2023 - Our Rides in Words, Photos, Maps and Videos

[DiggyGun]

One thing is sure: I'm remaining in the e-bike community! Yes, I am an e-biker, and cannot return to traditional cycling anymore

Well done though, you gave it a go.

Carry on now and enjoy your eBikes and, continue to give us some good stories to read.

DG…

 

[Prairie Dog]

Kudos Stefan for giving it your best. No harm, no foul. The Diverge is one sweet looking ride and would have been a nice addition to the household.

 

[Prairie Dog]

It was cool day for a ride and I mean that in the literal sense. The mercury dipped to 7C near the end of the ride and leggings, thermal headbands and warmer gloves were definitely appreciated with bitter northerlies making it feel much colder. We managed to get in a 38 km spin before it started to rain.

Only a handful unswathed crops remain in the fields with most like this one having been harvested over the past week.

Sai zips up for the return leg home. To the south, the sun was still peeking out from the clouds as it casts a perfect shadow of her and the bike against the blacktop.

Heading west into a crosswind, any glimpse of sun is shrouded in darkening skies as we sprint towards home base.

I’m going to try and fit one more mtb foray at one of the mountain parks next week. Snow is in the forecast for Banff/K-Country tomorrow but it doesn’t appear that it will be cold enough for it to stick around for long.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Thank you guys! After I move into my Old Home again (I need space!) and earn more money, I would be tracking the developments regarding the Creo 2, the true gravel e-bike. Perhaps Specialized would release the alloy version of that e-bike for 2025? I'm tempted, even with the current carbon version Oh my, 25 km/h speed restriction makes a road e-bike an absurd here but a 25 km/h gravel e-bike makes a lot of sense!

When I was struggling that 4.1% ascent, I was trying to recollect I could make the Góra Kalwaria climb on some rented Specialized bike. Ah, yes, that was a road Creo E5. An e-bike That 8.6% climb is easy for Vado 6.0 or Trance E+ but even a Vado SL has no issues with the 8.6% incline!
---------
Art, see how strange it is about the weather. Last year's September was as cold as I had to wear my Winter Armour Lite. You say it's cold in your area now. While, we enjoy warm Indian Summer here... Summer, please last!

 

[Prairie Dog]

Art, see how strange it is about the weather. Last year's September was as cold as I had to wear my Winter Armour Lite. You say it's cold in your area now. While, we enjoy warm Indian Summer here... Summer, please last!

Nice to know that at least you are enjoying the perks of an extended summer season. With that said, I haven’t lost all hope for a few more fair weather days in the long range forecast even if it means layering up on the rides that aren’t so pleasant. Tomorrow doesn’t look very promising either but at least we’ll stay dry. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what El Nino has in store for us for the remainder of the year.

 

[Chargeride]

you can see where I get it from, 87 year old dad.

Streamable Video

Watch this video on Streamable.

streamable.com

He's fine.

 

[Djangodog]

The Park Loop road in Acadia is one of my favorite rides. I rode it on Tuesday and had a GoPro on my chest. The bike is my Wilier GT-S Carbon road bike, (not my eBike). There was still some smoke in the air from the Canadian wild fires, so the sky is not a bright blue. The ride, including Cadillac Mountain is a little over 31 miles and total climbing is approximately 3,000’. I hope that some of you will enjoy it.

 

[DiggyGun]

Today’s ride was just a short, quick one to test a new saddle, a Selle Royal Respiro Relaxed saddle.

Didn’t like it that much, it was comfy to start with, but could feel it wasn’t that comfy even after this short distance.

Will keep looking.

DG…

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Didn’t like it that much, it was comfy to start with, but could feel it wasn’t that comfy even after this short distance.

I used that saddle a way too long. It was ruining my butt even if it looked comfortably! Changed to more sporty saddles to a great effect.

 

[Chargeride]

Again, I was a single passenger on the Gassy ferry. The ferry is doomed. The Southern Bridge has diverted the traffic off the Karczew-Gassy river crossing, and the ferry is mostly used by cyclists and only on weekends...

 

[Chargeride]

The Park Loop road in Acadia is one of my favorite rides. I rode it on Tuesday and had a GoPro on my chest. The bike is my Wilier GT-S Carbon road bike, (not my eBike). There was still some smoke in the air from the Canadian wild fires, so the sky is not a bright blue. The ride, including Cadillac Mountain is a little over 31 miles and total climbing is approximately 3,000’. I hope that some of you will enjoy it.

That tune and the visuals are just perfect, makes we want to ride it, on an ebike of course.

