The Bicycling thread

Last Sunday morning I was on a solo ride a bit north of Summerfield, NC (in Piedmont region of NC) and a feller in a car coming towards me flashes his lights. He said that he had just seen a small bear (80 to 100 lbs estimated) crossing the road. I kept an eye out but didn't see any bears (including an angry momma bear looking for her cub!). I did see more bikes out in the country than cars that early morning.

Mackinac Island, Michigan

We took our bikes on Mackinaw Island a few weeks ago. While we rode around the island, there was a very large group of people free swimming around the island. I think it was a fund raiser. It's 8 miles around the island by bike. Most of the swimmers were quite a bit offshore so it must have been at least a 9 mile swim in open water.

littlebriar said:

We took our bikes on Mackinaw Island a few weeks ago. While we rode around the island, there was a very large group of people free swimming around the island. I think it was a fund raiser. It's 8 miles around the island by bike. Most of the swimmers were quite a bit offshore so it must have been at least a 9 mile swim in open water.

Click to expand...

Wow that's a long swim in Huron's cold water.

Left the island this morning and stopped at the Log Slide and Au Sable Light Station on our drive to Marquette, MI.

Logs were slid down the sand dune and floated to Grand Marais.






Took the the Light house tour.
Only foot traffic, no bicycles allowed on the nice 3.2 mile gravel road round trip



Old ship wreck remains near the lighthouse.

H-58 west of the lighthouse is a good motorcycle road. I pulled over to let 3 sport bikes pass and have fun.

This is part of the 4 mile section of M-185 around Mackinac Island that had to be repaired at over 6 million dollars in 2021 after high water and wave action destroyed a large section on the road. When we were there in 2019 the waves were splashing on the road and the lake level got higher in 2020.
It's several feet lower this year.

Marquette, Michigan today.
Docks where Iron ore pellets are loaded into ships.
Train cars similar to coal cars drop the pellets down chutes into the ship.
The chutes are in the up position in my pictures.









This is a abandoned dock no longer attached to the shore downtown.

Just a rainy 100k on the Albany-Hudson Electric Trail.

Stuyvesant Falls....

October 4, 2022 by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

October 4, 2022 by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

October 4, 2022 by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

SPP

Needed ride back from town and came up with this since H was working . Dropped Dodge off at mechanic to do stuff I don’t want to


Gate to beer garden at Real Ale Brewery


Axis deer running this area now, don’t care for that beer as too citrusy for me. Their Fireman’s 4 is a popular ale
The deer are larger than whitetail


Cypress in State Park on slow pace colorwise




My grumpiness was better in spite of wind!


Been a “few weeks” and nice welcome back headwind in spots before heading home

I'll make my annual goal set at 5,000 miles this year, but a few obstacles definitely tried to derail this year's achievement, including...discovery of heart disease after minor stroke (May 2021), cardiac ablation in October 2022, and Covid just 2 weeks post-ablation.

Generally my goal is to ride 100 miles per week, although I am thinking that for 2023 I will ride less for the remainder of the Winter, having looked at the effects of the last few years of riding in the slop that contains multiple corrosive agents.

Here's my stats for the past few years....annual mileage followed by elevation...

2022: 4,778 / 300,712

2021: 5,613 / 434,262

2020: 6,202 / 470,538

2019: 10,083 / 525,082 (Festive 500 completed)

2018: 7,830 / 403,957 (Festive 500 completed)

2017: 6,314 / 309,357

2016: 6,151 / 371,250

2015: 5,400 / 407,083

2014: 5,864 / 400,869

2013: 2,858 / 260,174

Here's a link to my Strava => https://www.strava.com/athletes/403203

SPP

December 5, 2022 by SPP™ SlowPokePete, on Flickr

SPP

Outstanding photo of the sunlit trees "guarding" the path. I might have leaned my bike against the wood rail fence, however.

It was interesting to see the bikes a few posts back with the double tubes. I guess these are common work cycles for the Dutch folks.

https://workcycles.com/product/workcycles-double-tube/

Seeing these bikes brings to mind a documentary on YouTube about banana hauling bicycles in Burundi. Wow!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_gQiOoUwfk

200 kg of bananas going down hill on a bicycle!

robsryder said:

\ I might have leaned my bike against the wood rail fence, however.

