Shopping for bikes

As you may have read there have been many fires burning in the area I live. I have sufficiently recovered from my little fall so I can ride, but due to the fires the air quality is not very good. I did a little biking today, primarily around where I live. If you look closely at the pictures you can see that the air is dirty. In some odd way it reminds me of the Arizona scenery, but that was on the ground, not in the air.

I made too little trips at around 30 miles. I averaged around 16 miles an hour. The temperature was 100 degrees today where I live so it was desert riding for me today.

I heard from both Alec and Karen this week. Alec returned from Europe. He was there for about one month and he rode his bike almost every day, averaging around 40 miles a day.

Karen is planning to do a bike ride around Tahoe which is 72 miles in mid September. She has convinced Alec to participate as well. I can't wait for the pictures.

I test rode a Specialized Road bike today. It was a compact crank, 50/34 and weighed 16 pounds. It was so light, almost as if I was not riding. I am sure that Karen has fond memories of her Specialized bike.

The lone last rider

The XC09 Cross Roads tour officially ended. Mike J has biked his way from Boston, MA to Tampa. FL . It was interesting reading Mike's blog and it was great that he made the trip. I know from training that riding alone can be difficult and after riding with a group for two months the motivation can be easily lost. Knowing Mike I would think that alcohol (no light beer for him) made the trip a little more bearable.

Karen let me know that she has updated her blog and added some additional text and more pictures. I have take the liberty of borrowing some of her photos, but you should check out her blog. I think you will find her blog enjoyable reading.

http://www.cyclingacrosstheus.blogspot.com/

The photo of the covered bridge was taken a little after we entered Ohio. The moose was one of many in Bennington. VT. There were these mooses all over the city. Apparently, Bennington has a festival every few years and the local artists come up with different variations of mooses.

And finally the flags on the bikes of Harry, Karen and I. We started with the one with our name and ended up carrying other riders flags as they left the tour so the could make it to the end to "Boston".

I sent Fred's flag back to him with a little sand from the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean. Fred wrote me a very nice letter back thanking me for sending the flag back and provided me with his thoughts on his experience. I still have Rich's flag, but no address for him so I cannot send it back to him. If anyone who reads this blog can email to let me know where I should mail the flag, it would be much appreciated.

I fell a few weeks ago and along with getting back into work (and less day light) I have not been riding as frequently as before. I will get back into it soon. I have about 750 miles to go to achieve my goal of riding 10,000 miles this year.

Who is that man ?

I continue to ride to work. Today ends my last day of the week ride. I will have rode about 197 miles over a 6 week period. Commuting clears the mind.

Here is a picture of two of the Dalton Gang when they are not in their bike gear.

Below is the mountain bike that Harry bought, but did not use when he went mountain biking because he did not want to get it dirty.

Topanga Canyon Blvd.

During my training for the trip, I prepared for some of the expected climbing by biking Topanga Canyon Blvd. It is a mostly 8.5 mile uphill climb.

You bike from the beach at the Pacific Ocean to the Top of Topanga Canyon Blvd. There is a nice little 2 mile downhill as a reward for making it to the top. Below are some photos of the beginning ((from mile 2.0 to 3.3 there is a steep slope) (those are the first two pictures)). You may not be able to see it but the slope extends until the end the sunshine. The next picture is the view from the top.

Today it was a pretty easy ride. I seem to still be in pretty good shape, although my legs do not feel as good after the biking as they did on the trip. Maybe it has to do with biking alone.

Food shopping

Today Yuko decided to bike with me or should I say we went food shopping. On Sundays we usually bike around 5-6 miles to do a little shopping. However, today there was a big sale at one of the Japanese supermarkets so off we biked. Total miles biked today was 36 miles. Very impressive for someone who does not bike that much and does not even have a touring or road bike.

Yesterday I had biked around 61 miles. It was overcast and pretty cool until around 11:00 when the sun came out. The weather has gotten a little cooler, but still it is hotter than most of the days we biked during the trip. I had really forgotten that first two weeks through California to New Mexico where the sun was out and it was hot. There is one little climb close to where I live on a street called Laurel Canyon Blvd. No matter what my condition is I always find it a challenging climb.

Both days the weather was foggy until around 10:45 and without the sun it much cooler and enjoyable to bike.

This past Friday was one of the Dalton Gang's birthday, Karen. Karen is not biking as many mikes, but is back biking with team revolution. Alec sent an email about a biking trip through Alaska for the Gang, but I think I will have to pass on that as I want to spend my vacation with my wife and I do not have that much vacation to take each year. This year was a once in a 10 year vacation opportunity. Harry emails me about once a week to check in to see how I am doing and sent a wonderful picture of dinner he had prepared for himself this week.
















I spoke with Mike J on Wednesday and he seems to have sufficently recovered and is still biking. Infact I could hear the wind (or maybe traffic ) as I was speaking with him.

I close with a picture of the Dalton Gang chasing Champ. We ended up catching him on this day (after 26 miles of chase) and ended up eating lunch together in Abilene, Kansas. If I can recall correctly, Hank, Tom and Bob also ate at the same place (although not at the same table).