 

[Djangodog]

That tune and the visuals are just perfect, makes we want to ride it, on an ebike of course.

Thanks. It’s a magical place and I can’t take credit for the scenery or the first three tunes. The last tune was an iPhone recording of me playing my Martin 000-28. It wasn’t the best and the iPhone is a poor recording studio, but the length of the tune fit and seemed to work so in it went.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

A Bunch of E-Bike Anecdotes From The Last Month

E-bikes seem to have caught in Poland, now not only in our mountains but on the plains, too.

The Amp-Hour Man
As I was waiting at the closed railway crossing barrier, a man rode up to me. His ride was a small folder e-bike (it looked pretty lightweight!) The man took a peek on my Vado 6.0.
'It's an e-bike, isn't it?' -- he inquired -- 'What is the battery size?'
'It's six hundred and four watt-hours' -- I replied. He seemed to be confused -- 'In ampere-hours please?'
'Well, you describe the battery charge in watt-hours' -- I tried to educate him a little -- 'as the amp-hours mean nothing without the voltage figure'
Eventually, I used the calculator on my smartphone and said -- 'It is 16.7 amp-hour' -- to which he answered in awe -- 'That's a huge battery!'.

I learned his folder e-bike was a 13 Ah battery, and it only weighed 24 kg, that is, it was 2 kg more lightweight than my Vado! The man looked to be totally happy with his ride, and I admit he had good reasons to be happy, especially as he was actually pedalling his e-bike.

The Jobobike I saw.

For me, the difference between expensive and cheap e-bikes is the former seem to be powered by Wh and the latter ride on Ah

Big Mid-Drive E-Bikes

Wilanów is our iconic "the richest quarter" of Warsaw. Both Specialized Warsaw and META Bar are located within Wilanów, near to its border. The META is the place where you see the more expensive e-bikes frequently. Now, full power e-bikes with big internal batteries have become fashionable. It could be a KROSS (Polish big brand) or a SCOTT, or CUBE. All those e-bikes looked similarly to one another: low-step, big frame, looking very heavy. Compared to those, my Vado SL looked like a pedal bike

Wanna a "Wilanów worthy" e-bike? It needs to match the style!

The Darwin's Award Candidate
As I was returning from my short grocery shopping ride on Saturday (it was just after the rainfall), someone overtook me at very high speed, silently. It was a boy, a slim teenager riding a DIY mini motorcycle (a.k.a. #itridesitselfebike), the one with the frame triangle totally filled with a home-made battery, and a big hub-drive motor. And the throttle, of course.

They boy was zooming a 400 m long stretch of our street this way and the other. As he was braking before doing a U-turn, his rear wheel slipped but the boy could regain the balance.

He rode without a helmet.

His mother would weep.

 

[Readytoride]

Thanks. It’s a magical place and I can’t take credit for the scenery or the first three tunes. The last tune was an iPhone recording of me playing my Martin 000-28. It wasn’t the best and the iPhone is a poor recording studio, but the length of the tune fit and seemed to work so in it went.

Are these the old carriage roads built by the Rockefellers, or new pathways? We drove the gravel carriage roads a million years ago with our pair, when bikes were restricted as to where they could be ridden. It's been decades so my memory isn't the clearest.

 

[Readytoride]

18 lovely miles yesterday, sneaking away from the farm for a bit over an hour, and setting on the back burner the list of projects needing my attention. The temps were perfect for a bike ride so I left hubby, who was busy painting Rustoleum on the metal farm gates, and took off down the road. I had intended to do at least 20 miles as quickly as possible, so headed straight up the paved road towards a lakeside development to see if they had finished the last stage.

3 years of residential development for the acreage around the lake has resulted in a tightly knit community that now sports a lovely walking and biking path that winds through the entire development, around the lake, connects through to the main road into town. It was a pleasant find, and one that im sure to utilize in the future.

The paved road in my area, once a very quiet and little used road, is now very busy at all times during the day. So much so that law enforcement has set up a large digital sign off the side of the road nwar the development entryway that flashes your speed at you in a massive, pulsing shade of digital yellow, even if you are going at the limit or below. The sign doesn't care. It just seems highly annoyed at every one of the cars, and clearly hates its job. It didn't like my bike either, judgmentally "yelling" at me for going 23mph in a 45mph zone.

I was having a lovely time otherwise. The traffic, while heavier than I expected, was polite, and the paved road was fast and smooth. No time for pictures as I was on a roll to be out and back within the hour timeframe, and before the temps warmed up. Overshot that hour by goofing off at times, as well as making a side trip to a friend's weekend farm to see if she was there (she wasn't, unfortunately) to ask her about her new horse. I learned a week ago from her hubby that she had suffered a broken arm and one or two nasty falls from her prior horse, so here's hoping she has better luck in the saddle with the new horse.

