2020 : Our Rides in Words, Photos & Videos

[Readytoride]

...On my way back from this morning's short ride, I pulled over to chat to a lady out for a ride on the rail trail. "Dear old boy needs to take it slowly these days," she said. Well, of course, I had not the slightest idea how to judge a horse's age!...

The wear pattern on a horse's front teeth and back molars is the best indicator of their age since they are grazers and their teeth continue to grow throughout their life until about their mid 20s. Teeth develop particular wear patterns that are identifiable during certain life stages. After about age 20 the teeth stop growing, so the overall condition of the body (like ours) is used a fair sign of advancing years. About age 25 onward gray hairs tend to make an appearance in the coat above the eyes, a sure sign of advanced age. Most horses will develop diabetes around age 20 which results in a rough, curly, dull, winter length hair coat. An easy identifier that the horse is a senior citizen.

One thing that we all need to know is how to pass a horse on a trail, especially from behind. Slow down, call out, ring a bell, chat to the rider… anything, in fact, to alert the horse without startling it?

Horses have excellent hearing and very good distance vision that is "landscape" oriented. (Human vision is "portrait" oriented.) As soon as you are within "hollaring range" (50') slow down. Start with a hello-how-are-you-great-day-for-a-ride call out to the rider when you are about 30' away. That alerts the horse that there is a human in the area instead of an unknown threat. Continue to talk and strike up a casual conversation with the rider. By now the rider will have probably stopped their horse and turned slightly towards you so the horse can get a better look at you and your bike. Your talking is pretty much all a schooled horse will need to know everything is OK and not be spooked. Ask the rider if the horse is OK being passed by a bike. If the answer is yes, then ride past slowly STILL TALKING. Talk about anything - how cute the horse is, how nice the weather is to be out riding, how their ride is going, etc etc. Your voice is key to keeping a horse calm because it then recognizes this weird configuration on wheels as a (weird but OK) human. If the horse starts to look upset (backing up with ears alert to your presence, looking tense/scared) simply stop, dismount, and wait until the rider calms the horse and says its ok to go past. Remember to keep talking even as the rider works on getting the horse to relax. When all is well and good walk your bike past while STILL TALKING to the rider. Pass with enough room, but don't go off into the bushes, grass, roadside leaves in order to pass. You don't want to make extra noise on the approach, especially predator-type noises.

Don't ever ride by silently. Predators are silent, and horses know that instinctively. Blab away like you're at a cocktail party, stay on the road, be polite and pass slowly, and everything will be fine.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Thank you! Presumably, the rider will be relieved to meet someone who is both considerate and well informed.

I met the horse and rider yesterday on the trail just beyond the gate in the above photo.

 

[Readytoride]

@David Berry - absolutely! You also become a good ambassador for the cycling community as well. A win-win.

Abbreviated ride yesterday of 13 miles. I had planned for a 20 mile ride with my cycling neighbor. We were having a lovely time on the gravel roads up to 6.5 miles when she suddenly announced her front tire was going flat. Not just a soft flat. We're talking a pancake flat. My hubby didn't answer his phone (his cell was sitting on the sofa while he was outside doing something) so SAG support was unavailable. (And yes, a rather annoyed complaint was lodged with the management, and parties involved were reminded once again to keep their phone on them at all times while the bikes were out on the roads). Neighbor parked her bike and herself on a patch of nicely mowed grass on the side of the road and waited while I rode my bike back home, put the bike rack on the car with hubby's help, and hubby and I came back to retrieve her and her bike for a quick trip to the bike shop. She did say a nice motorcyclist going by stopped to make sure she was OK.

Bike shop had her flat fixed and bike ready while we waited.

Today we'll give the 20 mile ride a second try. The weather right now is stunning - clear, bright, cool - and the trees are starting to turn colors. A great time to be on a bike riding through the countryside.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

Time to revisit the hills?

