djkashuba 

Gitane Gran Tour Shake-down. All is well.

-D

greg3rd48 

^^ @djkashuba Beautiful French goodness. Only one photo of my quick 25 mile early morning ride through the Bronx on the Fuji Ace. I snuck this ride in before the rest of the household awoke. Everyone is off today to enjoy the beautiful weather.

Drillium Dude 

That Gitane is a pretty bike

I was supposed to ride up the John Wayne/Iron Horse Trail to the Snoqualmie Tunnel today, but a slight hiking injury (and crappy I-90 corridor weather) cancelled. So here's a pic of a mountain lake:



I paid for that pic, but it was worth it!

DD

djkashuba 

Dragged and dropped from FB.
Would love to ride in NYC. Every time I visit there is better bicycle infrastructure. If they can do it there we can do it anywhere.

-D

Sir_Name 

Beautiful Gitane -- and hiking in Washington must be a blast.

Vonruden

Lunch time ride on the Canal Path in Princeton.

Vonruden

Thanks Man, the Crown Jewel of my fleet no doubt. Love the lake shot!

northbend 

I noodled around the upper and lower Snoqualmie valleys today on the Merckx.


I haven't ridden it much this year and it felt great being out on it again

deapee

Good ole Watopia

jet sanchEz

Toured around some trails in North York a bit, nothing special but I really enjoyed a jerk pork sandwich while sitting in the park, that's what's in the grey bag hanging from my bars. Ignore the rear brake housing, it has been since fixed, I just wanted to get out and ride my new-to-me Panasonic PR 5000.

greg3rd48 

You certainly have incredible scenery in your neck of the woods. Hopefully one day in the not too distant future I can find my way to the PNW and do some riding.

jimmuller 

Yeah, another great set of pics!

dp, is that a painting? If not, what are the light streaks? It's a fascinating pic whatever it is.
That Panasonic against the green wall is another great one.
Of course the PNW pics are always welcome.

We did 47.6 miles on the tandem today. It was a long, tough week so the ride was welcome.

Thought you might like to see what the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail looks like. Ignore the mugs in the foreground.


Lunch at Hart Pond. Nice thing about a tandem is you can carry a pretty darn good picnic!

Vonruden

Another Dawn patrol to beat the rain.

Chrome Molly

Impressionistic riding pictures, we are so avant garde on this thread....

Today did 83 miles on the Anderson covering some of my favorite roads. In one spot I was watching two young kids fish for trout with bobbers and worms, then looked up to find 40 riders headed the opposite way in a large very fast moving group. Most of the group was wearing the same team/shop jersey, but I didn't recognize it.






After the ride, spent the afternoon riding up and down the St Croix river on my neighbor's boat (the best kind), heading under the bridges I'd crossed earlier in the day. A beautiful day all around.

crank_addict

Beautiful Saturday. Greet and ride with fellow CR list and BF members in Whitewater, WI. Host Earle Y. had donuts and coffee to fuel us at the start. As usual, there were some pretty machines, vintage and modern. From a pair of Lightspeed's ti's, neato Schwinn Volare, a Viking complete w/ Ideale 90 ally rail saddle, stealth invisible to radar 14 lbs. CF weapon, and I captained the old Santana tandem.

Pretty area, rural / countryside rolling roads. Terrific company, we kept an enjoyable fun pace for conversation. No mishaps other than Big Chainring breaking a Sedis chain on his Viking. He lives up to his moniker!

Post ride, a few of us stayed for an excellent luncheon at one of Earle's choice select Italian eatery back in Whitewater. While readying to saddle up I noted the tandem had a rear flat. Drat's. We kicked the idea around of further riding but with our belly's full, ended up going over to Earle's place, changed out the tube and mostly for show and tell. I'll leave Earle to pipe in on his projects, but oh my, he has some very cool to spectacular builds. And I cheer him on for his bold vintage fixed rides. Let's just say, big wide tall Dugast stuffed into a K. Anderson 'freshly' and stunning painted Gitane TdF........ fixed baby....hehe. He's riding it but still doing the tweaks and change outs.

Sorry no pics from me though others had taken some. Maybe they can share them.

Thanks for the terrific time Earle. I look forward to meeting again and riding that area, including the mention of off-road. BTW: Earle awarded me with a super neat, very much vintage, large scale 70's Campagnolo decal. Most kind of him.



Scott, Skip, Earle, Paul, Norm, Peter and on far right, help me remember...?? Kneeling up front is Rick

smontanaro 

(I have a difficult time replying from my phone. Let's try this again from a real computer...)

I took a few photos as well. Thanks to Earle for hosting us.

Whitewater, WI

@big chainring's Viking is down! Earle to the rescue!

jimmuller 

After yesterday's tandem ride I took the Motobecane out for what I expected would be just an hour or two. Events make it take longer even though the distance ended up at only about 35 miles. No, it didn't involve a flat or a crash.