Then it was back home to move the newly painted gates onto their new posts which had been dug and planted the day prior. A few more posts needed to be lifted and reset, a project that took us through the rest of the afternoon.

 

[peterh_nz]

Hello everyone

Today (Oct 1) marks the beginning of "Biketober" our local month long celebration of cycling.

This evening the bike documentary "The Engine Inside" was screened. It's not specifically about ebikes and is about the place of bicycles in communities and people's lives around the world.

The trailer may be viewed at:

And further information at:

The Engine Inside

www.engineinsidefilm.com

In my opinion, the documentary is well worth a watch if you have the opportunity. There is some product placement but fortunately it doesn't detract.

Cheers

 

[Chargeride]

18 lovely miles yesterday, sneaking away from the farm for a bit over an hour, and setting on the back burner the list of projects needing my attention. The temps were perfect for a bike ride so I left hubby, who was busy painting Rustoleum on the metal farm gates, and took off down the road. I had intended to do at least 20 miles as quickly as possible, so headed straight up the paved road towards a lakeside development to see if they had finished the last stage.

3 years of residential development for the acreage around the lake has resulted in a tightly knit community that now sports a lovely walking and biking path that winds through the entire development, around the lake, connects through to the main road into town. It was a pleasant find, and one that im sure to utilize in the future.

The paved road in my area, once a very quiet and little used road, is now very busy at all times during the day. So much so that law enforcement has set up a large digital sign off the side of the road nwar the development entryway that flashes your speed at you in a massive, pulsing shade of digital yellow, even if you are going at the limit or below. The sign doesn't care. It just seems highly annoyed at every one of the cars, and clearly hates its job. It didn't like my bike either, judgmentally "yelling" at me for going 23mph in a 45mph zone.

I was having a lovely time otherwise. The traffic, while heavier than I expected, was polite, and the paved road was fast and smooth. No time for pictures as I was on a roll to be out and back within the hour timeframe, and before the temps warmed up. Overshot that hour by goofing off at times, as well as making a side trip to a friend's weekend farm to see if she was there (she wasn't, unfortunately) to ask her about her new horse. I learned a week ago from her hubby that she had suffered a broken arm and one or two nasty falls from her prior horse, so here's hoping she has better luck in the saddle with the new horse.

Then it was back home to move the newly painted gates onto their new posts which had been dug and planted the day prior. A few more posts needed to be lifted and reset, a project that took us through the rest of the afternoon.
View attachment 163684

I need to live on snickersville Turnpike

 

[Chargeride]

Hello everyone

Today (Oct 1) marks the beginning of "Biketober" our local month long celebration of cycling.

This evening the bike documentary "The Engine Inside" was screened. It's not specifically about ebikes and is about the place of bicycles in communities and people's lives around the world.

The trailer may be viewed at:

And further information at:

The Engine Inside

www.engineinsidefilm.com

In my opinion, the documentary is well worth a watch if you have the opportunity. There is some product placement but fortunately it doesn't detract.

Cheers

I remember as a child watching bbc documentaries showing the chinese all riding bikes around their towns and cities, and the general insinuation was that they were all a bit backward and needed to up their game and get cars.

And here we are asking everyone to get back on bikes.

Careful what you wish for I guess.

 

[Djangodog]

Are these the old carriage roads built by the Rockefellers, or new pathways? We drove the gravel carriage roads a million years ago with our pair, when bikes were restricted as to where they could be ridden. It's been decades so my memory isn't the clearest.

The route in the video was not the carriage roads, (they are packed gravel). After this ride I took my eBike out to the Carriage Roads that the Rockefellers built and rode another 34 miles). The Carriage Roads are nice, but the Park Loop road and Cadillac Mountain are the thing that I come here to ride, (I am fortunate enough to have hundreds of miles of local gravel that I can ride at home. The local gravel is not as groomed and there are some motor vehicles, but it is as scenic, so I consider myself very fortunate to live in the mid Connecticut River Valley of New Hampshire).

I do love Maine, the mountains, wildlife and the ocean, so Mount Desert Island is my idea of a perfect destination, and I can drive there in about six hours.

 

[peterh_nz]

I remember as a child watching bbc documentaries showing the chinese all riding bikes around their towns and cities, and the general insinuation was that they were all a bit backward and needed to up their game and get cars.

When I first worked in China in the early 1980s I remember thinking at the time what a congested mess the streets were going to be when they can afford cars.