections with city streets but all in all it makes for a easy Sunday bicycle ride!

Here's our bikes and my wife Jo at the Start of the Shooks Run Trailhead, which runs south along Weber St. for quite a while. There is also a great little "50's style cafe" 1/2 mile down the trail, called Tasty Freeze Drive Inn. The trail wonders south, a mix of concrete, asphalt in various state of need of maint. but any MTB or fat tire comfort bike won't have any problems:

Trail head for the Shooks Run Rail Trail and Junction to the Rock Island Trail North.



Current end of trail just past the tunnels, one day it will hook up with Las Vegas Street and the Tejon St. Bike Lane.

A sunny but breezy ride in Feb., together! :)

On Sunday Jo and I actually got to ride together for a change, Jo hasn't been able to ride much, she used to commute to work but now that we live only "1 mile" from her work we just, "walk" there.  So her poor bike has been collecting DUST, I wiped it down and lubed the chain and we headed out to ride on of our favorite rail-trails from America the Beautiful Park, downtown to Manitou Springs. It's 25 mile round trip and Jo solder on as best as she could, she could really FEEL the lack of riding but it was Sunny, 65 F with a 15 mph. headwind, (both ways, the wind always changes direction in the afternoon due to down slope from Pikes Peak!).

We took it easy and just cruised, lot's of riders on the trail today as Jan. was almost a total loss, riding wise. We rode back street bike lanes and side streets to get to America The Beautiful Park and picked up the "Midland Trail" to the Creek Side Trail into Manitou Springs. The have a Subway's just outside the park so we ate a good lunch while sitting outside! :) Had a real good day but Jo was a bit beat by the time we got back home and then had to go food shopping! It was really great to "Share the Road", I wished it could happen more often! :)

A rest stop on the Midland Trail.

Jo and the bikes at Soda Springs Park, in Manitou Springs, CO.

Gett'in the Goo!

Well it finally got decent enough for a short ride on Monday, I needed to pay the electric bill downtown so I decided I'd ride the bicycle.  Well I forgot it's Martin Luther King Day so the Utilities were closed. I needed to get some "sealant" put in my rear tire as I had to replace the old tube due to a "tiny cut" in the vavle core. I headed down to Ted's Bicycles here in Colorado Springs as he's the only dealership that sells, "True Goo", it's the only sealer I've found that won't foul the "valve core" after a few times of checking the air pressure.

So I headed north on a combo of  rail-trails, city streets and bike lanes, I sure wish they'd clean the crud out of the bike lanes in the winter months but it's not going to happen. There was still some ICY spots on the "concrete" rail trails so it was time to dismount the bike and walk it over as I'm 60 years old and hitting the ground hurt's!!!  The folks at Ted's are great about letting you just show up and they do the "Goo Squirt" into each tube, it's about $9.00 for the bottle and it does both tubes. Picked up a new "spare" tube and headed home. it was a fairly nice day, mostly sunny and high 40 F degress so it felt really good to be able to get out on the Mongoose! :)  Today is back to Freezing Drizzle and cold so the Goose is inside the apartment nice and snug!  Hope your getting to ride, ENJOY! :)