An unexpected surprise

I rode to a meeting in Southington today (about 22 miles round trip). There's quite a hill seperating the New Britain from Southington. On my way back I had been climbing this hill slowly for about 15 minutes when two cars came zipping out of a new housing development. They turned and went about 100 yards and pulled over. I heard the girls in the second car yelling to the boys in the first car, "Why did you stop?" Meanwhile I'm slowly chugging up to the crest of the hill. As I pulled even with the first car packed full of 5 or 6 teen age boys, and half expecting some wise acre remarks I was greeted instead by applause.

I have to say that despite all the worries about safety from so many of the women I know, the reaction to the velomobile and the car free challenge has been universally positive. There's nothing like 25 waves, honks or thumbs up an few amazed, "You built that's" to make you feel like it was a good day.

First Video

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a video worth. You be the judge, but remember this is my first try at this. My daughter did most of the camera work. The editing is kind of rough, but it does give you a good sense of whats under the fairing.

Grocery shopping

Can this cart full of groceries fit in the tailbox? With the exception of the loaf of bread that got stuck into the "mailbox" behind my head and the two boxes of tissue that tied under my seat, Yes! I fit a week's groceries, $113 worth on my trike.

Father and son triking

Despite yesterday's qualms about safety, today I hitched up my son's little trike and the two of us headed to church. It's only a mile and its a quiet Sunday morning . My son is always hesitant to get on his trike in this configuration. He'd rather be on his two wheeler but once he's on it he always has fun. Maybe it's that he can loaf from time to time and make me do the work of pulling. He's slowly warming to the attention we get as we ride down the street. It's taken a while for him to understand those people pointing and whistling are giving us their approval not making fun of us.

Insurection on the Homefront

I got up early this morning to make a few repairs to the fairing. In a car I never realized how many potholes there are. I also now know why most production velemobiles (manufactured fully faired recumbent trikes) come with all wheel suspension. After regluing some joints that had vibrated loose I turned my attention to my 9 year old son's mini trike. I built a tow bar and if I remove the tail box, I can connect the two trikes. This gives me the ability to take him along which was my strategy for getting him to his gymnastics class about 10 miles away in Southington. When I mentioned my plan to my wife she got all worried about whether it was safe. I wouldn't want my son to ride his regular bike on the road behind me because he still can't ride a straight line, but towed behind my trike the two us are pretty darn noticable. Between us there are two flags and a strobe. Well to make a log story short, my son picked up on my wife's concerns and persuaded mom to let him skip gymnastics this week. I used the found time to make some more adjustments to the trikes but I had been looking forward to the ride.

A Trip to Our Favorite Organic Farm

Its Friday which means market day at Urban Oaks organic farm. Who would have thunk. An organic farm right here in New Britain. With several green houses they run a whole sale business supplying restaurants with organic greens and herbs year round. During the summer they also plant field crops on a couple of acres. Fridays are pick up day for their pre-order business. Order on Tuesday and pick up from 3-6pm on Friday. Since I can never get my act together to pre-order, I just head over when I can. Sometimes I miss out on the incredible morning glory muffins, but usually there are still some scones, all baked fresh by Kathy at Sweat Sage Bakery. The Urban Oaks greens and herbs are always great. They've got kale now. If you would like more info on Urban Oaks or to get on the pre-order list, contact Tony at urbanoaks@earthlink.net

Weekly milage total

My total for the first week was 85.2 miles. Not much by a racer's training standards, but I'm not a racer. I'm riding for transportation. It's actually more than I thought I would be riding. My daily commute is just 1/2 a mile. My trips during the last week included two rides into Hartford for work, grocery shopping, errands and a trip to an event in Farmington. That one was actually a trip and a half as I discovered that the lid for my tail box had blown off and I had to double back to find it. Fortunately no one had run it over and I have since designed a better means of attaching it.