First, a quick photo op at the deCordova Museum. It's a place I don't frequent and I'm pretty sure why. You can form your own opinion...



How did I end up on Tattoine?



Okay, I won't climb. Art? What art?



So as I was working my way through the wilds of Lincoln, while going uphill I happened to pass a gentleman riding this Raleigh.



Well, it is a fixed gear which explains why he was mashing away while I was spinning. But the bike looked interesting so I turned around and went back. He asked if I was doing repetitions and I said no, I wanted to ask about his bike. Then he asked about mine, said he'd spotted the Campy hubs and DT shifters. We fell into talking about old bikes for a few minutes and I happened to mention that I had four "super-bikes". He asked what they were and I said this Motobecane, a Masi, a Grandis I'd just built up, and a Gazelle Champion Mondial. Then he floored me by asking whether the Gazelle was an AA frame or an A frame or whatever. I said it was an AB, but I thought what the heck? Nobody knows about the various flavors of Gazelle CM frames except a vintage bike person, and probably only those who have owned one. It turns out he'd spent many years converting high-end bikes to single-speeds and fixed-gears. So we rode together for a bit, stopped and had a cup of coffee, talked about vintage bikes some more and commuting by bike and the relative value of rail trails. As we were mounting up to leave he mentioned how when I'd blown by him uphill he'd seen the toe clips and steel frame and DT shifters and thought this guy doesn't know how good he is. At that point I just smiled and thought he doesn't know how good I am NOT, but I did point out that he was on a fixie which gave me an advantage going uphill!

It was a marvelous experience, and totally unexpected!

Sir_Name 

^Sounds like a great crossing of paths.

jimmuller 

VR started this. From yesterday's ride, Flint Pond in Lincoln, MA.









Crank, that looks like a great day! Good ride, good company!

noglider 

My wife and I took our first ride on our tandem yesterday. It took a while for me to get it to work, since I lacked a stoker stem, and once I found one, I had to fabricate a shim to make it fit.

The next obstacle is terror for my wife. She was very afraid. We knew this going in. She agreed to try it. I heard her breathing and felt the panic, and even my heart palpitated. But after a short while, she learned to relax, and we had a good time. We did ten miles riding on roads and the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail. We stopped in at the Rail Trail Cafe in Rosendale, NY and had lunch, and just then, a gamelan concert was setting up, so we got to enjoy that. Imagine all this in the woods, not near any road but just the trail.

This is a low end tandem, but I'm super pleased with it. It's a Burley Zydeco from about 2002. We were able to climb a very steep hill, one that my wife can't always climb on her single and which I have to work hard to top. This was some work, but we didn't come close to giving up. On the way back, we climbed a long hill, and that was good, too. I think we'll make a good team. We're working out audible and hand signals. It would be nice if the bike had higher gears at the top end. Maybe I'll make that happen one day. It's really easy to spin out in top gear when the going is good. I haven't looked at what ratios the gears are, but top gear might be well over 108 gear inches.

jimmuller 

Excellent! Your experience isn't all that different from ours. On our first ride we went all of five miles and felt exhausted. Sharon kept looking down at the edge of the pavement just a foot or so to her right and was terrified that I'd run off the edge of the road. She said she kept wondering why I was so close. (uh, well dear, if I move much to the left we'll be out in the road where those cars are whizzing by.)

Other tandem teams gave us some good advice. The psychology can be tougher than the physical demands. The stoker has to yield ALL control to the captain because there is nothing the stoker can do except stoke. Some people have a hard time with that at first. It requires the stoker to have complete faith in the captain's handling of the bike. Of course the captain has to live up to that expectation.

Rule number one: Keep the bike safe.
Rule number two: Keep the stoker happy!

If the stoker ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

That sounds like a nice ride you had, good distance, nice concert. Pretty cool! Nice pic too, with the red against the red.

About those gears, I dunno'. We rarely use out highest gear, a rather conventional 52/14, probably use it maybe once per ride. Sharon used to wish I'd slow down on the downhills but now she like going fast. I suppose it depends on the bike too.

Vonruden

Nice Jim, really like the 2nd one ��

jimmuller 

He! Thanks. My sweetie wanted to know if van Gogh rode a bike. She connected a name to the first too but I forget who it was. Duh.

All I did bike-wise today was ride the Grandis to and from work.

noglider 

I've ridden tandems before, and the top gear is never high enough. There's twice the power and the same wind resistance.

Johnny Mullet

I got a friend into cycling and this young lady loves it! We been going on weekly rides and tonight was her first 18 mile ride. We went to the beach, we went to the Lake Erie, then we went to the bar. I took my single speed Huffy Klunker build................