jimmuller 

Mom! Dallas has been riding his bike again!

Nice ride. (I like the Peugeot, even if it doesn't have derailleurs. )

I took the Masi out for an hour's spin this morning, home to Lexington and back. Went up the hill with the 14% grade. No problem, but I'm still tired from this mild cold I haven't thrown yet. It actually transformed itself slightly, I believe from viruses distributed at the office. Even so, it was nice to get out again. I went out a few days ago and really felt the fatigue from last weekend's 54 mile run to Rhode Island with BF member sherbornpeddler.

Zieleman

Hi there,

Going through this thread I see the the beautiful settings for riding out. Most are in the US, with the large diversity of landscapes fantastic to ride.
I love reading your posts!

Over here in the Netherlands the land is flat, wet and windy.
So I rode the dike north of Amsterdam today, wind was 5-6 beaufort and it started to rain big drops 5k before I got home. Short ride with 45km, but a good excercise nontheless.




Cheers!

jimmuller 

Welcome to the C&V version of "Where did you ride today?"

So is your freewheel is a 6-speed with cogs 13-13-14-14-15-15?

Zieleman

Haha yes a lot of bikes you see here have ridiculous gearing. The largest cog on my Zieleman is a 21. That's not good enough for a trip to the Ardennes...

You ever come across a Dutch freewheel in the US?

noglider 

I'm so envious of the turf you folks have.

Zieleman

You mean the Netherlands? We have bikepaths and special rights for cyclists, but we don't have any mountains... And somehow i love riding mountains. Maybe because of the lack of em... Maybe if I had to ride the same steep hill EVERY time, I'd love to ride flat for a change.

eschlwc

we lost an hour and a half of sunlight this month, and lose the same amount next month. better soak it up while we can...

IthaDan 

Got a project on the road today:



Bought it for the awesome decal on the seattube.





Best I can figure, it's a late 60's/early mercier 200. Simplex everywhere. Tossed these wheels on for today because the stock wheels had a broken spoke. Heavy as crap, but it's damn comfortable.

David Newton

I rode a metric century today.
You know, 100 meters is not that far!

photogravity

I've been known to do the same, but still feel tired afterwards.

photogravity

Rachel and I managed to arrange a ride with our friend Katie today. As we were leaving the house, she rang to let me know that she had a flat on her bike and that she would be a few minutes late. Once she arrived at the train station, Katie asked if we wanted to go on our ride or on one or her rides. Well we opted to take her ride, which consisted of some of the largest hills we've yet to ride on the tandem. I'm getting pretty good at attacking hills these days, but riding the tandem on these was a lot of work! As we were nearing the top of the big climb we, unfortunately, ended up with a flat on the rear of the tandem. Fortunately, once we got to the top of the mountain, we ended up taking a little break and recharged for a bit. Once underway again, we hammered down the mountain and rode into the valley where there are some rollers, a couple of which we were able to power up without even shifting. (Note to self, get the freakin' front derailleur fixed so it will get onto the big ring.)

In any case, this ride, though very strenuous, ended up being pretty fun. We even stayed dry for the entirety of the ride, which we cannot say about last weeks ride!


Gathland Loop - 1 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 3 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 4 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 5 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 6 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 2 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 9 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Gathland Loop - 10 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

jimmuller 

Looks like a fun day, pg.

You're carrying that unique big chainring and the RD won't even get to it? How weird is that?

photogravity

It was a fun day even with the flat tires. The sad part is that the FD was overshooting the big ring and derailed a couple times, so I adjusted it. I've also replaced the chain and it's ghost-shifting between 8 and 9 on the RD, so that needs to be adjusted too. Without all our gears, we can't hammer the downhills to carry us up the next hill, so we're just making do. In any case, we still managed 41 MPH coasting down one of the really big hills on the route.

mikemowbz

As per my usual of late, Sunday morning doing my rounds on the 4.1km loop in Parc Maisonneuve, Montreal - under the shadow of the 'Big O', the infamous 1976 Olympic Stadium:

Montreal-made bike, too. Passed a fellow on a very similar solid metallic purple 90s Marinoni 'Special' today on the loop...it took him a few minutes to get the idea when I pulled up beside him with two words, "Nice bike," before pulling away. Got a good smile out of that when he caught on, though .

puchfinnland

Nelli and I went on a 30km trip to 2 neighboring towns, the weather was not so warm and overcast.

we stopped at a cool nightclub that plays jazz in the evenings, but nelli was there for the hot chocolate.

hopefully next weekend the weather is better- fall is here unfortunatly.

pullup

Hey Don,

Some day our paths have to cross I like riding that route as well



And if I have got more time I take a short detour towards De Rijp which I consider one of the prettiest little villages

photogravity

Today, rather than head north, I headed south into Virginia to scout out some new places to ride. The weather was overcast but pretty humid because of the storms pushing through from Isaac. The route I took southward consisted of mostly dirt/gravel roads which were quite rough for the tires I'm running on the Peugeot, 700x28C (28-622), but actually measure 26mm wide when checked with a caliper. In any case, I stayed the course and rode into Purcellville to take a couple pictures of Velo Classique and then to grab a bite to eat at the local diner. The length of the ride was 33.5 miles with 1359 feet of ascent over the ride.

