exmechanic89

I rode the 40-45 mile loop I often do around Portland Or and Vancouver Wa, it takes me across two interstate bridges and is pretty scenic. I ride it with my wife sometimes too, but often do it solo.

Prowler 

Yesterday afternoon I rode the length of the North County Trailway in Weschester County, NYS then continued onto the section thru Putnam County ending in Brewster, NY. No photos but the trail looked just like many rail trails with wonderful cool woods on both sides and a solid leafy canopy above. Lovely dry cool air. Perfect day.

I started at the corner of I287 and the Sawmill River Parkway and rode north so it was about 32 miles. Very nice. The trail was 10 feet wide paved the whole way but the surface was pretty aged and rumbly (frost heaves and root heaves) in Westchester. I had to be careful grabbing the water bottle as the bumps would surprise me and rattle the bike's line. Much better in Putnam Co.

I really liked that I rode south to north as the last few miles into Brewster were down hill and I just screamed thru all that. BTW even with the rumbly trail surface it was a nice ride - Raleigh 531 Pro frame, 700 x 28 tires, Vetta TT Trishock saddle. Nice.

Oh, one other feature: about every mile or so was a emergency call box, solar powered. Never seen that on a rail trail. And the cars/truck along the trail were very good about bikes - driving wide when passing and stopping at crossings to let me pass. Nice folks.

At the end, while packing the bicycle back into the car (my wife picked me up at the end) another fellow walked over to admire the bike and tell me about his newly acquired Fuji Royale. Good C&V moment.

jimmuller 

Nice pics, VoloV, Choke, Sco. Choke, I've been through Wyoming once a long time ago (in a state far, far away) but your pics sure look like what I remember, empty, rugged, desolate, and did I mention empty?

3speedslow

Rode the 89 Gazelle to work, as usual.

Took off cross town to my sisters after work, lots faster then my usual commuter bike. She has a yard sale tomorrow so I throw the signs in my messenger bag and cover the area with the news. Bike really likes it when I ask it to go fast. Does not mind no- hands - riding but really likes to be grabed and showed where to go !

Mission accomplished, I head back home through rush hour traffic, good bike to sprint across the lanes.

Back home, bike safe in it's stall.

Velocivixen

Took the Miyata One Twelve mixte out on a 15 mile ride with the new Soma Highway One bars & NOS original brake levers. I'm not used to riding on drops, even on the hoods, so while comfort was high it will take my neck/shoulder muscles time to get used to this position. On my route I came upon a group of 3 fully kitted out, carbon riders. They didn't know I was immediately behind them until I cleared my throat. The last rider said, "Bike back". I replied, "I'm drafting". We all laughed. One of them fell back & we chatted a bit. He enjoyed seeing a vintage bike out on the road.
Miyata at Red Barn by velocivixen, on Flickr
Tualatin River on Miyata by velocivixen, on Flickr
1987 Miyata Mixte by velocivixen, on Flickr

MauriceMoss

While it wasn't really today (I can't believe how long it's taken me to transfer the pictures...), this ride was recent enough to be shared here (I hope). The bikes are rentals and not really C&V, but I was on vacation and that was all that was available. We rode near the town of Hveragerði in Iceland. The river valley in the pictures is Reykjadalur (Hot River Valley).


Boiling mud pits/vents were pretty much everywhere. Apparently, some of these can be under the surface and if the soil at the top weakens enough you can fall through!






Overlooking Reykjadalur.


And down the hill we go...


Our planned 15 minute soak in the hot river turned out into almost two hours. My legs were exceptionally noodly after this.


As there are vents everywhere, there's lots of steam. Apparently, sheep like to hang out in the steam all day before they pack it in for the day.




Same river, just a bit further downstream. Our guide said that later on in the summer you can hike up to the waterfall and have nice dip.

thinktubes 

^^^^
wow!

Choke 

Beautiful!That's one way to keep people on the trails.

Velocivixen

@MauriceMoss - Wow! Fantastic shots. What time of year was that and would that ride be suitable for a novice mountain rider? I'm not a novice rider, but haven't done much off road. I would LOVE to do this as a vacation. Thanks.

