What did I do to My Cruzbike today?
In my town there's one LBS and the guys there are focused on racing their high end bikes. Both them and their customers ride lots of carbon DFs with E-shifters, hydraulic brakes, etc. They organize local races and social rides of 25, 50, 100 miles and so forth, nothing in the way of entry-level activities for a tub of lard such as myself who's trying to make a lifestyle change by getting back into bicycling, as well as being a single-dad looking for activities which involve his kids, too.
So I was kinda excited to get this in my e-mail last week. The down side is that
Bike Stop is the LBS of a town maybe 30 miles away. That's 48 kilometers, for those of you who know of the airplane, or "aeroplane," as a
foreign invention.
The drive time isn't bad if someone has the time to spare, which I usually don't.
"Flat route" here in Virginia means DF riders probably won't need to stand up to pedal on the uphills. But not this time, even the LBS staff serving as group guides had to get up off of their seats at a couple places.
I hadn't taken my kids on a family bike ride ever since they were really small and their bikes were practically toy-sized. They've all gotten bikes with caliper brakes and derailleurs, now. One of the challenges of being a single parent is that while I'm doing maintenance in the garage or repairing something in the workshop, no one is preparing meals. While I'm off taking the kids to scouting or other activities, there's probably a pile of dirty dishes in the sink back home, waiting for someone to wash them. So this had me hard-pressed for time getting their dusty, long-ignored bikes ready for a group ride. Some bikes weren't shifting right, others had stuck or dragging brakes, and all of the tires had long gone flat. I didn't want to be "that guy" at the Ice Cream Social Ride who couldn't show up with his and his kids' gear ready to go.
There were maybe ten of us in all participating. I was the only one with a recumbent. Sadly, I don't think I'll be getting any endorsement deals from bicycle companies looking for a spokesman, just yet. I was bringing up the rear for most of the 4-mile trip; partly due to not being in shape but also because I'm still behind the learning curve on riding recumbents in general, let alone ones with front-wheel-drive.
Still, I impressed myself a few times. I never fell for the whole way, that was a first. My steering still had me wandering back and forth to both sides of what they call locally "the Greenway," meaning a walk/jog/bike path, yet I never went off into the grass. Part of the route had us peddling along with traffic on Olde Towne Main Street and I managed to avoid sideswiping any of the cars parallel parked along the curbs. I was able to power my way up a few short, very steep hills. Longer, more gradual uphill parts defeated my stamina and I had to get off and push for the rest of the way up. We also had to stop a couple times on an uphill incline at road crossings. What really sucked about that was, I'm still struggling with getting myself started on an uphill from a full stop. Traffic had been stopped for the rest of the group to cross and then cars were waiting on me to get across, too. I had to just hop off and walk it across in order to try starting again once I got to the other side. That brought back a few humiliating memories of learning to drive a car with a manual transmission when I still had my learner's permit. But I got through that then, so I'll survive this too.
I received a few questions about my Cruzbike and mainly regaled them with wild tales of "the Vendetta," which I have only read about online and seen in videos on YouTube. My talking about Vendettas while riding my Sofrider probably did not help them develop an accurate mental picture of what the racing bike was really like.
The real proof was on the shelves back at the bike shop; they sell bottles of topical ointments and lotions for saddle sores and rashes, now. One product was even specially-formulated for women. Hmmm... I don't think we'll be seeing products which are anything like that added to the
Accessories page of the Cruzbike website anytime soon.
There are a couple things about riding a DF which I'll still miss. For one, the ability to hop the front wheel up over a curb. I don't yet know how that's accomplished, or even possible, on a recumbent.
That, and the ability to throw one's weight into the turns. There was one really challenging, for me at least, part of the route we followed; not quite an
S turn, this was something more akin to a
Z. It started as a tight turn into a short, steep, downhill, immediately followed by another sharp turn in the opposite direction onto a steep uphill. I couldn't make the first turn, stopped, backed up while turning, went down, and nearly wiped-out trying to make the next turn into the uphill. I had to grind to a halt, hop off, and walk it up.
Anyway, I know it's not much to the rest of you but it was an adventurous enough trip for me. Oh, and then there was ice cream.
[Edit]: Sorry, I had read the title of the thread as "What did you do
on your Cruzbike today?"
I also mounted one of these accessory mounts on my handlebars, a blue one.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B01N05PG6R/ref=twister_B01N46ZI3D?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1