As I was eating, some light rain pushed in, so as I got back onto the bicycle, I was happy that a few miles of the ride were going to be on the W&OD Trail which is mostly covered with greenery and would help keep me dry. Fortunately as I was getting off the trail, there wasn't really any rain and I continued pushing northward toward home, though the skies were growing darker as the ride progressed. A bit north of Waterford VA, it began raining and became progressively heavier as I got closer to Lovettsville. By the time the ride was over, I was pretty soaked, but in pretty good spirits having explored some new places where I can do more rides in the future.

As an aside, this is the second ride I've taken on the Peugeot since I put a drop bar back onto the bicycle. I'll repeat what I said before: I like the new setup a lot - enough that I may pop for a bar-end shifter to replace the twist shifter. I also think the headset needs to be adjusted a bit as the front-end is a bit floppy, thought that may be due to the heavy dyno/brake hub installed on the bike. Perhaps a steering stabilizer will work too...



Playtime For Peugeot - 1 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 2 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 3 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 4 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 5 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 6 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 7 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 8 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 9 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr


Playtime For Peugeot - 10 by Sallad Rialb, on Flickr

photogravity

You'd think the guy would have been more tuned in than he was, eh? It is entertaining to see the reaction when they finally do get it, though. BTW, what year is your Marinoni?

photogravity

As the days get shorter, it definitely takes more planning to get in a ride in the daylight when it is warmer and you are more easily seen.

It is good to know that Nelli was at the club for the hot chocolate and not for the beer and wine!

JJScaliger

Nice pictures everyone! Cool peugeot photogravity.

I rode my Kelly 62.24 miles today for my September metric century. I did about 7 miles on dirt roads. A brief excursion into CT and back. Elevation gain 1342' and a 16.5 mph average. Pretty respectable on 32mm!





I know it looks like a stone wall but this is the foundation of an old building by the side of the road in CT.

photogravity

That stinks! Since there was no mention of fire ants, I guess you were spared that torture this time around. What bike were you riding this time around? Surely that isn't the Mercian, is it?

photogravity

That little village certainly is inviting, that's for sure! How old is that little town?

mkeller234

My wife and I went to Montreal on our honey moon. We never actually went to the stadium, but I remember that the tall structure dominated the landscape since it seemed to be around mostly small buildings. I thought it looked cool from a distance and actually wanted to get a close up view of it. What makes it infamous? Montreal was great.

photogravity

Thanks JJScaliger. That old Peugeot takes the Frankenbike concept to a whole new level, with an 8-speed Sturmey-Archer IGH and drum brakes. It's a fun ride now the Porteur bar is no longer on it and I can ride it comfortably on longer road rides.

BTW, as usual, you've got some great pictures posted. It seems you actually take time to compose the pictures, unlike me, as I'm always in too big a hurry to compose most of my pictures.

So what's the story with the Kelly bicycle? I never heard of the marque before you mentioned it in one of your previous posts and was surprised to discover they are the same ones that make the Kelly Take Offs.

jimmuller 

Wow, lots of nice pics!

We did 71.2 miles on the tandem today (now yesterday), some on the Nashua River Rail Trail, some on the roads in Nashua, Dunstble, Pepperell. That's our longest day yet.

We were out to log some mileage. I'd proposed the NRRT because it was different. Plus, the Rubel bikemap showed a few roads in Dusntable and our GPS (a DeLorme PN-60 with maps and color display) let me see where we were and where the roads went. I wanted to follow a road over to Hollis but we got sidetracked onto 111, which was actually nice until the rt3 intersection came in view. So we turned back, cut over to the trailhead on 111A, stopping at Zacharias Pizzeria first. Then we did a loop in Dusntable starting from the MA trailhead. That loop was so nice we did it twice, then rode rt113 into Pepperell before turning around. Sharon wanted to do the whole NRRT again so when we got back to Ayer we ate a bit then headed north again. It was a long day, about as tiring as the ride we did to Rhode Island with sherbornpeddlar, longer but most of it was flatter. However Dusntable has a few hills too.

The pavement was pretty nice, a few root heaves here and there, most of them marked. Not many road crossings and generally with very good sight lines. Be advised that the MA DCR website is slightly inaccurate. IIRC it says the NRRT is 11 miles. It felt longer and measured about 12.3 from Ayer to the MA trailhead. The end at rt111 in NH is about 12.75 miles, and it actually goes another half mile or so through some housing areas before fizzling out. All in all it was a nice experience.









We should have taken a few more pics from the Dusntable roads, especially the cornfield where the stalks seemed 12ft tall. But we zoomed by that spot after a fast downhill so stopping was out of the question!


Finally, taking a break on the long, final return.