First 50-Miler!

Our training continues to go well. We've ridden more than 450 miles since Patti got home from her trip to Idaho. Our rides have averaged about 30 miles each. We did our first 50-mile ride on May 28th, exploring a route from Francesville to the Tippicanoe River State Park. Our actual distance was 54.2 miles. Took us 6 hours and 50 minutes of pedaling to get it done. Not fast! Nevertheless, now we know that we actually can do 50-mile rides ... without dying! 

The question remains, however, can we do it for 18 straight days? That's about how long we figure it will take us to ride from Indiana to Albany, New York later this summer ... if we ride straight through ... if we average 50-miles per day. Actually, it probably doesn't matter all that much. We intend to ride to Albany at a comfortable pace for us, enjoy the journey, take rest days if we need them, and let the miles/day shake out as they will. We have no deadlines to meet. Our goal is the journey itself. We'll let the younger people worry about setting land speed records. 

We also accomplished several other "firsts" while completing our first 50-mile trip. For one thing, we logged our first 1,000 miles on our trikes. Watching that number roll over on our odometer was a satisfying experience in its own right, especially given where we started. We also experienced our first flat tire, despite our Kevlar-armored Schwalbe Marathon tires. We put those tires on our trikes specifically to reduce the risk of flats. Ironic, huh? The flat happened on my trike's right front tire. Actually, the same tire went flat twice within about 15 minutes. We checked the tire out thoroughly after the first flat. Or, at least we thought we did. We examined it both inside and outside, looking for any sharp thing that might have caused the flat. We found nothing, installed a new inner tube, pumped it up, and rode on ... for about 15 minutes. 

We checked the tire even more thoroughly after the second flat. This time, Patti spotted a very small object embedded in the tread. It appeared, after she dug it out, to be a tiny piece of sharp, flint-like stone. Lesson learned!  Thankfully, we were packing two spare tubes with us. Otherwise, we would have found ourselves sitting in the hot sun, on the side of the road 25 miles from home, trying to find and patch a very tiny hole. 

     

Learning, of course, is part of the fun. We have learned, for example, that the amount of time we've had to devote to riding each day has increased as the length of our rides has increased from 10 miles per day to more than 30 miles per day. It's beginning to seem that all we do is ride, eat, sleep, eat again, ride again. And then repeat it all again the next day. Not much time or energy for anything else. Who would have thunk it?  

It's been fun, but ...

We've also learned that we need to intentionally schedule days off (even when it's not raining!) simply to give us enough extra time and energy to keep up with the other parts of our lives. For some reason, the grass in the lawn has no respect for our training schedule and just keeps on growing while we're riding. Same goes for dishes in the sink, laundry in the basket, unpaid bills in the mailbox, and a host of other "routine chores" that seem to transform into huge piles the instant we go for just one more ride. 

We've also learned that we sometimes just need a day off to rest our bodies and refresh our minds. The combination of heat, humidity, and strong winds we've had over the past few days has really taken its toll on us ... wringing out both our bodies and our enthusiasm. On top of that, we've had strong thunderstorms rumbling through almost every day, sometimes with hail and threats of tornadoes. Watching the weather report has become almost an obsession. The wind, especially, has a profound effect on the time and energy it takes us to complete our rides. It's hard to get wildly enthusiastic about slogging along for several hours at 5 mph into a 25 mph headwind. The only way we've found to physically deal with this situation is to shift down to a low gear that allows us to "spin" along at a comfortable, sustainable pace. 

The greater challenge is mental. The solution we've found simply is to accept the wind for what it is,  forget about "making good time," and just enjoy the ride. And, when the wind gets too much to handle, just take a day off and wait for things to change. I think these realizations, born of riding into the wind, may hold some deep lessons for other aspects of our lives. The Tao of Triking ... or some such thing.   

So, today was one of our intentional days off. I worked a little in the garden (off and on) getting ready to plant beans. Actually, I should have had them in the ground several weeks ago. If I don't get it done soon, there won't be any point in bothering. Patti has been catching up on the laundry and relaxing with some of her crafting stuff ... making stuffed cats actually. She also made several batches of rose petal jelly this week. We had a bumper crop of roses this year. In any event, we're relaxing today. Tomorrow, we will ride again ... or maybe we won't. We'll let the wind decide for us. 