D'Aguilar Range (from Fernvale)
6.35 am, 18 km​

Once again, it's time to head away from the flatlands and into the forested hills of the D'Aguilar Range (seen here from the rail trail with a to-be-avoided district B-road in the foreground). Let's plan the trip…

• Today is Sunday so the twisting road through the forest is best left to the motorcyclists who come up the far side from Brisbane and then return via the Brisbane River valley and village of Fernvale (pie shop!).
• Monday: I have arranged to meet friends for coffee in Brisbane (and take a few photos to share here – promise!).
• Tuesday will feature the long ride up the edge of Moreton Bay to visit Jen.
• Wednesday? The regular ride with the midweek group (can't dodge that).
• Thursday, Friday, Saturday? Well, definitely sometime before too long…

 

[Stefan Mikes]

The Day Of Three E-Bikes

There was something substantially wrong with the Trance E+ drive-train. I decided to ride to Jacek, yet I got bored with riding the same roads over and over. Taking into account the Trance was an e-MTB, I was wondering whether the Monster would be able to ride over the Main Kampinos Trail, which is a hiking trail in the Kampinos National Park...

It was fairly cold when I rode out. Yet "Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, es nur gibt falsch Kleidung". I was pleasantly warm; with the tailwind, I didn't even need to wear goggles. After 30 minutes ride, the ambient temperature suddenly rose and I had to get rid of most of the torso clothes, not even mentioning the balaclava or gloves! Here, you can see the Moszna Smoke Stack, a 1989 construction, never put in the operation. That was because the change of the political/economic system made people start saving energy and the new direct-heating plant turned out to be redundant. Nowadays, the Moszna Stack is an impressive mobile telephony antenna, and a landmark.

Workhorses are still used by some farmers. Here, in Zaborów, very near to the Kampinos National Park (KPN).

This trail is, perhaps ironically, named "The Wide Warsaw Road".

Is it mandatory that fallen trees always lay across the trail?! I expect that must be some intentional work of them darned foresters!

I met a group of English speaking people at the trail. This dialogue is how it had exactly happened:
-- Hey guys -- I shouted, smiling -- Do you mind me taking a picture? You see, I participate in an American e-bike forum and I think my friends might be interested!
-- No prob, go on! -- they shouted back.
-- Where are you from people? -- I wanted to know.
-- Us? We're from Warsaw...

"Meseems I see a horse"

Here, in 1939, a Polish tankette commanded by a Polish platoon-cdr cadet killed a serious German tank commanded by a German prince, a lieutenant.

The Main Kampinos Trail. Wide, flat, "There Be Sands". Cyclists avoid that trail or need to walk their bikes. Hikers stagger when conquering the trail. My Trance? She just cut the sand as easily as if a knife cuts butter! Mind you, the Maxxis Rekon tyres that replaced the original aggressive downhill ones are not that aggressive but could manage the trail easily.

A rail trail. Once, narrow-gauge trains used to transport ammunition to depots in the Kampinos Forest.

Once I reached my brother's place, Jacek found out the drive-train of the Trance was in a seriously bad shape. Cassette, rear hub. He started the work in the @Sierratim's style

My brother is an amazing person...

To express my gratitude, I let my brothers Jacek and Piotr ride the Trance by the end of October. Piotr is an MTB fanatic but he had no chance to ride my Trance yet. I collected my Old Faithful Mule Lovelec. The return trip was solely by paved roads. The Mule is a speed demon, only second to my Vado. It is only not off-road capable.

Once I reached home, I needed to do some grocery shopping. It started pouring. You know, "Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter..." The Vado was the perfect choice: Powerful integrated lighting, excellent fenders, and high-speed

Three different e-bikes ridden on the same day. Each of them being different. Each of them finding an application. Some people still ask me: "What do you need as many as three bikes for?"

Ride map & stats.

 

[Readytoride]

The morning was hectic for both my cycling neighbor and I, so having the afternoon set aside for some quality "bike ride time" was just the ticket for us to enjoy 22 miles of pedaling, unwinding, and conversation.

I had a particular set of roads I wanted to string together in a perfect pearl necklace of lovely vistas via flat gravel and paved roads. My neighbor, with her newly fixed front wheel (from a flat yesterday) was happy to tag along and preview the route with me. Before we left her house she had showed me the astounding reason for the flat - the bike shop had taped the offending miscreant to the repair receipt to show her what they had pulled from the innertube. It was the tinest of thorns. Practically invisible. So small and so thin you practically needed a microscope to see it. That was amazing in itself to have actually punctured a thick rubber mountain bike tire AND the innertube.

I would have laughed and declared the thorn a joke had I not been their victim myself a few months back when both my LaFree's tires, front and back, were abruptly and utterly flattened on one ride by these dastardly little monsters. I went on to have my bike shop install nonpuncturing innertubes in the LaFree and have been flat-free ever since. We could only surmise the thorns came from thistle bound in hay rolls, and surmised those thorns found their way onto the road when the hay rolls dropped random bits of hay while being transported.

