Beating the heat

It seems fall might come early to Texas.  The temps this morning were in the mid 70s with a strong breeze.  Absolutely wonderful.  I pedaled along at about 5 mph in no hurry at all, just enjoying being out today.   You can see how crowded the trail was.  In 2 hours I saw about 10 people total.  I'm looking forward to the next few months of great riding weather.

Some like it hot!

My Saturday went from a boring trudge to a long slow grind that led to me getting slammed in the backside and then ended with a Blond Bombshell.  And it was wicked hot.

What, you want details?  Ok.  I decided to go hiking with a group of people Saturday morning in the woods about an hour north of here.  Too much of it was uphill, through soft sand or on a long asphalt road.  Here is the group taking a short break before more uphill trudging.

 When it got up to 95 degrees I told the group I was taking the shortcut back to the parking area and promptly hitched a ride with a passing car.  I left my hiking buddies to another two hours of trail I wasn't interested in.  I told them I'd meet them at the brewery later as planned.

This is one of the roads we hiked along that joined a couple trails.  This isn't the car I hitched with, wish it had been, they looked like they were having fund as they blew past horns honking.  There was about 20 of these antiques of various models.


How hot was it out here? Hot enough for almost all the ground cover like these ferns to be dried to a crisp.  Fire hazard for miles.

Anyway, on the way to the brewery after a stop for lunch a dingy girl hit my car at a stop light.  We pulled over to look at the damage and there wasn't really any so we decided to not worry about it.  Oh, and the blonde?

Southern Star Southern Star Brewery makes a great beer I discovered called Blonde Bombshell.  How good?  It turned to this really quick--->


It made up for what was otherwise mostly a crappy day.

Riding Out of Control

When I started out riding my trike a 2-3 mile round-trip ride was enough to get me slightly winded.  I was, and still am, very out of shape.  I’ve made an effort to ride 2-3 times a week and doing my best to make one a weekend ride of around 3 hours.  I’m up to 18 miles in a 3 hour window without being exhausted.  As I work in increasing my average moving speed (I spend too much time sightseeing) I will build total miles quickly.  I’ve been testing some smartphone tools to work as a cycling computer, I think I’ve settled on Endomondo, it’s nice and does what I think I need. But because it took me so long to pick one and switching around I lost track of my mileage so far. My current estimate is about 175miles.  A paltry sum I plan to build on enormously.                           

So what’s the point?  I ride mostly on paved trails like this one:

I’ve gone a few hundred yards on some wide dirt paths (flat as a board here in Houston) So my trike has been pretty gently used so far.  But the other day in the middle of a ride down a wide pave trail through the Heights my steering yoke started to wobble from side to side.  Tightened the nut the runs through the frame that I thought might be loose. No change.  So when I got home I took off the seat to see how I could tighten up whatever was loose. The handlebar was deflecting about an inch up and down on either side and that’s really annoying.   It’s a new trike so some things have worked loose as I’ve ridden cables have stretched, brakes needed adjusting, all the things I expected.  But under the seat I discovered this:

The weld on the Steering Brace seems to have failed.   It’s been gently used and doesn’t have that many miles on it so far.  I’ve never abused the steering yoke.  I dismount by grabbing the top of the front tires and standing up. I sit down in a similar fashion.  So it’s not from me pressing on one side other the other with a lot of weight.   I discovered this just a week before an organized ride with a cycling group I just joined and this isn’t a part I can pick up at the local bike shop.  Its a key part, of course, in keeping control of my trike and I don't want to risk it failing the remainder of the way while riding.

So first thing Monday I called up TerraTrike to find out what part, how much, Is it possibly under warranty, etc?  Can I even get it by this Saturday?  They told me I could get it by then for $66 Plus $11 for shipping.  But since I bought it through UtahTrikes and I wasn’t in their system I needed to call them for warranty replacement.  I’ve had a great experience with the guys and gals at UtahTtikes so far so I called them up.  I don’t know who I talked to that day, but he asked me to take some pictures of the part and the trike to show the damaged part and that the trike was undamaged.  So I did that and emailed them off.  By the end of Tuesday I was getting worried about potential shipping delay making it impossible to get the part by Friday so I resolved to just purchase the part warranty or no and get it overnighted.  Since they said it was in stock and I had already been talking to them I called up UtahTrikes again and explained to Ashley what I needed.  I didn’t even mention that I had talked to someone else about possible warranty replacement.  But he had seen the email and guessed that it was me.  He was confused as to why the folks at TerraTrike handled things this way and said that he would ship me the part if i send the old on back to him.  he said he could weld it back in place in 2 minutes and powder-coat it back to original condition.  I believe that would be easy for them.  Go have a look at the custom trikes they do.  Awesome stuff.

