Biking Lake Mead

This weekend we decided to go for a bike ride on the River Mountains Loop Trail, which is an asphalt trail that goes up and down the mountains along the banks of Lake Mead. When the trail is complete it will be a 35 mile loop. Right now only portions of the trail are done. Instead of getting a babysitter for Jack and, therefore, taking our road bikes (since we only pull the trailer with our mountain bikes), we opted to make the trip a family affair by taking our mountain bikes and pulling Jack in the trailer. 

Bringing Jack was a great idea until the wind kicked up, which happened, coincidentally, just a few minutes after we turned around on the trail to head back to our car, and were--as a result--the maximum distance from our car. As it turns out, the bike trailer performs an awful lot like a sail in the wind. We could have put the rain cover on the trailer to make it more aerodynamic, and thus much easier to pull in the wind, but we didn't have the rain cover with us. 

The Clydesdale who pulls the trailer didn't bring it along for the ride in order to conserve weight (besides, we have learned that it only rains in Vegas when we go camping). The more-intelligent and better-prepared half of our marriage thought I was quite foolish for leaving said cover behind. Oh well. Live and learn.   

In the wind, I found that I actually had to pedal to go down hill, which was a bit unpleasant. I found that the harder I pedaled, the more wind drag I created (or I should have said the wind drag that the trailer created, not meaning to imply that my svelte figure created much wind drag), and the harder I had to pedal to maintain my speed. I guess my physics teacher was right after all. 

Having groused about the wind I should probably disclose that we might not have had to deal so much with the wind if it weren't for the delays created by the two flat tires that we had before we left. The first flat was on my mountain bike, and ostensibly came from my desert ride a few days ago. This took about 60 minutes for me to fix with my complete lack of technical savvy (and even getting it done in 60 minutes was fortunate, and was due completely to Karen's having come to my rescue). 

The second flat was, unfortunately, self-inflicted. I pulled the entire valve stem out of one of the tires on Jack's trailer as I tried to remove the pump from the tire after filling the tire up with air (note prior comment on lack of technical savvy). We had to stop at the bike shop to get that one fixed. Yes, this is indeed the same bike shop that I took Karen's bike to a few weeks ago to get put back together again after I drove under a sun shade with the bikes on the roof. 

We ended up riding between 10 and 12 miles, which was probably a little overzealous given the conditions (wind, trailer, hills, unknown trail, molars, etc.), but I just found the urge to see what is around the next turn and what is over the next hill to be absolutely irresistible.

 

Despite the conditions we had a great time. Jack didn't seem to mind the wind burn or the fact that he is in the midst of cutting his molars and--as always--loved being outside with his parents.