Its been all about the bike

I have not had a chance to go sailing for a while now but since our trip to Palo Duro Canyon I have been on some great bicycle rides. On Thursday I met Heath and Jeannie for an afternoon ride on a sunny and very windy day. We rode 55 miles with about a 17.5 average, which was really hard with wind gusts up to 30 mph and sustained winds over 20. The picture below is after the ride, I'm on the right.

On Saturday I rode the GDB Airport ride and got in 59 miles on another windy day, I rode the entire ride with the fast group but I did get dropped on the last few miles around the airport. The 20 mile loop around the airport is where it is a free for all and you usually catch all the lights green so it is fast and hard. This day we formed a rotating pace line at about 26 and I stayed in it as long as I could. our group of 20 + slowly got smaller and there were maybe 6 or 7 left when I went off the back.

Tuesday was the First ride of the year at REI and I once again went with the renegade group, this group rides fast but safe and I managed to stay with the group the entire way with a second and third place in the city limit sign sprints that I was in position to go for. We got in 25 miles with a 19.9 mph average and it rained on us , this was a very fast average for wet roads as we had to really slow for the turns.

It has been raining for 24 hours as I write this and shows no sign of stopping, when this finally blows over I am going to try and go sailing, but it may be next week before that can happen.

MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT YOU HAVE

Dennis

Cycling Palo Duro Canyon

We have been getting a few more miles on the road bikes but when we get a chance to ride the wind and cold has been a killer. Last Saturday Michele and I rode the Tandem to the meeting place for a club ride and all but 2 of the group did not ride but went to breakfast, to cold and windy. We did about 40 miles with wind gusts to 30mph.

Michele thought for a minute she had lost her driver as I dreamed of a warm breakfast.

We decided to take off Friday and go camp at Palo Duro Canyon this weekend, since it was going to be cold and windy we would ride mountain bikes down in the Canyons. This worked out nice and we hiked and biked roads and trails and were covered up with wildlife. The mtb trails are great and you can find rides for any level of rider from easy to very technical or you can ride the road out of the canyon(several miles of 10% grade). Due to the high winds on this road I did not do the climb out of the canyon but I will return and do it. My favorite trail was the Lighthouse Trail.

This was our first time here and it was a pleasant surprise, nice campsites out of the wind and clear sunny cool days to hike and bike. In the picture below I took an over the shoulder shot of a herd of deer, we saw hundreds of deer and wild turkey as well as a coyote And I will depart with another over the shoulder shot of another small group of weekday riders.


Palo Duro Rocks

Dennis

Almost Sailing

I was invited to go sailing with Bobby on the Bobcat, we prepped the boat, lowered the lift and the motor would not run. This motor is just like my old Tohatsu twin 8hp, and like mine it has been trouble free until now. At any rate we put it all back together and went to eat at Soul mans BBQ and did not actually sail even though we still had a good time.We did manage to get in several bicycle rides and I have still been working on my running. We went back to our favorite Fairfield State Park for the weekend and while on a ride I saw some wild pigs in the woods and turned back to Michele and said pigs and pointed, my intention was for us to stop and watch them but Michele apparently thought they were chasing us and sprinted off into the distance.

Happy Valentines Day Michele, these are just a few wildflowers that someone else had picked and left on the picnic table on the nature trail. She did get real flowers but they are at the house.

We had a great time camping and getting chased by the pigs, while the lake is now very low I seem to always catch a bass or two here. Michele sat in the sunshine and read a book while I fished and disrupted her to take a picture every once in a while. In a couple of weeks we plan on going to someplace new to us, either Goose Island on the coast or Colorado Bend in the Hill Country.

Dennis

A new Toy

Since we had sold our sailboat Michele and I had been looking at camping trailers, we like to camp and have always done so in our tent. After doing our research we decided that a camping trailer would fit the bill for several reasons, most importantly because we can store it at our home and anything larger would not allow that. We also like being able to be a lot more comfortable and it extends the weather window considerably.We looked at several and missed out on several because I always like to negotiate price. We finally purchased this 2001 Coleman Westlake and did OK on the price. When we arrived to look it over it broke a lifting cable, after looking closely I decided I could repair this if the price was reduced since otherwise it was in much better condition than others we had looked at.