JJScaliger

I squeezed a quick ride in between giving the lawn a haircut and an afternoon family cookout. Only 26 miles, but a beautiful summer day here in RI; 80 degrees and sunny with low humidity.


The ubiquitous Scituate Reservoir. I pass it nearly every ride from home.

Under these waters once stood the villages of: Kent, South Scituate, Richmond, Ashland and Rockland.

jimmuller 

On Saturday we met up with some friends (my old boss Jan and his wife Dorothy) who are in town for a spell. He is a serious cyclist from past lives and still rides regularly, and they ride their own tandem occasionally. So they rented a tandem from Bikeway Source and we went for a local spin. But my sweetie wanted to do more miles than they were likely to want, so we started earlier and met them. 23.75 miles then another 23.0.

Our pre-meeting run took us south from Bedford into Lincoln, west on rt117, local roads over to rt62, then back east-northeast toward Concord Center. Rt62 was blocked and marked closed at the rt2 crossing but I figured we could probably get through anyway. After a short ways up rt62 a policeman stopped us. He we couldn't even walk it because the RR bridge construction crew was putting up a big steel beam. His suggestion was to go back out to rt2 and take it west for half a mile or so. Oh that will be fun! I mentioned as how rt2 is normally off-limits to bicycles and he said he'd already directed about 500 cyclists to go that way. So off we went, took rt2 to the stoplight just east of the Concord Rotary. It was great. Nice wide clean shoulder, cars whizzing by at 45-55mph. The rest of the day was downright serene.





As we were preparing to depart after eating lunch a guy rode up on an ancient Raleigh Record. I believe he said it was a junkyard find. We spoke for a few minutes about old bikes. He commented that he had an old LeJeune tandem with a steel drum-brake rear hub and it had the same 11mm axle as ours. So I told him of my efforts at finding axle and bearing cone replacements.

FWIW, the replacement bearing cones seem to have held up pretty well for these first 47 miles.

RobbieTunes

25-mile triathlon leg, followed by recovery with shrimp and lemon cream cake. Decent morning and lunch.

Prowler 

I hate to confess that I snuck into town without swinging over your way, Jim, but I did. We have a pretty full relative schedule but I did take Saturday morning off to meet with @ScottRyder over in North Beverly. We set the two Raleigh Professionals together then headed over to Hamilton then up thru that very nice country out to and in to Ipswitch. Pingree Woods, Bradley Palmer State Park, ponds and cornfields. Very nice just following Scott and letting him know the roads and how to get home. I was also please to see so many bicycles out using those same roads. Cars and trucks gave a wide berth - obvious that everyone shares the roads a lot. Stopped in Ipswitch for a bit and talked to a full zoot carbon/carbon rider who crowed about his Raleigh Gran Prix that he also loves riding. You never know who might turn out to be C&V.

Thanks Scott, for a very nice morning and an excellent tour of your bike collection. WOW.

pressed001

That is a beautiful bike!

Vonruden

Great times with family and friends in Lancaster county Pa, included a few rides and lots of laughs.

Velocivixen

@pressed001 - Thanks! I've really put a lot of thought and love into this bike. Changing components and trying to keep it "era" specific as much as possible. The wheels, which I made are 700c, down from 27". I kept the original hubs though.

scozim 

Had a little standoff today while riding the Klein up to the hills:

ButchA

I went on a nice, quick, 14.5 mile ride before lunch - before it got too hot outside... Sorry, no pictures - I forgot my camera...

Once inside West Creek Pkwy business complex (looks like a horseshoe, off Patterson Ave (route 6) and has the 288 expressway crossing it with overpasses), a lot of lycra racers were in there with their $5000 Cervelo's and Specialized, etc.. racing bikes. Me and my old '85 Fuji tried in vain to keep up, but couldn't quite stay with them. But I gave it my best shot, that's all that matters!



Even though I'm 54 and probably have 20 or more years on some of those riders, I look at it like, "if they can do it - so can I!"

Drillium Dude 

Some really great pics recently! Boiling mud holes, cattle on the roads, Abe Lincoln dumping it in the gravel... Keep 'em coming.

