Charlie193

I’m looking at a new bike for my wife, which will be used for mellow trails- easy parts of SATN, green trail at Reimers etc. There are some decent looking sales on Orbea Occam and Rocky Mountain Element and Instinct at the moment. Does anyone have these (I’m looking at the cheaper alloy specs) and if so would they be overkill for mainly green trails? I’m leaning towards more travel than necessary as we won’t be doing long rides so I don’t care much about efficiency, and I think a more plush ride will get us on the trails more.

I used to like that bridge, and I think it was rebuilt then promptly destroyed again at some point. Probably by the same spiteful little turds that installed the massive gate of doom just north of there. Think this picture makes it look higher than it was, and I also might have been a little late in the game switching to wide bars.

Sneaking out before the rain arrives.

First trail in town was BCGB main-trail when I moved here in 2010, as I was renting on Spyglass Dr it was pretty much the only place I went for ages. Coming from somewhere with roots and mud (where riding in mud is fine) I found the rocks tough going to begin with, even though the main-trail isn’t that bad in the scheme of things. Still ride BCGB but live south now so use different trailheads, and I did eventually figure out there was more to explore there.

Escape from the heat in Cloudcroft.

I’ve also had enough of sock-burr season. Not sure what they come from, hedge parsley maybe? They’re a pain in the arse to remove but any I miss are immediately happy to transfer to my wife’s clothes in the laundry to get me in trouble.

SATN because it’s close and I prefer riding from my house to driving to ride. After that BCGB is also close, and Walnut is near my office when I’m working from there. I tend to try to keep my travel time low.

Have you done much riding in Cloudcroft since the move? I went a couple of years ago but ended up not taking the bike as I didn’t want to leave it on the rack at Carlsbad Caverns for a couple of hours unattended. Probably heading there again later this summer.

Old thread but I thought I would add one more to the “don’t ignore it if things feel off” crowd. I started feeling like my heart was racing while riding around Christmas, and thought it was probably because I was getting over being sick around Thanksgiving. It didn’t really improve so I got a 24hr monitor from the cardiologist my Dr. referred me to. I went out for a ride with the monitor which showed my heart rate peaked at 262 with several arrhythmias. Cardiologist freaked out a little, additional tests (stress test and echo) were normal so I was sent to an electrophysiologist who thought I either had an an extra electrical pathway (Wolff Parkinson White syndrome) or more general atrial fibrillation. I had an ablation on Thursday which hopefully treated atrial fibrillation (no evidence of WPW was found). If it worked I should be back to normal shortly. It has been a strange few months though- I’m not super fit but I’ve always been fairly active and reasonably healthy, so this wasn’t an area I was expecting to have problems with.

Just got an Outbound Trail Evo to replace an Amazon special (Victagen) on the bars, with a Lumina 950 on my helmet. Only used it once so far and it’s great.

My kids are 7 and they both like the green trail at Reimers. I think I first took them there just before they turned 6 and they did fine. There are a couple of rocky spots in the first few minutes but it is mainly smooth. There’s not much shade though so we don’t go in the summer. They also ride on SATN quite often, usually starting at the Walgreens next to Bowie high school (5011 W Slaughter Ln).

Yeah, I’m liking it so far, despite the small bed/open trunk. Part of the reason for getting a truck was that I’m thinking about getting a camper, and the 7500 lbs towing capacity was the best I could find for a mid-size truck. The only irritation so far is that I’m using my hitch rack while I decide how to get all the bikes in the truck, and it triggers a warning alarm every time I reverse. I feel like someone else here had that issue, possibly @AustinBike? Anyway, hopefully I can disable that somehow.

I was looking for either new or relatively low mileage used. I was looking for the more economical f150 engine, with 4x4 , and a towing package. Didn’t find anything, and my wife pointed out that I was worrying about a size issue with the Ranger that would be a problem at a point when I might have changed vehicles anyway. So I got the Ranger.

They’re only 6 so not huge, but I’m about 6’4 (which is probably only tall-ish by today’s standards) and there is very little space behind me in the Ranger when I put the seat all the way back. Whatever I buy I will probably keep until it falls apart, so the space will probably be more of a problem in the future. My F150 search at the weekend was a failure though, so I might be back to considering both again.

Well rats! I was all set to get a Ranger 4x4 and went to take a second look at one- my kids are shaping up to be pretty lanky, and they might fit in the back now but it won’t work for a vehicle I want to keep for a long time- it’s looking like I might have to get something bigger anyway. Not sure why I didn’t notice the lack of legroom the first time. New vehicle excitement must have taken over.