This week will see the completion of our "base training" phase. Next week will be a recovery week, with no significant riding at all. The week after that, we will begin the next phase of our training, called the "build-up" phase. Our training, so far, has emphasized long, relatively slow rides. The next phase will emphasize shorter rides at higher intensity. The purpose of these short fast rides will be to further "build-up" our cardio fitness, leg strength and endurance. We also will work in at least one long ride each week during this phase on the premise that what is not trained gets "untrained." A secondary benefit of our new schedule should be a little more free time to take care of the chores we've ignored while doing our long slow rides. 

In addition to our regular "training," we also plan to make several overnight camping tours in our local area in June and July. These shake-down tours will provide an opportunity to test and refine the list of equipment we'll be taking with us on our Albany trip. They also will help us get our bodies accustomed to riding with fully-loaded trikes. Hopefully, we'll also have some fun!

Finally, we also have had some fun with our family this week. We made a trip to Schaumburg on Monday to attend our grandson Jake's 8th grade graduation. Last weekend, Garth, Megan, Jake, Kaylee, and Megan's mother stopped by our place on their way home from a trip to Ohio. Of course, we had to play with the trikes. I will close this entry with a few photos of our trike play, plus the graduation ... and hailstones.

 

Patti Is Home Again

Patti has returned from her trip to Idaho.  All went well on both ends. She had a great visit with her family. I managed to keep the lawn mowed and the cats alive while she was gone. I also managed to get our trikes put back together again -- all of our new components installed -- before she returned. We resumed our training the day after her return, wondering how our legs would hold up after 12 days off the trikes. We also were curious to see how our new Schlumpf High Speed Drives and Shimano internal transmissions would work out. Actually, everything went pretty well on both counts.

Don't panic! The truck in this picture was parked on the side of the road with a load of fertilizer for the farmers.

We have ridden 202 miles in the week since Patti got home. All but one of our rides were over 30 miles, which puts our training right on track.  We were shooting for rides in the 30-35 mile range this week, with one longer ride of about 45 miles. The new upgrades have performed flawlessly ... so far. We haven't managed to hit 40 mph yet. Our trikes, with their new upgrades, now may have the theoretical capacity to do. Nevertheless, it has become obvious that our 60-year-old legs still will be the primary factor limiting our top-end potential. 

On the other hand, we have had a great opportunity to test the lower gear ranges.  Almost all of our rides this week have involved cranking into 15-20 mph headwinds. Our Shimano transmissions have shifted, as Patti described it, "as smooth as butter." They have been a delight! Most shifts from gear to gear are virtually imperceptible.  The Schlumpf drives have been equally impressive. It's wonderful to be able to come to a complete stop on a hill, take a break, shift into whatever granny gear we want, and resume pedaling as if we were on flat ground. Couldn't do that with a regular bike!  Intersections are a breeze. We never find ourselves inadvertently stuck in the wrong gear. So far, we've been more than pleased with our new upgrades. "Thrilled" might be a better word! 

So, as we cruised happily along on our first days' ride, Patti praised me lavishly for getting everything installed without breaking anything.  We were back on the road again. The new components were working great, beyond our expectations. I was basking in the glow of a rare mechanical achievement. Life was feeling great again!! 

And then ....  

About 15 miles out, the chain tensioner on Patti's trike somehow came unscrewed from the trike's frame. Don't know why.  I screwed it in properly! No doubt about it! Nevertheless, the sudden separation of part from frame produced a terrible noise that brought us to a quick stop on the side of the road. The noise, we discovered, resulted from the disintegration of the little plastic idler wheel which puts tension on the chain. Patti, to her moral credit, did not recant her pervious praise of my mechanical ability. She just quietly got her tools out and put things back together again, sufficiently to limp back home. I, to my moral credit, just let her do it! Back at home, we found a way to tension her chain adequately without relying upon chain tensioners. I'm also pleased to report that the tensioner on MY trike has NOT fallen off yet!!

We took a day off the trikes on Wednesday to catch up on some of our other chores. We've discovered that riding 30+ miles per day -- when combined with time for breaks, lunch, and preparing HUGE post-ride meals -- has been consuming the better part of our time each day.  So, we took Wednesday off to catch up on our gardening, mowing, fish tank cleaning, and other routine tasks that still need to be done occasionally. Thursday, we did a 45-mile round trip to Monticello to buy some grocery items that our local store in Francesville does not carry. That ride also provided an opportunity to test our Cat Litter Panniers. They also worked out quite well. Next week, if all goes well, we hope to do our first 50-miler.

For any of you interested in the mechanical details, here are a few "before and after" shots of the new stuff we put on our trikes.

