2014-12-07 - Easy Ride to JTNP HQ

Bike: Tour
Miles: 7.4
Start Time 12:04
Moving Time: 0:49:33
Elevation(Ft): 260
Avg Spd(M): 8.9
Max Spd(M): 33.1
Temp Out:
Temp In: 66

An easy ride to Park HQ and home through town. My legs are tired today from the 24 miles on the heavy bike yesterday. I am not used to it. If I was on a tour I probably would have poked along for a few hours today and called it a day. That is exactly the plan if I go out. I lowered the nose of the seat a few notches and used yesterday's short/liner combo and it was better with the seat down.

Before this ride I took my neighbor Ron's new Walmart Mongoose fat tire bike for a short spin including a few hundred yards in the sandy desert across the street. My review? It is heavy and cumbersome on pavement but as Ron said it really floats in the sand. I was surprised to float across stuff you could not get even a few feet in with even a standard mountain bike. At my age I would have to lower the gearing considerably. As it sits it is a 7 speed with about 40 x 28 as the lowest gear. I estimate about 39 gear inches (Sheldon Brown has no 26 x 4" tires in his calculator so I used 29 x 1/9"), more than twice what I need for any hills especially in sand. It is a very cool looking bike though:

The usual park HQ scenes. The flora is getting healthier by the day: