Active Triangle

We did a 30 mile ride today and explored most of the Walnut Creek Trail for the first time. We had a great time, and really enjoyed most of the ride, except for the middle.

We got all the way out to Lake Johnson, and decided since we rode all the way there, we might as well ride around the lake and see the park for the first time, and then head back home.

Neither of us had been to Lake Johnson park before, so we hit the greenway and started riding around. A few hundred yards in: unleashed dogs, dogs on 50′ long leashes, people walking 4 wide taking up the entire pathway, dog poop ON THE CONCRETE, I could go on.  Continue reading “There Are Some Places You Just Shouldn’t Ride…” →

So we’re about 30 miles into our ride today (Poole Rd. park to Lake Johnson and back on the Walnut Creek Trail) when I made a shift from the little ring to the big ring. The chain went too far, and I didn’t notice and apparently rotated the crank another time after the chain was off.  Continue reading “Thank God for Quick Disconnect Chain Links” →

On Sunday we had some time to head out on the bikes. We’ve been wanting to try out the Crabtree Creek Trail for a while, so that’s exactly what we did.

The trail is pretty great, although I do have a couple gripes that could be remedied fairly easily: The trail will abruptly end in a couple different places, and there isn’t any signage telling you where it picks up again. Once you’ve ridden it once, you’ll know the trail good enough for the next time, but I would imagine that this turns some people off from riding this trail. Continue reading “40 Miles on Crabtree Creek” →

We’ve been riding most nights on the Capital Area Greenway (or Multi Use Path, MUP) and we’ve been having a fantastic time. In the first post of this series I mentioned buying some bike lights so we could be better seen by any folks that may be illegally using the pathway with motorized vehicles. We have the lights now, but that’s not the only thing we’re doing to ride defensively on the MUP.

There’s one portion of the trail that we find ourselves going through frequently that always seems to have some shady characters hanging out on the trail. Today in particular, there were a couple guys walking along the trail, one carrying a stick. We came up behind them, and I rang my bell, they moved to the left, and we passed without issue. Continue reading “Riding Defensively on the MUP #2” →

When I picked up my new bike a few weeks ago, I found out that disk brake road bikes have become a thing since I gave up cycling 7 years ago.

My first thought upon seeing this was that it’s awesome. Of course, when I went online to do some research, I found that this is a subject just as controversial as what the best chain lube is.

Anyways, we’ve been out riding quite a bit over the past few weeks and I think I’ve come to a conclusion on the subject: disk brakes are freaking awesome on a road bike.  Continue reading “Disk Brake Road Bikes” →