I took off on the F5 this morning and rode out to Martins Mill, and just a bit past. I wanted to ride 70 miles. I’d only managed one 30 mile ride this week, and didn’t want to end up with less than 100 miles for the week. I’d ridden 120 miles each of the first two weeks of October, all short rides. I need a good mileage week next week, if I intend to end up with as many miles for October as I wanted.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been hearing a little click as I pedal on the F5. It would be once per revolution of the pedal, and would come and go. It got a lot worse on today’s ride, with a series of clicks now and then, and a louder clunk thrown in here and there.

I stopped at mile 33 and found the problem. My right pedal had what felt like a bit of looseness in the bearings. I took off, hoping I could finish the ride. At mile 56, in Purtis Creek State Park, when I made a stop, the right pedal came off. The pedal spindle was still on the bike, but the pedal itself was still locked into the cleat of my shoe. I figured my ride was over, but when I slipped the pedal over the spindle, it turned easily enough, so I decided to try and finish the last 14 miles of the ride.

I made it home ok, and finished with 70.1 miles. I had just posted last week about how Bebop pedals last forever. I guess that was bad karma.

What is wrong with this picture?

Notice the pedal stuck in the cleat on my shoe.

Today’s route.

Much like the Republicans after the last presidential election, I did an autopsy after the Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred this year, to try and figure out what went wrong. (Let’s hope I learned more than they obviously have.) Leg cramps had me off the bike several times in the last 18 miles. I’ve ridden HHH the last eight years. I always give it a high effort, and considering that and the heat, it’s not surprising that my legs want to cramp at times. Most of the time, though, I’ve been able to just ease up my effort, and finish the ride without an off-the-bike caliber of cramp. On two of those rides, however, cramps have stopped me.

The first obvious observation is that on all six HHH rides where I finished without stopping for cramps, I was riding a Euromesh seat on a Corsa. When I cratered with cramps, I was riding a CCK seat on a Roadster, then a RailGun seat on an F5. What do these seats have in common? If it had only been the RailGun, I would have probably blamed it on the extreme recline. But, with the CCK on the Roadster, there was enough rear wheel interference that I couldn’t recline the seat as much as I wanted, not even as much as the Euromesh was reclined on the Corsa.

Besides being made out of carbon fiber, the other thing these seats have in common is that they don’t have much of a seat pan. That is, they don’t curve up at the front of the seat to give you something for your behind to rest against as you slide forward. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that this is the most likely cause of my lack of comfort, and leg cramps on long, hard efforts, on these seats. Not all seats work for all people, and I’m thinking that Euro style seats which have no seat pan just don’t work as well for me. My first effort to help with this was to put a small piece of wally world camper pad at the front of the CCK seat, under the regular seat pad. I just put velcro on the top and bottom of it, to keep it in place. Here is that pad.

That lessened the feeling that I was about to slide off the front of the seat, but was never enough to get me really comfortable with the CCK seat. I had kept this pad, and used it again on the RailGun seat, but it obviously wasn’t nearly enough to make the seat comfortable for me. On a short ride, it wouldn’t be a problem. And I don’t normally ride more than 10 to 15 miles without stopping, but I had noticed aches and pains if I went longer without a stop on the RailGun.

My first thought was to just go back to the Euromesh seat. But, I like that wide seatback on the RailGun, and the support it gives my cratered shoulders, so much that I decided to try creating a seat pan for it, first. I took the camper pad that I was already using, and glued several more camper pad pieces to it, to make a wedge.

Next, I put masking tape around the wedge and painted it black.

Finally, I wrapped it with the same material I had used to make the seat pad cover, and put velcro on the top.

Here is the RailGun seat with it installed, and the Euromesh seat laying on top, for a rough comparison.

After installing this setup, I raised the seat two notches. It’s still seems a bit more reclined than the Euromesh was, but it’s close to what was comfortable for me all those years on the Euromesh. It’s no doubt a bit less aerodynamic, but improves my view of the road. I rode the F5 for three weeks with this new setup, and it did seem like an improvement. It still didn’t seem like enough, though. Behind the pad, and in front of the lumbar curve on the RailGun, is a valley that my behind and tailbone sat in. I felt like I needed to add one more longer piece of camper pad underneath the wedge, to fill this valley. Here is what I made.

It goes from the front of the wedge, almost to the start of the lumbar curve of the RailGun. Here is the wedge on top of it.

And here is the seat with its new configuration.

It does seem much more comfortable for me. I haven’t done any really long rides on it, though. It will probably be next year’s HHH before I know if it’s as comfortable for me as the Euromesh was. We’ll see.

I took off on the F5 this morning and rode to Martins Mill. I ended up with 62.3 miles. I had 60 miles during the week, so 122 miles total for the week. I had ridden 130 miles in each of the last two weeks before this one, 4 short rides each week. The first week of September, I had 3 rides for 100 miles.