Anyway, the part came today and I've go to get it on before its too dark, I don't want to be messing with this the night before the ride.

When the lights go down in the city

So you want to ride your bike at night?  You better have a crap ton of lights to see where your going and more important be seen. I'm still planning to get more for my bike.  But for now I have the Planet Bike Blaze 2Watt LED Headlight lights I mentioned in a previous post for the front they are really bright, but my biggest worry has been not being seen when approached from behind.  So I got a Portland Design Works Radbot 1000 1W LED Tail Light it has a reflector and a hellishly bright red light that can be set steady, flash slow or epilepsy inducing flash.  I also hung a pair of Serfas Guppy Combo Bicycle Light Kit on my highly reflective PurpleSky flag on the back.  They also have flashing and steady modes.  They are easy to hang anywhere and if placed against something, (backpack, seat back, etc.) they will light up a good sized area to add to overall visibility.  I still want to get a second rear light the Planet Bike Blinky Super Flash 1/2-Watt Blaze LED Plus 2 eXtreme LED Rear Bicycle Light probably, its really popular too and should make for an impossible to ignore combo with the Radbot.  I attached the rear light with zip ties on the rear rack using the mounting bracket that comes with the Radbot, the are well attached and don't move.  I still plan on more reflectors and maybe some down-lights under the seat or frame.  I may be paranoid, but I will be noticed.



In the summer in Texas the best time to ride is early in the morning or late at night.  And going without lights at night well, you won't be doing that too long.  Do yourself a favor and get as many lights as you can stand.


Click on one of the links to check out more reviews and get the best safety equipment you can find, even a minor car/bike accident is bad for the cyclist.

New trike work stand

PVC is my friend.  I took the plans from Utah Trikes website.  Trikes and PVC Article I bought all the parts for about $33.  Then in the morning, I chopped up the pipe with my saw.  It all fit together just fine.  So I started taking it apart and gluing it back together.  That could have gone better; I glued a part wrong and had to hammer on the thing to get it to go together. The crossbeam in the front is missing some pieces.  I actually broke my rubber mallet hammering it together.  But it’s assembled its sturdy strong and lightweight.  It makes tuning the tike up a lot easier.  I can’t imagine a cheaper way to get a decent safe stand for a trike. 

Anybody have a different stand or way to work on a trike without knelling on the floor?

George Bush park trail

I've been testing out various tracking programs for my phone.  Google's My Tracks works really well with lots of different data,  The one I think I like the most though is Endomondo.  Its pretty user friendly and the web tools allow you to find and plan routes.  The phone will give you updates every mile of how long that last mile took and the expected total time of the route based on what you've done up to that point.  It butts in to my podcasts, but it does help me keep the speed up when I notice the total expected time starts going up.  No I just have to figure out how to embed it here properly...

Endomondo Cycling Workout: "was out cycling 17.73 miles in 2h:49m:50s using Endomondo."

Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

I have been traveling around town looking for the best places to ride my trike. I have not explored even a third of them yet. There are many nicely paved trails in Houston as well as wide dirt trails that work well for a trike. That said the hard part is not finding a trail, its finding parking for your car! Oh, I've found a few places close to a number of trails, but not many look like my car would be safe even for an hour unattended, especially if the "locals" watched me cycling away. Not to mention parking tickets and getting towed.

Why not just ride out of your garage and go wherever you want? Well I could cross the highway I suppose. I might live. And I could ride on the shoulder of a few of the roads with 50mph traffic and hope all the cars stay in their lanes. Then there are the roads with no shoulders and no sidewalks at all. I can get about 3 miles of safe low traffic roads near my home, but even repeating that a second time doesn't really last long enough, and going in circles bores the hell out of me. So I have to drive to some place to ride most of the time.

Putting my trike in my CRV isn’t too hard, the back seat folds down and I roll it in easily. The back wheel of my Cruiser comes just barely between the front seats. It’s actually better than using a bumper rack I think. When I carry my wife’s and mine I put mine on the roof and tie it on with rope and put hers in the back. Hers is much heavier and would be harder to do the overhead press necessary.

So for the time being I have found five different places that have over 10 miles of trail with a good parking spot close to the trails I like. I have three more to try and I will keep searching the others for good parking.

Anybody in the Houston area have suggestions for locations?