EPIC Recumbent Rides Reports

I was talking to AD about having a place for those folks who put together what I call "epic" recumbent rides reports. A good example is Dave Samsel's Clarksville ride report or Terii's Swedish riding blog.

Right now these reports are scattered between other rides reports of a couple of paragraphs. Nothing wrong with shorter ride reports, but sometimes in winter I like to go back to the BIG REPORTS and Relive other RRI members rides while I watch it snow outside. It makes me yearn for Spring.

So after talking to AD, since we don't get a lot of these epic reports, it does not make sense to start a whole new section. So we came up with starting a new thread. This thread to be exact!

So here it is, the EPIC Recumbent Rides thread. I am going to scrounge around looking for past EPIC reports and put them here. If you want to write up a big ride report, feel free and drop in in this thread.

To help clarify, an EPIC ride report should be at least three Word document pages long and have at least 3 pictures. As I said, these are our EPIC ride reports. Now if you come up with 2 pages and 2 pictures, that is fine too. But I don't want a couple of paragraphs and a picture here. Those can go into the "My Most Recent Ride" thread.

So if Shakespear is lurking in you and you have your cell phone or digital camera handy, go out on your recumbent and come back with an epic tale to share with the rest of the RRI members. I am looking forward to what you have in mind.

A Note - If you cannot get the output of your report into the file storage guidelines of RRI, email me the report and I will convert it to Adobe PDF file which will preserve your presentation while greatly condensing the file. You can email me at rri*fastmail.fm.

 

Well let me get the bad news out of the way first. The rest of the group smoked me!!!! I saw Buddy, Drew, Dave and Don at the beginning of the race. (See pictures.) Buddy and Drew were bringing up the rear. Dave, Don & I started ahead. Very quickly Dave spurted ahead and Don followed. They were riding like scalded dogs while I was riding like a walking dog, then a limping dog, then a sleeping dog. (You get the idea.) Drew past me on his Metric Century ride. (The first part of the ride had the 32, 62 and Century people on the same path.) I never did see Dave or Don again. Never saw Buddy again until I rolled in. He was by his trailer and I exclaimed, "Buddy... you beat me!" Buddy being the tenderhearted person he is said, "I beat you like an ugly step child I beat you so bad." So there you have it, my camaraderie with the RRI group.

The good news is I finished. I was plagued with equipment problems this ride. I never had problems like this before. My first problem was my newly renovated seat started coming apart. The way RANS used to pull the back seat material together was with big plastic zip ties. When I had the seat re-sown, I purchased NEW zip ties. I put it all together and rode the bike several times and it worked fine. However I never pedaled as hard (meaning pushing back in the seat to get more pressure on the pedals) as I did on the Century. During one uphill portion, I was really pumping causing one zip tie to come loose. This put more pressure of the zip ties above and below that one. Then they came loose. You get the picture. Out of 8 zip ties, 4 had come loose and I had 30 miles to go. Arrrghhhh. So I took the longest zip tie that came undone, and put it in the center of the problems. I left the tail on the zip tie. The problem was once I tightened the zip ties, I cut the tails off right at the locking device. If I pushed too hard, and the locking device momentarily gave way, off came the zip tie because there was no tail to stop it. Big Mistake!!!! My new strategy is again put in the zip ties, but I will leave 1 inch tails. In addition, I bought epoxy glue and I am going to glue the zip locks together. I think the combination of the two should work. We will find out.

The other equipment problem happened at 99.25 miles. My front tire started bumping as I rolled along. It is like those bad shopping carts you get at the grocery store. It was like some bubble gum was stuck to it. I looked at the tire thinking it was going flat, but it had good pressure. I decided to make a run for it. I was on track to do the Century in exactly 7:00 hours of riding time which was my goal. I was at 6:57 when this happened. So I prayed and peddled as fast as I could. Finish line was in sight and my bumping became more pronounced. I prayed and peddled harder!!!! I passed the finish line. I made it in 7:00 hours EXACTLY of riding time and 8:10 by the total ride time clock. My riding average was 14.3 miles which is perfect for me. I was happy with all those times.

I saw Buddy at his trailer and stopped and talked to him for a couple of minutes then rode to my car. I got off the bike and immediately started examining my front tire. There was a HUGE bulge in the tire. I got my keys out to open the car and BANG!!!! The front tire blew. I thanked God for watching over me and protecting me. I took the front tire off the bike and looked at it. The rubber on the tire was completely worn away showing the cloth underneath. (See picture) I had about a six inch strip of cloth showing and I was riding on it. Holy Cow!!! It wasn’t that way when I started, but in the course of 100 miles, the last sliver of rubber tire wore off. I was just thankful I made it back. The timing could NOT be coincidental. Someone was watching out for me. Thank you God!!!!