I’ll likely ride 30 miles on Monday morning. That will give me 515 miles for the month, and 4,180 miles for the year. I’ll need to ride 1,320 miles in the remaining three months to reach my 5,500 mile goal for the year. I should be able to do that if the weather doesn’t get too bad near the end of the year.

I’ve been taking a different route to Purtis Creek, and on east lately. It’s a more northerly route that gives me less shoulder riding time on US 175. I really don’t like that shoulder, and last Tuesday’s ride was another reminder of why. I was checking my rear view mirror and looking ahead for my turn. That proved to be exactly the wrong time to look away from the road, as I hit a broken piece of brick that pinch flatted the front tire, and before I could stop, I hit a small piece of 1/4″ steel plate that punched a large hole in the side of the rear tire.

I carry two tubes, and some old rim tape for booting a tire, so I was able to fix both tires, but even with the two pieces of rim tape over the hole in the rear tire, it bulged so much I only pumped it up to 60 pounds. It got me home though, a tire ruined after less than 500 miles. There’s just too much debris on the US 175 shoulder. It seems that everyone who hauls a flat be trailer, just tosses all kinds of junk on it, then watches it all fall out on the road. And of course it all ends up on the shoulder with me.

I bought a Continental GatorHardshell tire to replace the ruined one. It does indeed have the toughest sidewall I’ve ever seen on a bicycle tire. We’ll see how well it holds up.

Today’s route.

Tuesday’s ruined tire. My finger will almost fit through that hole.

I took off on the F5 this morning and rode to Eustace, then did a loop out to SH 19. I stopped at Purtis Creek on the way back. I ended up with 54.6 miles.

I worked enough hours early in the week that I didn’t get to ride at all before Thursday. But, I managed 40 miles Thursday morning and 30 miles Friday morning, so ended up with just short of 125 miles for the week. I just barely finished Friday morning’s ride when the storms hit. If I had tried to ride the 40 miles I got up intending to do that morning, I would have gotten caught in the storm.

I ended up with 599 miles ridden in August. That’s not really as many miles as I’d like for a summer month which had five Saturdays and five Sundays, but I guess it will have to do.

View to the west just before I finished Friday morning’s ride.

Today’s route.

I traveled to Wichita Falls yesterday and rode the Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred today. This was the eighth straight year I’ve done the 100 mile route at HHH. I finished the route today, but it wasn’t easy. With the miles I’ve been riding and my fitness level, I had no illusions about being able to challenge my personal best time at HHH, but like always, I did hope to make it around the route in less than six hours. I didn’t accomplish that this year.

I stayed at the Lamar Baptist Church recreation building again this year. As always, the hosts there did a great job for the riders. And I enjoyed my visiting with friends last night, most of whom I hadn’t seen since last year’s HHH or longer. But, just like last year, there were some cancellations by riders, and there weren’t as many recumbent riders as many previous years. The bike show was great fun as always, too. The weather at Wichita Falls was trying to live up to the ride’s name this year. It was 103 degrees this afternoon.

Things didn’t start out smoothly at the ride. A quarter mile after the start, my Garmin quit. Apparently, its battery has reached the age where it won’t hold its charge overnight, and you need to leave it on the charger until right before a ride if you want it to last out the ride. Since I always have it on the charger at home, I had no idea this would happen. I really missed the heart rate monitor. With the extra adrenaline a big ride like this brings, it’s easy to misjudge how much effort you’re expending, and that heart rate monitor is a good way to tell that.

But the first sixty miles of the ride were a blast. I rode with friend DJ Boyd, who I used to travel to HHH with every year, while we only lived five miles apart. Now I only seem to see him at HHH. His riding mileage was down this year, and he wasn’t sure how strong he would finish 100 miles, so we were both trying to draft some, and conserve enough energy to finish strong. At Burkburnett at mile 60, DJ stopped at the rest stop, and just like I had good sense, I rode on.

I don’t know if it was because I had misguaged my early effort from not having my heart rate monitor, or if I rode too hard after turning against the considerable wind later in the ride, but at mile 82, I cratered. I had leg cramps so bad I had to stop, and I was on and off the bike the rest of the way. I don’t have an official time yet from my timing chip, and of course my Garmin didn’t record the time, but I think I finished the 101 miles in something like 6:20. Not good, but like they say, sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug. I felt very much like the bug today.

Still, it was a fun trip, and for the eighth straight time, I completed the 100 mile route there. No small accomplishment for a lung challenged old f*rt, I’m thinking.

The sea of cyclists at the start.

Friend DJ at the start.

The HHH 100 mile route.