Click to expand...

Sometimes I do.

SPP

Pete, sorry to hear about your health issues. Hope things improve this year.

I noticed on your mileage that you notated F500 years. This was the first year we attempted a version of it. About 50 miles per day on the trainer for the week of Christmas through New Years. It was a great head start to the usual Jan 1st resolutions. Much better than my normal holidays activities: eating and drinking way too much.

Last year was a fairly low mileage year for us (about 3500 miles) because we were doing a lot of hiking training (usually a few hours a day, 5 days per week) in the Adirondacks. This was to get us ready to trek to the Manaslu (8th highest) base camp in the Nepalese Himalayas. That ended up being a fantastic trip but we were off bikes for the whole month of September. The training worked out well, although hiking at <5000ft doesn’t quite prepare you for spending days at 16000.

We did one gravel race in June. I crashed and was only able to finish after some lengthy on-trail bike repair. Michelle did fantastic, though. This year we hope to do more gravel events.

I’m excited to focus on the bike once again and look for 2 wheeled adventure. I doubt the BMWs will get a lot of attention, though. We won’t even make it to the national rally because it is the same weekend as our favorite gravel bicycle race. So little time.

Today was the 46th annual BRR ride. It's a bike ride from Perry to Rippey Iowa and back to Perry. 24 miles.
This ride is held no matter the weather. Today was comfortable with temps in the 30s, sunny and winds 10 to 15 during the ride.









Debbie likes to wait next to the fireplace.

My bike in 1967 as a 15 yo was my brother’s Yamaha 55. Years later I owned a Yamaha Thumper and then in 2020 got into bicycling. N+1 later, I now have a Kish titanium singlespeed, Rocky Mountain Altitude e-bike, Orbea road bike, DR650 and my current BMW R1100RS. Years of bikes, motos, teleskis, kayaks and sailboats have confirmed that I love things that lean. Clearly, this forum’s group have the same philosophy.

Just saw bmwdr’s post. Welcome! This thread is sporadic - this time of year doesn’t see a lot of posts because we aren’t all crazy like Lee. I convince myself that it is ok to just drink tea, sleep, and ride on the trainer while watching bike races. Not the most exciting stuff for photos.

I had never thought about the ‘lean’ aspect - by golly you are onto something. I like that same stuff.

If you have a chance to post some pictures of your rides, it would be appreciated by a few of us. Bonus points for getting both bikes and motos in the same shot.

RAGBRAI 50th Year

This year I did 3 days of RAGBRAI , Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday https://ragbrai.com/
Another member of this forum mentioned his wife was doing whole week.
I try to do 3 days when the route is in the southern or central part of the state so I can get home or stay with my sister in Ames each night.
Temps in the 90s this year and it was very crowded due to it being the 50th year. 40,000 to 60,000 riders estimated. Whatever the count it was too many.
I had my phone on my handle bars but didn't get many pictures because it wasn't safe to mess with it in the crowds and sometimes there was too much vibration from the road surface.
Debbie was my support and would meet me a couple times a day.







Two ambulances and two EMTs on BMWs travel with the bikes.
Here's a picture from 2019. I usually stop and visit with this guy at least once a RAGBRAI.


This year when I stopped to visit with him in Newton one of the RTs was dead. Only the emergency equipment worked. After I left I remembered there's a 2nd battery for the emergency lights. They told me they had a spare GS and would probably switch to that.
The first 5 miles on my day 1, I had to walk 3 times because the ambulances were working on two crashes and another spot the Air Force team was helping a couple injured riders.
The riding was very close on Tuesday and Wednesday so you really had to pay attention. Probably 6 to 8 ambulance runs that I saw each day.



The little guy in the yellow helmet is taking a nap.






This year there was a 2 mile section of gravel due to construction on a bridge.


A little dusty after a ambulance went by. Des Moines Register picture



Grinnell has a nice downtown.



Newton



Capital building in Des Moines






Next post will be pictures copied from the Des Moines Register