This is the first Century I rode by myself. Usually I ride with someone in the group, or I find a riding buddy going about my pace and ride with them. This ride had neither. I did have one group who would pass me, then stay at the rest stops longer than me, then pass me again. They asked me to join them, but they were riding too fast to me. In addition, I think I was at the tail end of all the riders. There were never very many riders at the rest stops and I usually could not see any riders in front of me or behind me, so I got a bit lonely. This was more of a race. The other Centuries I did were part of multiday rides, so riders were more relaxed and socialized much more. I missed that. What this ride taught me was I will probably stick with Metric Centuries since I know I can ride Centuries if I want. The extra 38 miles doesn’t do anything for me if it means riding alone. This is not a complaint, just a reality.

On another note, it was harvesting season in Kentucky. (Half the ride is in Tennessee and half in Kentucky. We start close to the border.) I passed two fields where combines were harvesting the corn crop. It was fun to watch. Also the tobacco crop was drying in the barns. There were corn cobs and tobacco leaves strewn over the country roads we rode. Very beautiful scenery.

We were also in Mennonite country. Saw several men with beards, long hair and straw hats driving tractors up and down the road. Had one young Mennonite family taking a horse carriage down the road. (See sign picture.)

One other good thing about the trip was I got to visit with my daughter who is a Senior at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville. “Go Peay!!!” We spent two wonderful dinners and a breakfast together.

I still recommend the Clarksville ride for anyone who has their eye on a century. It is mostly flat and most of the roads are back roads with very little car traffic. The country side is beautiful. There are ample rest stops along with way. Ride support was superb. Glad I did it. Look forward to riding the Metric Century next year!

Group picture left to right is Drew, Dave, Don, Buddy and Jon

 

And here is Dave's Samsels EPIC report on the Clarksville Sunrise Century and Nashville Greenway with Don Sullivan.

 

Here is Don Sullivan's report on riding the Erie Canal ride.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/CTEC

 

Here is Terii's blog about riding in Sweden.

http://terii.wordpress.com/

 

Here is my Report on the American River Greenway ride.

 

Here is an oldie but a goodie!!!

 

One more to get this post started.

 

Shelby Bottoms Greenway - Nashville TN
By Jon Dittrich

Check out this ride and the surprise at the end of my report. My special thanks to John Mullins who showed me the way!!!

I am also adding Dave Samsel's account of his and Don's ride at the same place. (Dave's pictures are much better than mine!)

 

It was a great time riding with you Jon, I look forward to next time.

Any other bentriders that want to ride near nashville? Drop me an e-mail so we can set a time & place to meet.

John

 

Hi everyone. I just joined. I've got several 'epic' ride reports on my site, but I'll just post a link to my most recent one; namely BRAT 2009.

http://www.biketcba.org/TRICORR/rides/BRAT2009/BRAT2009.html

Jon, did you ever get your RANS seat situation fixed? At one point I put a new back on my V-Rex, and I doubled up the zip-ties. That actually gave me too much leverage, and I literally pulled the fabric apart in the middle. So... I got some Pet-Pruf screen material from the local big-box hardware store and had my sister sew up a new seat back using the old fabric as a pattern. The new material is amazingly strong and durable, and it looks great. Best of all, I can tighten it like a drum cover; so no more saggy seat backs!

 

Yes, I got my seat fixed. I put bigger zip ties to attach the fabric then I super glued them so they will NEVER get loose. So far, so good.

Good to hear about the other fabric. My top seat is beat up and it would be nice to replace. I will keep your suggestions in mind!

to our boards. Don't be bashful!!!

 

Hello John,

Enjoyed your 09 BRAT report as well as several of your other rides. BRAT has been on my list for some time and I came within a heartbeat of going this year, but had just come back from the Erie Canal ride and sorta couldn't get my head wrapped around another weeklong trip of packing up a tent and rolling up a mat in time to meet the registration date. I live in TN and been following that ride for some time and have just never made it. Then when that week rolled around, it seemed to rain all week and I remember saying I'm glad I didn't go after all...(sorry..) I've heard several good reports on the 05 ride out of Harrison Bay with the paddleboat start, yours chimed in there too. Supposedly the 2010 BRAT will be in southeast TN, Chattanooga area again, maybe I can make that one.

Welcome to our forum, I do believe I've seen your name around several of the other boards and on some Yahoo groups. Your TriCORR group looks interesting, and nice site you maintain there.

Don
Original RocketRiders Member #6, August 25, 2004

 

My M5 is such a good climber, I'm half-tempted to try BRAT again in 2010. It'll depend on whether or not I can convince my riding buddy to do it. He's a good hill-climber, but the Harrison Bay year was almost too much for him too. It didn't help that he tends to miss turns and he ended up doing a couple extra major climbs that week.

 

John, on RAAM, I was amazed at the climbing abilities of Tim Woudenberg and Glenn Druery on their NoCom bikes and the VK2. How do you think those bikes compare with the M5?