Three hours of work and $50 later we head out to camp in our new RV and find everything works. It was nice to have heat, air, refrigerator and running hot and cold water. This unit also has a shower and toilet that work well but are not quite what you have at home. Most campgrounds have bathhouses, but these certainly will work if we need them. Our dog Sprocket immediately took over ownership but does allow us to use it.

We got in plenty of bike rides on the park roads at Fairfield State Park and I also did 28 miles of hard mountain bike trails and encountered 7 wild hogs out in the woods. In the pic above Michele is on a youth model mountain bike we borrowed from a friend to see if it fit her better than the full size ones. It was a good fit and she really likes this Trek MT 220 so we may just have to shop for one. We also started riding the tandem again training for the German fest Rally in April.

We will be home this weekend and ride with our bike club www.gdbclub.com and plan another trip in the new toy. While home we met with a lot of family at El Fenix to celebrate several birthdays including my own. As I write this we are getting some much needed rain for our garden. The onions and winter green are just starting to take off and as the weather warms we will keep planting in our garden that is much larger than last year.

Dennis

Sailing A Dana

I met Paul while bicycle riding with our club, he was a new rider on our DFW Airport ride but it was soon obvious he was not new to riding. While putting in about 60 miles we struck up a conversation and found we also had sailing in common, he is an accomplished sailor with a solo Atlantic crossing under his belt. I mentioned that if he ever wanted company on a day sail e-mail me and I would like to go. Another thing we have in common is that we are maybe a little more enthusiastic about sailing in cold weather than our wife's are.Well, this developed into a full day of sailing on his Pacific Seacraft Dana. a beautiful little ship that is a pleasure to sail and is maybe the best built small sailboat out there. I was also introduced to an auto pilot made by sailo-mat. This is a servo pendulum type of steering device that moves the rudder to keep the same angle to the wind, it works perfectly and is an ingenious device. On this cold windy morning it steered us while he made a pot of coffee on the gimbaled stove while close hauled into 15 mph winds.
Almost 6 knots close hauled with a reef in the main and this vessel is only slightly heeled over, most boats I have sailed or owned are heeled way over and require concentration to steer in these conditions.
Thanks for a great day Paul, and when you get ready to do some bright work let me know.

Dennis

Boulder Park Mountain Biking

After being off the bike and any exercising for over a week due to a leg injury I was finally well enough to go for a MTB ride. I headed out to Boulder Park after reading reviews of the trail. I really liked this trail since it is single track (one way), it has two tracks the blue is 6 miles and is the easy one the red is 10 miles and more difficult with creek crossings. I rode both paths and got a good workout, on this weekday ride I saw no one else.

It is nice to have a large area in the City of Dallas that is dedicated to Mountain bikes, not crowded and looks like a nice shady place to ride in the heat of the summer.

There were several little bridges, and one large one shown in the above photo. The trail takes you over and under this bridge.

A few areas here have narrow sections through the trees, I tried to illustrate that in the above picture. Like I said I liked this Park and if I ride here a lot I will cut down my handlebars for better clearance, keep your knobby tires if you want to make it up the hills and don't go if it is wet.

We have also done some road rides, one was on a nice Sunday when Michele and I rode about 35 miles with a stop at a local coffee shop on a perfect weather day. Our friends Gary and Lugay went with us and I took this photo ( blind over the shoulder) while riding. Michele is in the Texas Jersey. We all went out to dinner to close out a really nice day.

I have been invited to go for a full day of sailing on a Pacific Seacraft Danna that has crossed the Atlantic so stay tuned for the next post.

Dennis

Mountainbiking Huntsville State Park

We had heard Huntsville State Park was a good place to ride the trails and hike and since it was warm we paid them a visit. This is a large park with a nice little lake and trails from short to about 10 miles long. These trails are nice, no rocks but a fair number of tree roots will keep you standing up a lot. I should also note there are quite a few boardwalk areas to keep you out of the marshy areas.

On the longest trail called the three C's trail I heard the sound of rushing water so I stashed the bike and hiked in to find this small waterfall in the Pine woods. The picture does not do it justice.

While the trails are great and it is a beautiful park, we stayed in a shelter and found the facilities and the restrooms a little run down. Don't let this stop you from going and if you can go during the week it would be a super place.

Sunday about noon the wind changed and a blue Norther arrived, within 5 minutes we went from shorts and t-shirts to coats and long pants cutting our trip a few hours short.

Happy New Year

Dennis