Cycling High Bridge

[BrokenolMarine]

About ten years ago, Miss Tina and I got into Cycling. We were riding Recumbent Trikes. It's like riding your recliner. Your back and shoulders are fully supported and if you want to take a break, just stop pedaling and pull over. Great way to go. The only thing you have to worry about are your feet. Miss Tina ran into a problem with it because she had foot problems from Riding Horses all her life, and eventually had to give it up. I rode my Catrike Road, the model shown here, then upgraded to the Catrike 700, a racing trike, and trained to ride in a Marathon. What a rush. I had modified both my trikes with pedal extenders which moved the pedals out about an inch or so, and used Frog Pedals which allowed more freedom of movement in the toe clips for my knees and hips. You adapt, and overcome.

This was a great day, as we hauled the two trikes up to Farmville and hopped the High Bridge Trail... one of the many old rail beds, converted into biking/hiking trails. It was a nice afternoons ride, the highlight of which was the view from the bridge, which crosses a deep ravine. You can actually cross the old railroad trestle, which we did, had our lunch, then road back. A great day.

I still hope to try and get back to riding my 700... if not, I'll put it and ALL my cycling gear up for sale at a great price to give someone else a chance at this wonderful pass time.

Our Rack and Roll kayak trailer worked great for hauling the trikes, I just made a custom rack to strap to the top.

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Here is a pic of Miss Tina riding her Catrike Villager on the hard packed gravel trail to the bridge. The saddle bags and rack held everything we needed.

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On arrival at the bridge, Miss T took my picture before we started across.

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Here is a view from the head of the bridge, looking down into the ravine... it's a deep one. Not a jump I'd like to make...

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Riding across the bridge, to reach the other side. If you are riding at a smooth pace, the railings disappear and you have a great view down in the valley below and once you reach the middle, of the river below.

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As we rode across the bridge, you can see Miss Tina in front of me. We were respectful of the others walking and jogging on the bridge and kept our speed slow, just above a walking pace, about what the joggers were making. There were those on mountain bikes that blew across the bridge at a fast clip, very rude.

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All in all it was a great day. The ride to the bridge from Farmville was a little tougher than the ride back. It turns out the ride there is at a slight, very slight, grade uphill. On the ride back to the parking area in town... that slight grade, no matter how slight, is welcome. You can even coast a bit in places.

[Squatch]

Great stuff. I've been a cyclist all my life. Before the knees went I used to regularly do fast century's on the weekends.

But alas the knees have been bone on bone since 2,000. I still ride though not as much.

I recently converted one of my bikes into an E bike with a Bafang Mid-drive conversion kit from Luna. What a hoot! 9 levels of pedal assist and I can now climb any hill I want without fear of injury. Electric steroids!

[North Country Gal]

Love it folks, this coming from a bicycling nut, a gal even nuttier about her bicycling than her shooting (if that's possible).

Love those rails to trails. They're plenty wide enough to handle both foot traffic and bike traffic and, as you mentioned, the grades are very gradual. Plus, they get you away from the roads and vehicle traffic and that's always a good thing. LOVE the pics, Marine.

As for the bikes, I may get around to one of those recumbents/trikes, someday. Have had pinched nerves in the back and issues with repetitive stress on the feet from many thousands of road biking miles. Right now, though, I'm avoiding all those issues with my mountain biking, since it's the kind of riding where you're constantly moving around on the bike and avoiding constant stress. Also, back in my bike commuting days when I was still working, I would have LOVED and electric assist bike, Squatch, but they were only just beginning to appear on the market and were pretty crude.

I've built my own personal Joanie's Mountain Bike Park out of our 7 plus acres with almost 3 miles of twisting, interconnected loops of trails. Lots of steep climbs and drops, lots of rocks and logs to hop, fun kind of stuff. My bikes, now, are all mountain bikes and all bikes with either plus sized (3" wide tires) or fat bikes (4" to 5" wide tires). Still have some old vintage mountain bikes with skinny tires and I do ride my trails with them, but conditions need to be pretty good.

Me setting out from a local restaurant parking lot, getting ready to go on a blackberry picking expedition with my Surly Pugsley fat bike on some local logging trails.


Yes, we do ride fat bikes all winter long in the snow. Fat bikes are snow bikes, after all. I keep two of them setup with studded tires for riding in the snow and even out on the lake ice. Yup, riding a bike out on the lake in the middle of winter is a hoot. Here's one of my fatties set up with heavy lugged studded tires.

[BrokenolMarine]

My hat is off to you NCG. You truly remind me of my mentor in the Corps, a Mustang Captain I first met while he was still a Warrant Officer. (Called a Gunner in the Corps) They called this one the "Runner Gunner" since he ran every day at lunch, five to ten miles. He was always training for his next marathon. Years after his retirement, he was still running, still training, and still setting the example.

[BrokenolMarine]

I used to love to ride Mountain Bikes, back before my knee surgeries began in the late 80s... I had a Trek 950 and was stationed in Memphis, teaching Aviation Electronics at the "A" Schools, when I picked it up. We spent all day cooped up in the schoolhouse, teaching young Marines and Sailors, and the freedom of the bikes was a great outlet and a welcome change from the running. To get the cardio we needed, we pushed the bikes hard.

We'd ride the single tracks thru the mountains in the Shelby State Forest... the downhill runs were something else, bunny hopping over branches and fallen trees, SNAKES across the trail, and full speed as fast as we could push it. We really could move on the downhills and then climbing the tracks to the top of the next rise and start it all over again. There was one, 90 degree turn at the bottom of a long downhill, onto a rail-less wooden foot bridge crossing a creek. You were moving and had to brake hard, make the turn and line up perfectly. The bridge was made from two huge timbers and some decking boards, and was notoriously slick, especially in the mornings. The algae growing on the decking didn't help in the least.

One morning, I got my line right, but my buddy missed the line and tried to correct, slid off the bridge and landed on his back in the creek about four feet below. I was laughing so hard I though I was going to crash, and came to a stop just in time to see him perform a Jackie Chan move. He pulled the bike to his chest, and punched his feet and bike skyward, and landed in the bushes on the shore in a heap. I was amazed. I kicked my feet free of the toe clips, dropped my bike and ran down to help untangle him from the brush.

"OMG, that was amazing," I said, "How in the world did you manage that trick."

"SNAKES!" he screamed, "The creek is full of snakes."
He was rubbing all over his body, checking for bites... not a one.

"Ah, that'll do it." I was STILL laughing.
Odd, he didn't find it funny. (At the time..... )

*The pic? I was a Marine Staff NCO in the pic, weighing in at about 185 pounds, some 60 pounds lighter than these days.... LOL.

[North Country Gal]

My kind of biking! Except for the snakes, at least the poisonous ones. That I could do without. We're too far north to have any poisonous species. Have lived and biked in places where there were poisonous species, though. Made railing around a tight bend and finding a snake ... interesting.

Up here, collisions with deer and even bear are very real possibilities when mountain biking. Have had close calls with deer on some of my fast downhill runs.