Shorter, But Better...
It's been a few days since my last ride. I just couldn't get motivated this weekend, partly due to some personal issues. My schedule for Monday fell apart as well, plus it rained a good bit of the day anyway. Having topped 10 miles on the last ride, I decided that today was the day to hit the Brainerd Levee. All in all, not a bad place to ride. Not too many other bikes, and the walkers and joggers don't take up the whole path. It's a little rough in spots and mostly small gravel over asphalt, so it wouldn't be good for ultra-fancy road bikes with razor thin tires. Fine for mountain bike though. From where I got on (Shallowford Rd.) on to Camp Jordan and around it and then back is a little over nine and a half miles. There is also a place where you have to get off the bike and go down stairs and back up to cross Brainerd Road. Crossing the creek and the Interstate are no problem though (the creek bridge is a bit steep but not long).
Just because I'm a geek with a toy, a few stats.
Avg Speed (outbound): 10.4 MPH
Avg Speed (inbound): 11.0 MPH (I had started cautiously, but sped up a bit once I knew my way)
Top Speed : 18.9 (outbound under the Interstate, long downhill run, but be careful of walkers and joggers)
Most crowded section : Camp Jordan
Oddest thing said in passing : Hey man, cool bike!
Scariest moment : Bike computer falling off when coming up the steps under Brainerd Road.
Most needed equipment (besides a good bike) : Back of the seat water bottle holder. The frame mount is too low for me to easily reach. I'll consider a camelback whenever I can go farther than one bottle of water will do.
Most needed adjustment : Front derailleur. Couldn't get it into the low ring at all coming up the bridge.
Second most needed adjustment : Rear spring. I need to tighten the crap out of it. I have so much weight that it is impossible to stand up and pedal. However, if I fix that front derailleur, I shouldn't need to stand up.
Best purchase : 30G Creative Nomad Zen Xtra. Having that many tunes in random play is awesome. When Captain Beefheart's Tarotplane started, I was grooving heavily. It was followed by a bluegrass version of Amazing Grace (yeah, I have somewhat varied tastes in music).
Well, that's all for now. Next ride I'll hit the short leg past the Shallowford entrance and then maybe try for 12 or 13 miles.
5 Comments:
I think you're ready to spend a little time touring Chickamagua Battlefield. Maybe even that Red Bank ride that WK goes on.
He'd definately manage the Battlefield short route. We meet on Saturdays (ride is now posted on the Chattanooga Bike Club interactive calendar) and frankly, we often have people with kids show up. Worm would be booking along and doing FINE with the easy route we've got.
OR, if he wanted to take the more challenging 13 mile loop, we could show it to him. I Ann or Mindy are riding close to Worm's speed, so he'd have company.
Full suspension? Yeah, tighten it up. If you've got preload versus rebound you can go hard on the rebound and just hard enough on the preload, but every time those springs flex you're taking energy from your pedal stroke.
And I'd think seriously about Anonymous's offer of pedaling along in Chickamauga, it's amazing how much better a workout I get when I ride with someone else. Even if I have to admit sometimes that I can't keep up (usually that's met with a "good, 'cause I wasn't going to cave first" sort of answer anyway).
I'll see about hitting Chickamauga soon. Not this Saturday, what with holidays and all. Hope it quits raining this afternoon. Of course my bike is soaked right now. Sigh.
That's one of the weirdest things about living out here in California: Rain? In summer? I've still got months of being able to store cardboard outside...
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