cruisintx

Greetings all, I hail from the steep, rocky shores of Lake Meredith in the Texas Panhandle. We are 45 miles north of Amarillo. I just got back into serious riding this year after about a 10 year hiatus due to other interests but mostly because of disabling back pain that has been corrected with surgery. I started this year on my old Trek 730 hybrid and have now acquired a used Felt F80 in order to keep up with one of my best friends who is on a Specialized road bike. I really like the Felt but still try to use the Trek for those days when it is just too windy to enjoy a long ride on the hiways (like today with 30mph SSW wind). The Trek is great for around town while staying out of the wind, but the Felt gets the call on days when the wind is below 20mph. My road rides consist mainly of lots of hills being here near the lake. Once out of the city limits, we have nothin' but hills. It's great training for those days when I go to my friends' house 35 miles away to get a taste of his flat-landers rides. So far this year I have logged 88 miles on the Trek and 417 on the Felt and lost 16 pounds in the process. Goal is to log at least 1200 by end of the season and drop another 30 pounds or so.

Wish me luck!!

10 Wheels

Welcome cruisintx to Bike Forums.
I started at age 65 yrs on A Felt F-80.
Now have 25,000 miles on it.
Your doing great for a young guy.

KittyHeart

good luck! Sounds like you're already doing pretty well

cretingirl

Woo! Yay for getting back into biking! I'm a (42) fat girl just getting into biking for the first time since I was a kid. It sounds like you are doing great! I hope I will be doing rides like you soon

cruisintx

thanks for the welcomes. got to make a couple more rides since my intro; one 12 miles in and out of town on the Trek with 30mph wind blowing, and today 29 miles on the Felt that should have been 32 but caught a piece of glass in the front tire three miles from home -- oh well; stuff happens.

cretingirl

Wow that's great that you're doing so much riding! Sorry to hear about the flat though

cruisintx

WHOO HOO!! knocked off 48 today. I know some of you may not care; but boasting a little once in while keeps me motivated. I rolled out at sunrise this morning, drove 10 miles to a predetermined starting point for a loop I had not yet ridden. Google maps estimated the distance at 45; turn out it was 48.77. 10 miles of hills into a 10 mph wind followed by 24 miles of relatively flat ground and a variety of directions then finishing with 14 miles of hills with that same 10 mph wind. Did it in 3:11:43 for and average speed of 15.3. My longest ride ever and burned approximately 2100 calories (according to my spreadsheets).

10 Wheels

Awesome ride.

cruisintx

thanks; it's a far cry from that first ride this year on Jan 10 that took me 45 minutes to go 8 miles on the old Trek hybrid and left me pretty worn out. Today's jaunt put me at 122 miles for this week.

Noticed you are in Galveston County, how's the riding down that way with all the traffic and heat?

10 Wheels

Got in 353 miles last week.
Leaving in The Dark like 5:30 AM to beat the heat.

cruisintx

DANG! 353 miles in a week; that's about my commute on the scooter. You must be really, really fast or have lots of free time to ride (or both).

cruisintx

Well, I've been here for a couple of months now and have noticed something in the "Introductions" section that looks as though it needs a little tweeking with each new thread. I am a member on a few motorcycle forums and have found that it is very helpful in the introductions threads for the original poster to put their location in the title to their thread. That makes it much easier for people doing searches to locate others in their area without having to wade through possibly hundreds of threads to find locals to ride/socialize with. Just a suggestion mind you; shouldn't we all include our town, state, province, country in the title of a new thread?

Now I know that resonding to introduction threads is a good way to make new members feel welcome, but the enormity of this website and having a full time job along with multiple other interests makes looking at all of them pretty much impossible. Heck the size of this site makes it possible for a thread to move from the first page to page two or three in just a matter of hours. That's why I would like to see something in titles that give a clue to location. Titles like "New Here", "Lurker coming out", or just "Newbie" don't give much hint to where one is from and I simply don't have the time to look at all of them in an effort to seek out local riders for some group rides & socializing. But if a location is put in the title an advanced search can make finding locals just a few mouse clicks away. I just think it would be the courteous thing to do.