It's pouring down here the last couple of days - a welcome sight after nearly 3 months without any appreciable rainfall. Hoping for dry weather tomorrow, though.

DD

jimmuller 

Nice of you to think of it, but you did the right thing! Scott is an great guy (we've never seen his "collection", only individual bikes as we've ridden with him) and that area is great for riding. We've put in some miles up that way ourselves. We would have loved to join you but we had a pretty full plate ourselves.

We went out for 39 miles today. The weather was supposed to be humid with a threat of showers of t-storms and we got a late start. It turned out to be cloudy and cool even if humid, great for riding. We got rained on briefly on our return but it was nothing, nothing at all.

The subject of today's photographic tour is the signage between Concord and Chelmsford, with a diversion or two thrown in for variety.

At the top of a hill I call Attack Duck Hill:



At an isolated intersection. We asked ourselves "What font is that?"



A little further on, 3 sides to this one (we wouldn't want to get lost, now would we?):





At Great Brook Farm State Forest (we wouldn't want to get hungry, now would we?):



The view at our lunch stop:



Under the heading of Dramas of Everyday Life, we observed a few interesting episodes over lunch. The beach was uncommonly deserted except for a lifeguard who appeared to be high school age. Then some guy (wearing swim trunks) wandered into the water and started swimming across the pond toward a distant point about .21 miles away just off the left of that pic. The guy was obviously a strong swimmer and apparently knew what he was doing. But the poor lifeguard got worried and made a phone call. A few moments later a woman who we suppose might have been a Chelmsford parks department official showed up and they conversed for a while and made another phone call. A few moments later a Chelmsford policeman showed up and they conversed for a while. The swimmer just kept swimming and we just kept eating. Eventually the policeman left (we later observed a sign that simply said "Swim at your own risk") and the woman left. The lifeguard climbed back up to his elevated chair secure in the knowledge that he'd done what he could to handle a situation he knew he couldn't handle. (Very responsible of him, we figured.)

In the meantime an elderly couple showed up with a small radio-controlled toy power boat. They spent maybe 10 minutes buzzing it around the near end of the pond. And the swimmer reached the far point, turned around and swam back. As we finishing up our lunch and the boat people retrieved their toy boat the swimmer walk out of the water back to his car.

We got back on the bike and rode away.

Chrome Molly

An urban ride of sorts on a series of bike paths. A great excuse to put the new Suze bell to good use (what a nice sound).

Some Mississippi River photos



The obligatory Minnehaha falls photo


The Roberts in front of a fountain in St Paul. This fountain was actually melted down for WW1, but fortunately the foundry kept the moulds (for 50 plus years), it was redone in the late 20th century. Looking nice today.

ncrnelson

Those pictures fail to depict how miserably hot it was today, it looks downright nice in them. One of these days I need to ride down to Minnehaha falls, I've never been. That's a nice little bit of history about that fountain.

LoriRose

Did my longest ride to date today. 50k. My longest before today was 44k and was not difficult by any measure. Today tired me out though. It was hot out and I was cranky. Had some nice scenery though along the Lachine canal.

MauriceMoss

Thanks for the kind words, @Velocivixen. I was in Iceland the last week of June. The weather was (I thought) good - mid to upper 50s and no rain, except for a short sprinkle on my last day there.
As for this ride, I think it would be fine for a novice rider. When it comes to mountain biking I'm a complete noob. I've done proper mountain biking only on a few occasions.
My brother rides a lot more and he said that the ride had a good combination of different types of terrain. I'll just take his word on this. I was too busy admiring all the scenery.
I was extra cautious, not wanting to crash a brand new rental, so in a few spots I opted to walk the bike (like parts of the downhill in one of the pics where there was some loose gravel on a steep hill), but overall it didn't seem too technical to me.

I just wish I had a couple more weeks to explore the countryside. It really is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, it's so crazy expensive, I don't think I could afford it (as it is, I went there because my brother had a conference in Reykjavik so the hotel, car and some of the food was paid for...).

MauriceMoss

Looks like you had a great time! Although, it doesn't look like the cows found the Abe Lincoln stunt amusing.