Category: Hobbies (Page 5 of 8)

Mini Tour

August 13, 2016 / Steve

Saturday early in August. Not the traditional day or time for the Tour of the Valley, which has been held on the last Sunday in the month. Not sure why they changed it, and the turnout wasn’t as great as in prior years. I picked and chose from the 75 mile tour by cutting off the Palisade segment which we rode two days ago. Met several cycling friends along the way, mostly when they passed me… The temperature was wonderful and the lunch/party was also enjoyable. Two brewpubs and a local winery were handing out free samples, and the food was exceptional. If the barbecue and salad are typical of Community Hospital’s cuisine, I want to go there next time I have to visit a hospital! The only sour note was when it was time to come home and the rear tire was completely flat. The guy from the local bike shop had left about a half hour earlier, and I wasn’t in the mood to fix it right there; the good news is that Georgia drove over and brought me home.

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Palisade

August 11, 2016 / Steve

Allen and I rode on part of the 75 mile route for the Tour of the Valley on Saturday:

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I’ll be taking my much lighter weight/faster Bianchi road bike, but thought it might be fun to take the REI Hybrid. We didn’t set any speed records – well, actually, I did set one, but it was along Fifth Street in front of the high school. Before starting up the dreaded 38 Road hill, I saw a couple of interesting sights. The first was a roadside sign that advertised that they had eggs, bunnies and garlic for sale. The eggs were apparently sold out, but the bunnies and garlic were still there. I should have asked the lady if the bunnies were for eating or petting.

Palisade had a very European looking charging station for electric vehicles. I don’t know how much a charge would cost, but you can pay with your credit card – if it’s equipped with wireless encoding, which few are.

We then proceeded up the 38 Road Hill, commonly known among cyclists as Puke Hill. It’s a 7-8% grade, and I made a discovery. My hybrid has such low gears that I can be pedaling like crazy and still going less than 3 miles per hour. Which isn’t fast enough for me to keep the bike upright. Which means that I crashed. No permanent damage to the bike or me, just my ego.

Later, we passed by several orchards and wineries. We followed a tractor pulling a trailer carrying about eight Hispanic (probably Mexican) farm workers to pick the Palisade peach crop. They were friendly and waved at us. Very much unlike some of the impatient Anglos who couldn’t wait to pass our caravan (the Mexicans, me and Allen).

There is one spot where the owner has spent a lot of effort on some very whimsical sculptures. He has a sense of humor, too.

In case you were wondering, no, there isn’t a nudist colony one mile ahead.

Gas plant

August 9, 2016 / Steve

Allen was busy this morning, the MeetUp.com group going to Highline Lake was leaving too late for my tastes, so I rode out to the well known but isolated gas plant and back home.

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The gas plant is located in the desert north of Fruita. Since there’s no irrigation water, it’s dry but beautiful.