obrentharris 

Those of you who follow pro racing will know about the poor "domestiques," roughly translated "servants," who, among other tasks, must drop back from the peloton to the team car to pick up half a dozen full waterbottles, stuff all those bottles into their jerseys, and catch back up with the fast moving peloton to distribute the bottles among their teammates.

My ride today was inspired by those hard-working cyclists.

I live in an area that is a very popular cycling destination. Some small number of the weekend cycling hordes lose their waterbottles; whether they bounce out of their cages on a rough stretch of pavement or are accidentally dropped by their thirsty owners they end up at the side of the road with the rest of the litter. I choose to pretend that my fellow cyclists would not purposely throw their empty bottles into the tall grass at the side of the road.

Today's stats are 30 miles covered, 5 bottles retrieved and deposited in the recycling, my small contribution to preserving the beauty of this area.



Brent

JamesRL

So next time I buy all black shorts.

My riding partner wanted to do part of the Elora Cataract Trailway in south western Ontario.Elora Cataract Trailway Association | A trailway along the Grand River Watershed linking communities

The plan was to go to the village of Erin to pick up the trail, ride to Belwood, get off the trail and ride to a trailer park where my riding partner's friend would have lunch waiting, then after a leisurely lunch, ride back.

As we started out, the path looked fine, old railway line turned into a trail with limestone screenings. I normally ride on roads. My tires, and my partners were 25mm, which in hindsight was not the right equipment.

But there were areas where grass grew in the middle, and areas where the stones gave way to mud.

After a few kilometers, we had just crossed a road, and then hit a totally shaded area, and there boxwwas a slick sheen of mud, and somehow I found my rear wheel sliding out from under me. I had one of those slow motion moments where I felt myself bounce and then hit again. My elbow scraped hard, and my knee, my hip took much of the brunt. But the bike was fine. I used much of my water to wash the mud out of my wounds, luckily there were a few picnic tables nearby to recover.

Even though we were not close to half way, we decided to continue on.

At every road crossing, there were barriers to prevent ATVs and snowmobiles from using the trail, and a narrow space between two concrete pillars to allow bikes and pedestrians through.

My partner was leading out, and he came to one of the barriers, turned his wheel, and it sunk in about 3 inches and grabbed the wheel. He and the bike avoided the barrier, but ended up in the bush. His head did hit a sapling, but he was ok. Again we decided to keep going forward.

As we left a fairly flat trail, we had a few rolling hills just for fun, then arrived at the trailer.

We took our time, ate, hydrated, bandaged my elbow and got a tour. We were just preparing to leave when the rain started. We had offers to shuttle us to our vehicles, but since it wasn't too hard, decided again to go forward.

The rollers were easier since in the end it was mostly downhill.

We finished relatively strongly, though not as fast as we started out.

All in I think we did 50 kms, 40 on the trail. The trail had markers every km in some sections.

I'd suggest you not tackle in a road bike unless it hasn't rained in a while. A cross bike would be fine.

noglider 

@qcpmsame, thanks, Bill, especially since I don't feel that I have any idea what I'm doing with a camera.

Wildwood 

Empty roads today.

zammykoo

Very scenic! You won't get anything close to that in Houston.


This morning's quick ride (don't mind the missing bar tape, I'm fixing that today)

rico_mack

Sometimes you just gotta say to hell with bar tape, I gotta ride!

zammykoo

That's what I said to myself this morning! I was in a hurry to load up the bike and hit the trails.

Kobe 

I got out at 5am on Sunday for a 40 mile solo ride. No pictures of that because it was the same loop and rather boring.

The afternoon ride with my youngest to the Power House Flea Market in Collegeville was only 12 miles but much more funner.
The Market


Him



Me



Our rides. Neither vintage, a Trek 520 and a Black Mountain Monster Mountain.



(I just switched over to flickr so please forgive the smallish pictures)

3speedslow

Soft pedaled to a coffee shop under threatening skies. I am so jealous of you guys!

DQRider 

By no means an exhaustive study.

