I joined the FWBA Tour of Sand Flats club ride this morning at Alvarado. I did the 68 mile route which heads south, then west to Sand Flats, then on west out to Rio Vista. After a stop there, it heads east to Grandview for another stop, then back to Alvarado.

Recumbent friend Greg Gross also showed up for the ride, so I joined him and we did the ride together. This was a fun route that found some scenic Johnson County roads I’d never ridden before. We missed enough turns that I ended up with 70.2 miles.

This ride gave me a total of 626.4 miles for the month of March, and 1,571 miles for the year.

Tour of Sand Flats route.

It’s a RANS Screamer.

Actually, I drove to Shawnee, Oklahoma to meet the sellers and pick it up. I had to modify my bike rack to make it fit. Rose and I will by styling it now on our tandem rides.

I joined Gary and Charlie this morning, and rode the Venus to Elm Mott 200k. My mileage is down and my weight up, and the climbing on this route isn’t bad, so I figured it would be an easy route to get myself back into 200k riding form.

But things are never that easy, are they? The wind howled, Gary set a fast pace that caused me to burn too many matches early in the ride, and by the end, I was completely out of gas, just turning the pedals and trying to keep moving.

I ended up with 127.8 miles and finished in 8:40, a very good 200k time for me. I’m just glad it wasn’t a hilly route. I would have been in real trouble at the end. I need to start doing more rando rides, since I seem to be having trouble getting as many miles as I want now that I’m not commuting to work on my bike. All the chipseal on this route didn’t agree with my bad shoulder very well, but I survived, and know I can still do a 200k while I’m waiting to get it fixed.

Elm Mott Trot route.

I’ve now been off work for over a month. It looks like I’ll be off a lot longer. My orthopedic evaluation appointment isn’t until May 1st, and there will likely be surgery and rehab after that before I can return to work. I only ended up with 400 miles ridden for the month of February. It’s plainly going to be harder to get my mileage in, not commuting by bike to work all the time like I was.

It’s still too early in the year for any of the pay rides I do, and I don’t much like rando riding when it’s cold, so I’ve mainly just been doing short rides from home. Rose and I have done quite a few rides on the tandem. A ride from home to, and back from, the Avoca Coffee Shop in a historic neighborhood just south of downtown Fort Worth has been a favorite route lately.

On the way back, Trail Lake Drive has a nice bike lane for a couple of miles. The only problem with that is that there always seem to be cars illegally parked in the bike lane. Even this google maps satellite photo shows cars illegally parked in the bike lane. That makes it pretty obvious that they park there every day.
Google Maps Satellite Photo

I took photos of three of the parked cars today, and reported the license plate numbers to the FWPD when I got home. Do you suppose that, plus posting the vehicle photos here and on facebook will make any difference in this, the most car-centric place on the planet?

As I arrived home from my ride, I once again noticed what a jungle has grown up in the lot across the street. Our HOA is picky about everyone keeping their lawns mowed, yet this lot always looks like a jungle. What’s up with that? Is the landowner on the HOA board or what? I complained about this to the HOA after I got in the house. I guess I’m just in snitch mode today…

I ended up with 33.3 miles on the XStream this morning.

The Avoca Coffee Shop.

The Avoca route.

Bike lane illegally parked car #1.

Bike lane illegally parked car #2.

Bike lane illegally parked car #3.

Bike lane illegally parked cars.

The jungle lot across the street from home.