But nothing was going to mar our afternoon today, and the ride was enjoyed immensely. The route was near perfection for a group of ebikers coming out to ride this week - the scenery is approaching spectacular with the autumn colors taking hold of the countryside, and mountain views are breathtakingly gorgeous as far as the eye can see.

Lately we have been experiencing an overabundance of cyclists on our roads. Today while running the morning errands both hubby and I were overwhelmed by the large number of cyclists within a 10 mile radius of our farm. I'm not talking just one or two bikers, but packs with riders numbering in the upper teens to mid 20s. Those are pre-pandemic group numbers that were rarely seen outside of the big organized charity rides. Now, with the charity rides all having been cancelled, more individually organized groups are filling up the vacuum, and those groups have been traveling to ride out in our western rural area to escape the overcrowding bike trails and car infested roads in the more eastern, more populated sections of our county. Saturday morning can be a ridiculous with all the cyclists on the roads, both paved and gravel.

By the afternoon, however, the groups have come and gone back home, and the roads are back to peaceful with only the over abundant bike tire marks pressed into the dust on the gravel roads to show what a zoo it had been that morning with bicycles everywhere.

My neighbor and I had the roads to ourselves, enjoying stops here and there to check out the semi-wildflowers, hilariously inventive Halloween decorations, and, of course, to admire the views.

Still warm enough for lightweight gloves and t-shirts, although we both slipped our jackets on midway through the ride as the clouds increased, robbing the sun of any presence in the sky and, by default, cooling the air.

Rain is expected tomorrow. Quite a lot from what I hear. The ground is a bit parched, and the roads a mite dusty, so some rain will be welcomed.

 

[Mulezen]

Very nice R2R...Central VA had your rain on Saturday, unfortunately it’s still present today. Appreciate the thistle warning...I’ll keep my ride away from the hay on the side of my barn

 

[RabH]

It was fairly cold when I rode out. Yet "Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, es nur gibt falsch Kleidung". I was pleasantly warm; with the tailwind, I didn't even need to wear goggles. After 30 minutes ride, the ambient temperature suddenly rose and I had to get rid of most of the torso clothes, not even mentioning the balaclava or gloves! Here, you can see the Moszna Smoke Stack, a 1989 construction, never put in the operation. That was because the change of the political/economic system made people start saving energy and the new direct-heating plant turned out to be redundant. Nowadays, the Moszna Stack is an impressive mobile telephony antenna, and a landmark.

Pretty ironic that I started my job in 1989 and was made redundant this year, at least I had over 31 years of use unlike the smoke stack!

@Readytoride I succumbed to one of those nasty thorns 10 miles from home today, resulting in an instant flat! I looked around the outside of the tyre first and couldn't see anything but after I removed it I found a very sharp thorn inside, time for new tyres I think, 8,500 miles from my Schwalbe Marathons and only 2 punctures so I had my money's worth! Ironically I passed a farmer cutting the said thorn bushes last week! Heavy rain here tomorrow also so my legs will enjoy a rest after today's workout of almost 57 miles and 3,694ft of climbing!

Apart from the puncture I had a great day today in very good conditions for the time of year, lots of cyclists out enjoying the sun and light winds which was nice to see! No rain at all today which is a big plus as we have getting more than our fair share lately! It was a liitle cold at first (3C) but it warmed up to a balmy 10C! 5 layers worked nicely to keep me nice and toasty, its only going to get colder now! I went a little crazy with the photos today, here is a small sample!

 

[Chargeride]

Did a ride on the other side of the river, all a bit run down, but packed with history and whats left after the war gives a good glimpse into the past
that played out on the world stage.
The docks of Cammell Lairds secretly built many of the Confederate Navys best ships including the CSS Alabama, which is a video I keep meaning to finish and today its refurbishing the Sir David Attenborough Antarctic surveyor, I got shouted at for filming through the gate, so only got a quick shot in the background, it was so much fun to explore every nook and cranny of a place you think you know so well.

