After some convincing by Lindsay and others, I tried the DHBC‘s Waterfall ride this morning. Well, I did not make it. But it was a good learning experience. I hope I did not hold our small group up too much. We headed out at 6:20 AM. I struggled up the first few hills, but clearly did not have the strength or fitness for the ride. So I bailed out at the Georges River. We averaged 20 kmh for this section of the ride, which is probably 5kmh slower than they would expect. I returned via the bike track along Botany bay at my own pace, and averaged 14kmh with one stop. I returned to the Marrickville Road Cafe at 8 AM and had some breakfast. One other rider returned who had only ridden as far as Sutherland, and he arrived only moments after I had. The others had not returned by 8:45 so I left as it was getting quite cold.
The trike caused more of a stir this morning than it normally does and I had several conversations about it. One girl thought it was broken. And another family waited a minute or so for me to leave so the kids could watch me ride off.
There has been an annoying creak in the front of my trike, since I started using the SPD clips. In the old days, I would have said it was a worn cotter pin. But modern bikes and trikes do not have cotter pins. It only happened intermittently, and never at a time that was convenient to stop and work it out. It happened again. So I stopped and checked the pedals. That was not the problem. I discovered that I do not have an Allen key big enough for the main crank. A problem I will have to fix. What I did was I tightened the SPD clips on the pedals. The problem has not reoccurred. But as it is an intermittent fault, I will have to wait for a longer time before declaring it to be fixed.
So here are some new targets that I really need to meet before trying this ride again:
- Ride to and from work at an average speed of 25 kmh.
- On the Saturday rides, do at least 4 if not 5 laps of Centennial Park of a morning.
- On the Saturday rides, be able to do at lease three hill climbs at a good pace.
After that I should be ready to tackle the Waterfall ride wit the cruisers.
Well I was tired for the rest of the day. In particular my shoulders hurt.
This morning I rode, what I though was quite fast. I certainly seemed to have learned how to push the trike better. But the ride to work was a disappointing 44 minutes at an average speed of 12.4 kmh. The ride home was much better at 31 minutes and 16.9 kmh. I guess that also shows that Paddington is much higher than Marrickville. I will break the 30 minute barrier soon!
Also I need to take the other GPS. It shows how much time I spent stationary. Which, with all of the lights, can be quite some time.
The creaking noise may be from your pedals. Check if you have washers between the pedal and the crank. Remove the pedal and lubricate the thread then reinstall the pedals tightly. I have had the issue a couple of times and needed to clean and tighten the pedal threads to remove it. Noise generally on the pressure stroke on one side only.