Pacific Electric Bike Trail

Apr 122011
 

On a nice Saturday day, I decided to call up my brother to see if he wanted to go for a bike ride and he said, “Absolutely.”  So, we met up and looked up bike trails in our area on Google Maps.  We found tons of different trails in our area, so we went to the closest one.  Turns out Google Maps “sucks” when it comes to planning out bike trail routes.  We went to three different ones and all of them were innaccessible.  But, we traveled from one to the next until we finally found one . . . The Pacific Electric Bike Trail.

The Pacific Electric Trail is supposed to be able to connect Rialto to Claremont; however, the trail is not complete.  According to www.socaltrailriders.org, the trail should be completed in 2011.  But we got on the trail somewhere in Rancho Cucamonga and headed west.  The trail was a really easy ride with virtually no hills.  The only problem for me was that you had to wait at a signal every time the trail crossed paths with a street, which was quite often. 

But we reached a dead end where some construction was going on, so we turned around and headed east for quite a ways until the trail ended in I believe Fontana.  It was a very pleasant ride until we encountered some dangling electrical lines.  Fortunately, my brother was there to snap a quick picture of the event. 

If only I had seen that sign beforehand. 

I had a really nice time with my brother traveling down the Pacific Electric Bike Trail.  It will be interesting when they complete that trail, but I love Claremont and the Upland area and it would be great to just hang out there from time to time and take a nice bike ride along a pleasant trail.

Zeb’s Race on the Base Bike Ride

Mar 292011
 

After reaching the staging area, I was in good shape and rushed out with my bike and took off . . . but that didn’t last long as bicyclists began to pass me left and right.  I do remember passing one bicyclist who looked like he was either drunk or had never ridden a bike before . . . as he riding a mountain bike which was wobbling all over the road.  Had the police been following him, they would have made him perform a sobriety test for sure.

Overall, people were passing me pretty consistently on the bike, but they were not flying past me like they had the year before.  I’m still not quite sure why I was getting passed though.  I’m not sure if it was because of my bike or because I am not riding my bike using the proper technique.  Either way, I know that my legs were working faster than many of the other riders. 

After evaluating my results for the race, I saw an interesting statistic for the race.  Almost everyone who finished ahead of me had a better bike time, while my times in the run and the swim were in the middle of the pack compared to those who performed better than me overall.  So, it appears to me that my bicycling skills need to improve if I’m going to be able to compete at a higher level in these triathalon events.

I knew that a lot of people had passed me by the time I made it to the staging area for the second time.  But, I had a feeling that I was still outperforming myself from the year before and made my way to the pool.

Reviving a Classic

Jan 122011
 

RockyThis past weekend my brother said he wanted to start the middle leg of his IronMan training, the Bike. When I think about the IronMan the swim scares me cause I swim like an anchor but the bike is what I would fear the most, for no reason than my rear can not handle 112 miles. But none the less we need to get Zeb turning those pedals as part of his training.

A few years ago, when I was a struggling college student I really wanted to start cycling but couldn’t afford a decent bike and on my way to work I saw a garage sale which had a road bike siting out. I immediatly pulled over and asked about it. It had flat tires, no seat, no brakes, a rusty chain, rusty sprokets, rusty handle bars, rusty….. rusty…… you get the picture. AND SHE ONLY WANTED $2. SCORE!!!

Back then I started my project to restore the bike to brand new condition. $80 later and several hours of taking it appart and scrubbing away rust I had a very nice bike. It was a little small for 6 foot guy but it did the job.

Now, several years later the bike has been sitting for a long time and bike has regrown its rust and lost all the air in its tires but its time to get it back. It’s behind a none working lawn mower and covered in spider webs but my brother and I can still see its speed. We wheel it out, clean it up and start checking how it works. We try to turn the pedals and it doesn’t turn but that won’t detour us. So we align up the chain and lube everything up. EUREKA!!! its turning.  we put air in the tires and Zeb gives it a ride

It still needs some work but it gets my brother started on the middle leg of his Ironman. Good Luck Bro.