| Ride Stats |
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Time: 02:40:18
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Route:
Swamp Rabbit Trail
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Distance:
27.76 miles
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Avg Speed:
10.39 mph
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Max Speed:
0.00 mph
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Altitude Gain:
0 ft
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Terrain: Road: Hills
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Bike: Gary Fisher Rail Road
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Club: Clydesdales |
| Weather Conditions: |
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I have been off the bike for two weeks. It has rained and rained and the one day that I could ride, the bike was in the shop. Today the Spinners Sunday Afternoon Ride was on, so I rode down to the park with the iffy weather. It was lightly sprinkling when I left the house. I was just under a mile from home on East North Street when a woman was frantically waving me to stop. There was a motorized wheelchair on its side on the sidewalk with a young woman in it. I put my bike down and a car stopped and four of us slowly righted the wheelchair and the girl riding it. She was fine but pretty embarrassed. Her headrest was off and a guy was working on it with a large pair of channel locks. I have some small tools in the saddlebag on the bike, so I got my tools out and we got everything back how it belonged. The girl was heading to West Washington Street and Main Street, but she didn't know how to get there. I told her to follow East North to downtown (about 2 miles) then turn left on Main and follow Main Street to Washington Street (another mile.) I stayed with her until she was moving back down the sidewalk.
After that I rode another mile and a half to Cleveland Park to see if anyone else was going to do the ride. A carload of people stopped and asked if I was doing the Spinners Ride. I told then that I was planning to ride, but the leader wasn't there yet. They told me that the Spinners president was leading the ride. I was surprised as Don rides it some, but Ken normally leads the ride. Don showed up and told me that Ken was out of town. The ride consisted of 6 of us. Don, the three from the car - Mark, Janet, and Holly, another young woman Sherilyn, and me. It sprinkled or lightly rained for the entire ride. While in the parking lot I noticed a parked car with its running lights on. I pointed it out to Don and he said "That's Kimberly's car." It was locked and she was nowhere to be found. We started up the trail and I took my normal spot at the back of the park. We had just started riding when Sherilyn said that something was rubbing her front wheel. She and I stopped and I spun the wheel and her brakes were rubbing it. I centered her brakes and had her brake a couple of times to make sure that they would stay home. By then we had lost the group, so we hustled along and ran them down at the Anderson Memorial. While riding north we ran into Kimberly riding south underneath Cedar Lane Road. I told her that her running lights were on.
We continued to ride north and as we were leaving the north end of Furman Sherilyn fell over on her bike. We had stopped and she couldn't get unclipped from her pedals and fell over. She was embarrassed, but uninjured. We rode on up to TR and stopped at the Forest. I had a cup of coffee and a white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie. We talked about several rides that the Spinners do that aren't just for the racers.
We headed back down the trail. Don stopped at the FDR memorial and told the new riders that Ken would have stopped at the several markers along the trail to explain them. Since it was wet and chilly there was little foot traffic so Don gave a scenic tour of Falls Park. We rode over Liberty Bridge and the secondary bridge and all around the park. Once we were back at Cleveland Park Sherilyn fell over again at the parking lot. I recommended that she go to a bike store and get new cleats for her shoes. The SPD shoes comes with SH-51 cleats that only release in one direction. They also sell SH-56 cleats that release in multiple directions. She will find that the SH-56 cleats will make a huge difference in getting unclipped in emergency situations. I know that I bought them after falling a few times and I haven't been down since.
Overall today was a little bit crazy, but it's a ride that I'll remember!!
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