Before

Stock Front Chainring

Three sprockets and derailleur

After

Schlumpf High Speed Drive

One sprocket, internal planetary gears

Before

Stock rear gears and derailleur

Eight sprockets

After

Shimano Nexus 8 internal transmission

One sprocket, internal planetary gears, eight speeds

Before

Stock plastic idlers

After

TerraCycle titanium idlers

Recovery Week

We are taking some time off from riding this week to give our bodies time to rest and adapt to the stresses of training.  Patti is away on a trip to Idaho to see her family and attend our nephew's wedding.  I'm staying here in Francesville ... feeding the cats, mowing the lawn, digging the garden, and all those other fun things.  We had a pretty intense month in April.  Rode more than 400 miles. Did our first 20-miler, our first 30-miler, and our first 40-miler.  We've now logged more than 700 miles on our trikes since we started training in March. Our initial training goal of riding 50 miles per day now is beginning to seem very achievable.

I'm also playing with our trikes while Patti is gone (of course!) I've previously mentioned some of the upgrades we've been contemplating. I hadn't planned on doing any major upgrades this year. We wanted, before investing any more money, to give ourselves time to see how far we want to take this triking thing ... and to see just how much our old bodies can handle! However, it has become evident that some of the entry-level components that came stock on our trikes will not be up to the kinds of miles we're putting on them. The hard plastic idlers already are showing significant wear after only two months and soon would need to be replaced. We've also had problems with the rear derailleurs, especally on Patti's trike.  The front derailleurs, especially, have been a pain in the butt for both of us. The chains keep slipping off the chainrings, requiring frequent emergency stops and greasy black fingers to put them back in place. We've also found that the gear ratios on the stock drive trains limit our top speed to just a little over 20 mph.

 So, all things considered, we decided to take the plunge and invested in some higher-quality components. We're replacing the front derailleurs and chainrings with Schlumpf High Speed Drives. The rear derailleurs and sprockets will be replaced with Shimano Nexus 8 internal transmissions. The stock plastic idlers will be replaced with titanium idlers from TerraTrike. I ordered the parts before Patti left on her trip. Most of them have arrived.  I've been having a lot of fun (between mowing, gardening, feeding the cats and occasional cursing sessions when things don't fit right) putting everything together. Hopefully, I will have our trikes ready to ride again when Patti gets home late next week.

The new components represent a significant investment. They definitely weren't cheap! However, we expect them to provide some significant benefits in return. They will be considerably more durable and reliable than the stock components we took off. That factor is an important consideration for folks, like us, who will be putting on thousands of miles per year, sometimes far from home. The titanium idlers, for example, are guaranteed for five years. Also, the new components will require very little, if any, maintenance ... just a little oil lubrication from time to time. With only one sprocket on the front and one on the back -- and no need to use derailleurs to switch the chain between numerous sprockets -- there's virtually no chance that our chains will slip off. And, finally, the gearing combinations provided by the Schlumpf drives and Nexus transmissions will give us a top speed (potentially) of more than 40 mph ... if we have the legs and aerobic fitness to pull it off.  Downhill runs and tail winds should be a blast!  All things considered, I expect the upgrades to more than pay for themselves over the long term, despite the high initial cost. Time will tell.

    

Homemade Panniers

Here are a few shots of the panniers we made from recycled plastic cat litter containers. We used Fresh Step brand containers, donated by Garth and Megan. I assume other brands would work just as well. We're just recycling what we have.

The panniers will attach to the luggage racks on our trikes using "rope hooks" and stainless steel bolts purchased for a few bucks at the farm supply store in Monticello.

We also fabricated some reinforcing washers/plates from a strip of aluminum. These may not have been necessary, but they will provide some extra strength and weight bearing capacity.

Add a little Krylon Fusion spray paint to cover up the cat litter labels (which are bonded to the plastic and will not come off) ... and "Voila!" ... some cool-looking and functional panniers that saved us about $200. They will be light and durable, and virtually water-tight. 

I suppose, Garth, that we could have done without the spray paint. Now we have some more waste to dispose of, empty spray paint cans, not to mention the aerosols we dumped into the atmosphere during the painting process. Sometimes, I guess, aesthetics trumps environmental awareness. Also, I didn't want to be attacked by cats while we're riding. Dogs are bad enough!

The final touches were some straps to keep things from bouncing around and a little reflective tape intended to make us more visible to drivers. Most people aren't used to seeing creatures like us on the road. We sit very low ... about eyeball level to a pickup truck's bumper and tire tread depth to a big rig. The greatest threat to our survival on the road will be not being seen. The key to our safety strategy, therefore, is BE SEEN.

It they can't see this, they're BLIND!