Simply five images left over from my ride last Sunday that just happen to feature bridges in the composition. This was in the area where the I-35 bridge disaster occurred a decade ago, if anyone here remembers that.

Just LOOK at that crumbling infrastructure! Taxes? Who pays taxes? We don't need no steenkin' taxes!












... and that's all I have for tonight.

Sir_Name 

Once the work whistle sounded for the day I was out the door and on the trails.





...channeling DQ....

eatontkd

Morning ride pics; always impressed with the richness of soil here in Central PA... Not that farming is easy but the land in it's yield is always a comforting plus to our local economy. Farmers markets here are amazing and will be for the next two months! Enjoy life my friends...

zukahn1 

Rainy day in the high Rockies so I took a short gravel grind to one of the highest and oldest established places in the US the Fairplay Cemetery established 1863.

noglider 

photobucket pictures don't display here any more even if you're paying, because I'm not paying. I have to pay to see other people's pictures?

DQRider 

Aw, man... that made me smile.

Nice shot!

Vonruden

Prework / Dawn Patrol

Drillium Dude 

Took 'er easy today. Picked the Sparrow for a Dennis Sparrow tribute ride. I really enjoy riding this bike and now will most likely not get rid of it while I'm still drawing breath

RIP Dennis - thanks for your contribution to cycling.







Test ride for the Flite saddle received yesterday from @brockd15. Verdict: my tush likes it!

DD

obrentharris 

That Sparrow is a beauty! I'm glad you did a tribute ride on it.

I'm intrigued by the wall behind the bike. I can tell that those are railroad tie plates on the surface but is the rest a retaining wall or a building wall made of wire mesh filled with rock?
Brent

Drillium Dude 

Thank you.

The background is a cool art installation along the MUP going through Redmond. I specifically chose this as a backdrop today because I thought orange against rust would provide a neat contrast. I took the following pic of the installation during a ride through back in May:



Looks sorta like a crashed Imperial Cruiser or a rusted paper airplane

DD

Vonruden

Very nice DD, love the Sparrow, the orange is a cherry on top

Those Flights are my favorites, even have them on a couple more modern bikes.

gomango

Goats!

On our ride yesterday, we came across this unique way to control invasive plant species in our Metro Oak Savannahs.

A little stinky, but incredibly effective.

Excellent idea. imho

Goats clearing Buckthorn and Burdock. Sustainability to the 5th power. by gomango1849, on Flickr

Goats clearing Buckthorn and Burdock. Sustainability to the 5th power. by gomango1849, on Flickr

Goats clearing Buckthorn and Burdock. Sustainability to the 5th power. by gomango1849, on Flickr

Goats clearing Buckthorn and Burdock. Sustainability to the 5th power. by gomango1849, on Flickr

jimmuller 

Ah! They did that on parts of the Minuteman Bikeway, set up small fenced-in areas with goats but with no signs explaining what was up. Now it makes sense.

gomango

The invasive plants truly threaten our local forests and this solution is brilliant.

The invasives sap nutrients from the Oaks, Cottonwoods and coniferous trees that fill these river valleys.

The goats make it so much easier to get in there with human crews to work on eradication plans.

All the crews do is give the goats a little supplemental water and the goats mow down these invasives.

So much easier to get back in there and replant natural shade plants and ground covers.

Sir_Name 

Thanks - what do you use for postprocessing? I just started playing with advanced settings in Imgur, quick and simple, but pixelates the pics after a few adjustments.

DQRider 

What, you want me to give away my secrets!?

It's simple, really. Just as I used the darkroom during my film days, a program called "Lightroom" came bundled with my Leica, and it works a treat.

For photojournalism, I used Kodachrome exclusively. When printed using the Cibachrome process, the images were as vivid and sharp as the stuff I shoot digitally now. As I might have said before, think "National Geographic".

In Lightroom, I found a setting called "Direct Positive" that yields the same kind of results. With some judicious fiddling of brightness and contrast, that produces the images I post here.

Like I said, simple!