hurronnicane

The vast majority of my rides are Ride to the Ride.  That is mostly because I have a personal trail network on a neighbor’s property that is a ten minute ride away.  We live west of Dripping Springs and there are no other trail systems that are very rideable from our house, though I have ridden to Pedernales Falls State Park a time or two.  One was with my 8-year old daughter towing a BOB trailer for two nights of camping.  The other was a training ride for my one and only Enchilada Buffet.  As the traffic on our county roads gets busier and busier it feels pretty sketch anymore.  

On our way to the Telluride-to-Moab adventure we did a fun ride at Phil’s World.  It was my first time there and it was great fun!

We just finished an amazing seven-day family ride from Teluride to Moab.  When I get home I hope to post a ride report.  

I was dealing with this before and through chiropractic, accupuncture, and a structural bodywork regimen it had gone away seemingly.  Recently I think it was aggravated by an awkward lifting of our bike rack.  We have been out of town and it was initially challenging to find help that would take my insurance and that had availability.  I finally found someone and got an adjustment yesterday, and have another scheduled for Thursday.  We leave Flagstaff on Friday for Teluride, and Saturday we begin a six day ride to Moab so I’m hoping that I hold up to long days in the saddle and a bunch of climbing!  

Anyone else struggling with sciatica?  I had a bout of it in the late winter and with chiropractic, accupuncture, and structural bodywork it went away.  But recently it flared up again and we are still in Flagstaff so it has been challenging to find practitioners that take my insurance and have openings.  Ugh.   

If nobody else wants them, which seems unlikely, I would love to have them, but we are in Flagstaff and won’t be back in Texas until early September.

Spent a couple of days camping on the North Rim.  We mostly hiked and gawked at the geologic awesomeness, but I did a little bit of riding on a portion of the Arizona Trail.

Flagstaff.  Really dusty, but lots of great trails to be sampled!

Flagstaff.  Third day of acclimating to the altitude.  Maybe worse than the altitude for me is the intensely low humidity (nose bleeds and headaches).  It is beautiful though!

Right before I left town I had my bike looked over, sealant added, etc.  The chain was badly worn and they replaced it.  I did not replace the cassette or chainring.   Now when I ride under a load it makes a clicking sound.  Will it likely wear in and be fine?  The sound already has definitely diminished but still makes a sound under a heavy load (climbing steep stuff).

Beating the heat by getting the hell out of Dodge.  

Today’s attempt at managing the heat almost worked to perfection on a ride at Pedernales Falls.  I stashed a frozen water bottle near the road at one of the points where Madrone crosses the county road.  An hour or so into my ride I retrieved the water bottle and used it to pour ice cold water on my head.  The next couple of miles were shaded and I was feeling pretty good with a mostly downhill route back to the car.  That was when I had a flat and realized that my CO2 inflator was in the other pack.  That left me with a three mile hike out pushing the bike.  There are few things worse than self inflicted suffering.  

Rode yesterday morning, about 8:30.  Rode fairly hard for just over an hour and spent the rest of the day trying to recover.  Got a headache about an hour after the ride and it lasted the rest of the day.  That seems to be my biggest symptom from riding in the heat.  Only three more months of this hopefully.

Today’s ride is brought to you by mountain pink.  

We have a Thule 2” hitch-mounted two-bike rack, but need to be able to carry a third bike for an extended time this Summer.  We could trade someone our two-bike rack while we borrowed their three or four-bike rack if that would help.  We would need it for all of July and August.  Or, we may need to find a bike box and ship the third bike (the bike is a large 29er).  Thanks for your consideration!

Excellent wildflowers at Reimer’s today.  In particular fire wheels were great and American basketflower (shown).  

Flat Rock Ranch in Comfort.

Yesterday we were riding e-bikes in Asheville, NC and today we were back home on our own bikes riding local.

Way too humid out there but there are rewards!