Second Month of Training

We completed our second three-week training phase last Wednesday. We have taken three days off for recovery and will begin riding again today. Our goals for the second phase, as stated in my last post, were about 217 miles and 27 hours of riding. Here's what we actually did:

Total miles - 305.7

Total riding time - 35 hrs 55 min 

Riding days - 15

Average ride - 20.4 miles, 2 hrs 23 min

Longest ride - 30.2 miles, 3 hrs 55 min

Average speed - 8.5 mph

Total miles on trikes to date - 507.9

For those of you following Garth's blog posts about environmental awareness, please note that we covered that 305 miles without burning a drop of gasoline. We did, however, burn about 19,000 calories (kcal) of oatmeal, chicken stir fry, pinto bean soup and other edibles above and beyond our basic metabolic needs. I've lost about 4 pounds and Patti is getting noticeably slimmer. I'm not sure what the net trade off was in terms of reducing our carbon footprints. I'm also not sure what the net economic benefits were. Driving our car 305 miles would have burned about 14 gallons of gas. At $3.50/gallon, that would have cost us about $49. I suspect that I probably have paid about as much for the extra food I've been eating! What cannot be evaluated are the intangibles: the value of improved health, the joy of spending a day with the wind beneath an open sky, the deep sense of intimate contact with the world that comes with riding "low and slow" across the face of Mother Earth. Besides that, we're having a blast! 

In addition to riding, we also have been getting our gear together for long-distance touring. We've gradually been replacing our old (antique) camping equipment with new stuff (tent, sleeping pads, cook stove, etc.).  We've added some new safety features to our trikes (new flags made by Patti, big "slow-moving vehicle" signs on the back of our trikes). We also made a set of panniers (saddlebags) from several large, plastic cat litter containers donated to us by Garth and Megan. I researched the basic design. Patti, of course, did the actual fabrication. We also will be making some major upgrades in our trike's drive trains over the next week or two.  We will be replacing the entry-level chain rings, plastic idlers, and standard derailleurs that came stock on the trikes with high-performance internal hubs and titanium idlers. We've also put on some better quality, high-performance tires. These upgrades should significantly improve our trike's performance characteristics and durability on the road. They also should significantly increase the number of miles we can ride in a day on a bowl of oatmeal!

Our schedule for the next three-week phase is going to be a little erratic. Patti will be leaving on the train on May 6 for a trip to Idaho to visit family. She will be gone for 11 days, returning on May 16. That means we will have only 9 days we can ride before she leaves (depending on the weather) followed by an 11-day "recovery period." Nevertheless, we're shooting for a 40-mile trip this coming week and hope to do our first 50-miler by the end of the month. If all goes well, we plan to begin some actual touring early in June. These will be "shakedown" tours in the local Northern Indiana area; overnighters that will give us a chance to test and refine our equipment list.

We've been planning a trike trip to Albany, New York this summer to visit with Karl, Jolene, and our new grandson (whose name Jolene won't reveal at this point). Our original thinking was that we'd probably do it in August or September. But, who knows? It looks as though there might be a chance that we could make the trip in July ... just in time to be present when our grandson makes his entry into the world. On the other hand, there also might be a chance that Jolene won't want to deal with a couple of crazy old people when she is otherwise preoccupied. Whatever. We're easy. New York is beautiful in the fall!    

First Month of Training

Although we picked up our trikes at the bike shop in February, the weather did not get good enough for any serious riding until the second week of March. As a result, our "official training" began with a 10-mile ride on March 11. The ride took 1 hour 45 minutes. Wasn't too bad. Our old legs took it pretty well. That ride established 10 miles as a good starting point for our training.

Our training goal is to turn our couch potato selves into athletes who can pedal at least 50 miles per day over extended periods of time. We plan to make our first extended tour later this summer. It will be a 900-mile trip to Albany, New York to visit our son, his wife, and our new grandson-to-be. The trip will take about 18 days of riding at 50 miles per day. We are using a modified "periodization" training system to help us get our bodies ready for the ride. The first period (base training) will involve about three months of long, slow rides -- low-intensity workouts at maximum volume. The purpose of this phase is to patiently build up our aerobic foundation while minimizing the risk of injury or over-training, an important consideration for old codgers like us. We will gradually ramp up our miles and riding time during this period, adding about 10 percent each week. We will follow each three weeks of training with a week off for recovery. These recovery periods, according to the experts, are crucial. Training stresses the body and tears things down. Recovery give the body time to respond to the stress of training and rebuild itself at a higher level of fitness.