Lairds went bust a few years back and I'm not sure how it's turning over now, but it seems to be mostly ship repairs., a friend of mine has a cottage in the Lake District near Hawkshead and finally got to talk to his secretive neighbour in the big house on the hill.
Turns out he was a major shareholder and casually lamented he lost £80 million when it went insolvent, my friend just said
'Oh dear'
The whole area just looks like someones untidy garage, with fantastic ornate gardens just boarded up and left to ruin, beautiful buildings with security shutters up, tatty 70s office blocks next to world class Town halls and squares, it really does remind you, nothing escapes the sands of time.

I parked up by the German Uboat they have chopped in half, but most of it is hidden and you have to pay to explore it, it was left next to the road intact for years and I rode home one night at 3am from Wales on my motorbike in thick fog, came around the corner and the front of it loomed out of the mist, its fare to say my mind nearly exploded with the sight, it was like I'd suddenly been transported underwater in the 1940s.
We watched it come up the Mersey and everyone was disappointed it wasnt actually steaming under it's own power, but on the back of a barge, we didn't really think that through, it had been underwater for 50 years.
Theres also a full size replica of a Victorian submarine, which looks almost comical and sank off the bay because they got out and forgot to close the hatch.

Anyway, heres the video, chill as usual.

 

[Prairie Dog]

Cycling along the Legacy Trail earlier this summer – Canmore to Banff (Banff National Park) with views of Mt. Rundle and Tunnel Mt.

 

[FlatSix911]

Stunning scenery!

 

[Prairie Dog]

Thanks. We are truly blessed that we have access to five national parks and over 140 provincial parks in Alberta.

 

[Chargeride]

Cycling along the Legacy Trail earlier this summer – Canmore to Banff (Banff National Park) with views of Mt. Rundle and Cascade.View attachment 68332View attachment 68333View attachment 68334View attachment 68335

Thats amazing, it looks unreal.

 

[Prairie Dog]

Canmore Visitor Center to Caribou Lodge (Round Trip)

Legacy Trail - 41.6 km, +295 m. Bike ride in Harvie Heights, Alberta

ridewithgps.com

It's definitely a popular spot in the summer particularly during these trying times. We rode it on a weekday and early in the morning to avoid the crowds later in the day.

 

[Prairie Dog]

My wife and I cycled a section of the Icefield Parkway outside of the Jasper Townsite last month prior to riding our bikes along Hwy 93A from Jasper to Athabasca Falls. This view of the Athabasca Glacier is particularly striking.

The Destination - Athabasca Falls

Jasper RV Parking Lot to Athabasca Falls (Return) Via 93A

62.4 km, +713 m. Bike ride in Jasper, Alberta

ridewithgps.com

Socializing with a local during a stopover at Wabasso Campground.

My wife begins her return to Jasper

 

[FlatSix911]

My wife and I cycled a section of the Icefield Parkway outside of the Jasper Townsite last month prior to riding our bikes along Hwy 93A from Jasper to Athabasca Falls. This view of the Athabasca Glacier is particularly striking.View attachment 68353
The Destination - Athabasca Falls

Jasper RV Parking Lot to Athabasca Falls (Return) Via 93A

62.4 km, +713 m. Bike ride in Jasper, Alberta

ridewithgps.com

View attachment 68357View attachment 68358View attachment 68363
Socializing with a local during a stopover at Wabasso Campground. My wife begins her return to JasperView attachment 68364
My wife begins her return to JasperView attachment 68362

Love the Squirrel photo... classic!

 

[Prairie Dog]

Yea, he/she hung out with us for several minutes before leaving in a huff empty handed.

 

[Deleted member 18083]

My wife and I cycled a section of the Icefield Parkway outside of the Jasper Townsite last month prior to riding our bikes along Hwy 93A from Jasper to Athabasca Falls.

PD…
Beautiful photos! They will bring back vacation memories for many of us (self included!).
…David

 

[Deleted member 18083]

The blue arch …

City Reach Boardwalk
Brisbane Central​

Who on earth decided that an artwork would make a suitable post for road signs, especially ones that aren't really necessary. I bet this happens elsewhere, too.

Enough moaning, here's another view of the boardwalk (further downstream) seen from a City Cat ferry. After a prolonged coffee break at a riverside café, most of the my regular city riding partners decided that we deserved an easier way home… as if riding ebikes along the edge of a tidal river were a chore!

New Farm Cycleway​

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Anyway, heres the video, chill as usual.

Were you riding the Mersey Tunnels? WOW!!!