94th ride - 8/22/2015

An eventful day today! This morning I went to Kalamazoo, and rode on the Kal-Haven Trail with my friends and former students David and Debbie (Remington) Carew. I had learned the trail was "crushed limestone," which concerned me some—but this turned out to be no problem at all. It was very finely crushed, and so ended up being close to a paved surface in many points. Just before we set out, Debbie used the timer on her camera to get a fine shot of the three of us.

Most of the ride out was a steady (though gentle) downhill, so this concerned me about the return trip, and accordingly we cut it much shorter than we had considered. We had talked about trying to ride to Gobles, which would have been 13 miles, before turning around—but instead, we doubled back just after six miles in, for a total ride of 12.4 miles, in 1:37. (Additionally, today's ride pushed me over 1300 miles for the year.) And Debbie took this picture of me riding at one point on the return.

After I got back to Ann Arbor, though, early this afternoon, I went to remove the trike from the car and reassemble it so I'd be ready to go for tomorrow—but the center joint would not fold out. After consulting with Michelle, who could see no apparent cause for it either, I went back to Jack's Bicycle in Dearborn (where I bought the trike back in May, and, according to one friend, is like the bar Cheers—"where everybody knows your name!"). After looking it over thoroughly, my friend Richard told me that the joint is "broken"—I'm assuming this must have happened when I folded the trike up to load it in the car in Kalamazoo, as it was fine up till then—and he'd have to call TerraTrike on Monday and then call me with the verdict. So, best case, I won't be riding tomorrow, and Monday not until a possible evening ride. But, going by Murphy's Law, I'm assuming I may not get it back until Tuesday or Wednesday (if not later in the week).