We completed our first three weeks of training last Saturday. Our total distance in 16 days of riding was 167.4 miles. Our total riding time was 22 hrs 4 min. Our average ride was 10.5 miles, with an average duration of 1 hr 23 min. Our longest ride was 14.8 miles. Our longest duration was 1 hr 52 min. Our average speed for the entire period was 7.6 mph. Hopefully, we will get a little faster in the future! Nevertheless, we were quite satisfied with our first three weeks of training. Our physical conditioning has improved considerably (which isn't too hard when you start out with none at all). Our first out-of-town ride, on March 11, was 10 miles in 1 hr 45 min. On March 26, we rode 14.7 miles in 1 hr 42 min. The times were almost the same. However, we added 4.7 more miles in that time, an increase of 47 percent. That, in my humble view, is a significant improvement for a couple of out-of-shape 60 year-olds. 

We currently are enjoying our recovery week. Our next three week training phase will begin next Sunday. We will begin with 15-mile rides and hope to ramp up to 20 miles by the end of the three week phase. We are not shooting for more speed at this point. We intend to make a conscious effort to keep our average speed down to 8 mph, while focusing on increasing the length of our rides. If all goes well, we should ride about 217 miles and spend about 27 hours in the saddle. 

Equipment

I think it might be worthwhile, before talking about our training, to write a few words about the trikes we purchased and our reasons for doing so. Recumbent trikes can be pretty expensive compared to traditional delta-frame bikes (like thousands of dollars more). This was an important consideration for us, since we are retired and live on a limited, fixed income. We decided, after considerable research, to buy a pair of TerraTrike Cruisers. These trikes are produced by Wizwheels, an American company located in Michigan. We purchased them at Amling's Cycle & Fitness in Niles, Illinois. We chose the Cruiser for three reasons. First, the Cruiser is the highest-quality, entry-level trike we could find on the market. At $1,400 each, they were not cheap. Nevertheless, we saved at least $4,000 compared to what we would have spent for two similar trikes produced by other manufacturers. Second, WizWheels has a fantastic customer service reputation. We could have bought other brands of trikes at a similar price. Most of those, however, are built in Taiwan. The manufacturers have no formal dealership organizations in the United States and provide little if any customer support. They may produce good trikes, but once you buy them you're on your own. Third, the Cruiser provides a sound basic platform which we can upgrade in the future. We already have added fenders, water bottles, mirrors, lights, computer, and luggage racks in anticipation of touring this summer. If we are still at this cycling thing next year, we plan to add a series of upgraded drive train components. We should, at that point, have a pair of really decent touring trikes.

First Post - A Little Background

I have discovered an interesting thing about being 61 years old. All of my kids are raised, my work for the world is done, my last remaining parent has been nursed through her final years. It came, for me, as a question: "What now?" I attempted, after my mother's death, to resume doing the things I used to enjoy most, like fishing and photography. It was fun for awhile. I found quickly, however, that the old, familiar activities were no longer enough. I had done them all before. Ho Hum ... another bass. Yawn. I have no need to go back to work and no desire to do so. I enjoy being a grandfather and spending time with my kids and grandchildren. Too bad for me (maybe good for them) that they live too far away to see every day. So, what now? Time for the rocking chair on the porch? Make my will and start planning for the nursing home? Nawwwww! What I needed was something new in my life, something sufficiently interesting and challenging to rekindle my passion for living.

That's how I came up with the idea of going off on a cross-country bike expedition. I'd contemplated that fantasy many years ago while suffering through seemingly endless business meetings, but the time was not right. Life was too busy and demanding. My life now definitely is not busy or demanding. So, why not now? When I discussed the idea with my wife Patti, she thought it sounded like a fine idea. She also suggested that we use recumbent bicycles instead of the traditional delta frame models. Actually, she suggested recumbent trikes. Trikes have many advantages for old farts like us. They are, most of all, extremely comfortable compared to traditional bikes. No numb hands, no numb arms, no numb shoulders, no numb butts. Almost as importantly, trikes are very hard to tip over. And the fall isn't far if you do. Riding a trike is like sitting comfortably in your lawn chair, just watching the world go by. All of this comfort and safety is perfect for an old grandpa!

We are just in the beginning stages of this new adventure. Purchased our trikes in February. Started our training in March. Our training goal is to be able to ride at least 50 miles per day comfortably before we start serious touring. Getting there may take awhile. After five years of taking care of my mother -- a 24 hr/day, 365 day/year, never go anywhere kind of job -- we are starting from fitness ground zero. Getting off the couch without assistance was becoming problematical for me. Where are we after one month? That will be the subject of my next post.