Gee, the calendar says October 15, I’m at 3835 feet elevation, sunrise / sunset 7:30 / 6:22, temp at night is getting close to freezing, daytime in 60s now, today was very windy.
I eased into adjusting to the change, first it was just my Pisgah jersey, then long pants, days later I put on socks, yesterday it was my buffalo hide hat. Still bare hands.
Today I rode from Phils. I drove to the TH as I was aways away. Last night I saw the aggressive camper parked in his spot so I drove a bit further to a new spot, a gap in the trees. Rain fell last night I heard when I awoke during the night. Heater running more and boosting up the turn on temp.
I bought a pair of Club Ride knickers that actually fit my 30″ waist. Light weight material, just a covering w/ no insulation but below the knee. My knees were warm on the ride. I wore a short sleeve light weight merino wool crew neck and over it a long sleeve jersey w/ some heft. Full wool knee socks and usual long fingered gloves. Enough rain fel that I put on my raintop.
I rode up Bens to Storm King to Grand Slam, to Voodoo, finishing on Phils for 20 miles climbing 1790′. Bens took 63 mins climbing. Encountered only 1 rider. I was bobbing and weaving and hurling over several rocky patches during which I heard the faint sound of a bike right on my wheel. SHIT! Freak out, no greeting but right on my wheel. I pulled off the trail and he blasted by w/o a word. My emotional response was to yell something like you could have said something. He said he wasn’t asking to pass so he remained silent. I wanted to find him @ the TH to explain my outburst but we never connected. I am still riding the lower Phils still topping out @ 5100′. The rain puddled in places, created hero dirt but missed pieces under deeper tree cover. Wind did not blow dust.
Yesterday was a social day as I was to ride w/ Angela and a woman friend of hers in the afternoon.
Oh, but what was first was Monday. My smart phone would not process the MtbProject app. I drove to the Verizon store and explained my problem. A service tech checked it out by down loading an app which behaved the same as mtb.. she said phone is defective and orders me a new one. OK going to ship it me where? The she said i would have it by this Wed. I gave them Sunnyside. The phone arrived Tues afternoon b4 the bike ride. I drove back to the store for them to transfer data. Well it don’t work all the cleanly and not all of the data is transferable. ( Computer knowledgeable readers could offer solutions). Frustrating and horribly time consuming.
Angela finished her work later than normal and forecast was calling for rain. She bailed. I continued to harrass the staff on my dissatisfaction leaving in time to drove over to the other Snap for a shower before meeting Angela @ 6:30 on this side of town. Nailed it 3 minutes past the 6:30 arrival time. Whew. I was now relieved of the time stress.We walked over to Crux brew pub. Bend has quite a few brew pubs.
Tomorrow I have the PT appointment for my shoulder. Plan on riding first then doing my weekly laundry, shower then PT.
The heater consumes battery storage. The colder it gets the longer I run it, solar power is lost early. I live in the heated van. I like more than the chill taken off. I will turn it down while sleeping. My battery storage is now in the upper11.0s. I still haven’t separated myself from the other heater.