EDIT: Here is my timing chip result. It wasn’t too impressive this year, but I was still 17th in my age group, so I guess that’s something. That time is too low though, again this year. It makes me wonder if the chip ignores the early start we recumbents do.

I took off on the F5 from the east edge of town and rode to Martins Mill, then on to Ben Wheeler. I had ridden as far as Ben Wheeler before, but didn’t like any of the roads I turned onto there, to ride further. That statement is still true. I tried several more roads from Ben Wheeler and still didn’t like any. Bicycle friendly roads are in short supply in this part of the state.

I made a stop at the convenience store at Martins Mill on the ride out, at mile 33, and coming back, at mile 65. I also made a stop the the Purtis Creek State Park on the way back. I ended up with 94.8 miles. It was 95 degrees when I finished, so I guess you could say I had a 95 and 95 kind of day.

I was running out of gas at the end, but felt a lot better than I did on the 100 mile ride I did a couple of weeks ago. The Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred is next weekend, and I’m ready for it, I think, as long as I don’t get carried away with my effort.

I had one 41.3 mile ride during the week, and I won’t be riding this weekend, so my total mileage for the week is 136 miles. I’ll probably just do one short ride in the early part of the week, next week, then wait until HHH to ride again.

Today’s route.

I took off on the F5 this morning from the east edge of Gun Barrel City and rode to Eustace, then to FM 2709 and on to Martins Mill. I stayed on FM 1861 more on the return trip. I finished the ride about 12:20 in the afternoon, and it was already almost 100 degrees. The heat has been tough lately. I ended up with 54.4 miles. I had ridden 90 miles during the week, so I ended up with 144 total miles for the week.

I really like to start most of my rides from my driveway. That’s been a challenge ever since I moved here. There are really only two roads out of town, Main Street in Gun Barrel City, and CR 4006. I have occasionally ridden Main Street when I start a ride early, but traffic gets too intense on it any other time. So, that leaves CR 4006. It’s always been rough. The part of it that’s within the Mabank city limits is kept in a decent state of repair, but the last mile of it, which turns off just a mile from my house, has been very rough ever since I’ve lived here, and the number of deep holes in it more recently has had me thinking about giving up starting my rides at home.

But it wasn’t that stretch of road that finally became the deal breaker and had me start loading my bike on a rack on the back of my truck, and starting my rides elsewhere. After spraying sealer on a couple of miles of CR 4006 past the roughest stretch, road crews spread massive amounts of gravel on it. It’s far too much gravel for me to tackle with the road tires on my F5, so for the last week, I’ve been driving to a better place to start my rides.

For the three rides I made during the week, I drove to the Mabank city park to start the rides. This morning, I drove Main Street to the east edge of Gun Barrel City, and started there. The supreme irony of it all is that even after all the gravel has been spread, no road crew touched the roughest stretch of CR 4006 at all. It still has all the bicycle-eating holes it had before (see photo below). Thanks for nothing, Kaufman County.

County Road 4006, one mile from my house.

Today’s route.

I took off on the F5 this morning and rode to Martins Mill. It was misting a bit as I took off, but the roads were dry, and weather.com was only calling for a ten percent chance of rain, so I figured it wouldn’t amount to much. By the time I got through town, it was a steady rain, and it rained for the next 20 miles. So much for the forecast.

By the time I got close to Martins Mill, the roads were dry. I was glad to see that. I don’t like riding on wet roads. I never got any sun on the ride, but the stiff north wind had dried the roads pretty well for the return route.

My chain had gotten a bit noisy lately, and I was surprised to find that it needed replaced, when I checked it last night. I borrowed the chain off the Corsa to use until I get one. It’s long chain, 11 1/2 feet, 276 links. It should have lasted longer than the less than 2,000 miles it did.

I ended up just short of a metric century, with 61.6 miles for the day. I had already ridden 90 miles this week, so had 151.6 miles for the week. I finished July with 630 miles for the month. That’s more like the mileage I need to be doing this time of year. The Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred is this month, three weeks from now. I need to get in another century or two between now and then.

Today’s route.

I did my first 100 mile ride of the year today. I hadn’t gotten to do a bike ride all week, so figured this was a good Saturday to get in that first century. I need to get in a couple more before the Hotter ‘N Hell Hundred at the end of next month.

I took off from home on the F5, rode out to Eustace, then on to Martins Mill, then on to Edom, then south almost to Brownsboro. I rode back to Martins Mill, then took a different route home. I ended up with 100.7 miles.

I struggled mightily at the end, and had to stop several times to rest and cool off. I kind of expected that. I’m dragging around an extra 10 pounds, and hadn’t done a century since last year. Plus, it was almost 100 degrees this afternoon. The heat index got over 100. Hopefully, this will have me in a little better shape for the next century.

Today’s Martins Mill century route.