What a winter this has been.

Nah, let's go further back than that. Touring season 2018 was a tough one for me due to trouble with my new bike. Details are spread out in my two journals from 2018. The short version is that I had extreme, intermittent shimmy issues with my new bike that caused real confidence issues with riding downhill. I finally gave up and sold that bike in the fall.

I pulled my trusty old bike out. It's a RANS Stratus XP in a K frame. I've owned it for years and years. It's a good bike. We had a tour coming up in Tucson. What I needed right now was dependability. With my old touring bike, I knew exactly how it would react to bad road conditions (and good ones!). Pot holes, riding downhill in the rain. Not an issue with this bike. But, the old fashioned Rotor crank was all gummed up.

What is a Rotor Crank you ask? Well, you have to be of the dinosaur age to know this version of Rotors. I got mine way back when because I have delicate knees. Most people used Rotors to help them go fast. This version of Rotors has a mechanism in the bottom bracket that slips through the dead spot in your pedal stroke. That is good for going faster and also lessens wear and tear on knees.

Eventually the Q ring was invented, which produced them same effect without the weight. BioPace is a similar chainring from the 80's.

Shortening the story by months (yes, months). I shipped my cranks off to Don Smith of BBC Racing who restored the cranks to their original smooth turning condition. I made multiple trips to two different bike shops - one a recumbent specialty shop and the other a local, recommended shop, trying to get the Rotors reinstalled properly. No can do. The clock was ticking. Touring season was getting closer and closer. Days and weeks turned into months. Still no ridable bike. Just reading that makes one think that I wasn't trying, or that the shops weren't doing their job. But lots of effort was wasted.

In the meanwhile, I purchased an identical bike to my K frame Stratus XP. I know that probably seems pretty silly. There are all sorts of brands and models of recumbents. Why would I buy an identical bike? Fear. I developed such a fear of downhilling while riding the twitchy bike. Riding downhill was always a reward to me for the climb. I missed enjoying the downs and wanted the happy feeling back. That exact model was made for just a short period of time. Plus, I ride an XL length. What's the chances of finding another one? John Riley, a forum member on BROL saw my wanted ad and pointed me in the direction of a Craigslist ad from Montana. The bike was identical to mine, only sexy corvette blue.

The blue bike was also manufactured in 2010, but I believe the owner's statement that it had less than 200 miles on it. The bike came with the original style RANS seat with the firm foam seat bottom. I had sciatic issues many years ago and gave up on that style seat, instead going to the RANS sling mesh seat. I gave the old style seat another try. Nope - not going to happen. But, I lucked out once again, finding a used sling mesh seat on BROL. That's a good thing, as the sling mesh seat new from RANS is a cool $550.

For being an identical bike, it has taken some work getting the bike ready for touring. Remember that crank problem? The blue bike had road gearing. I was enjoying speeding down the flat roads with a 53 tooth big ring, but the 30 tooth granny was nowhere near low enough for the climbing I do. Thus, I have been doing plenty of flat roads. That's not helpful when our first touring day has 4,870 feet of climbing!

Here it is, exactly four weeks from departure date and I still don't have the new bike ready to ride. It goes in next week for a new Velo Orange triple crankset. This fall when I had the old bike at the recumbent shop, we discussed going to a double in the front and a bigger cassette in the back. But it didn't have quite the gear spread I wanted and I didn't realize at the time the saga the crank replacement would turn into. I might have just tried that double.

I'm well known for being prepared far in advance. I typically load my bike up around spring break and get started riding serious miles. This year . . . . not so much. The weather didn't cooperate. My days of willfully riding in the rain and cold are long past. It is ironic that Jacinto used to have the rule of not riding in temperatures less than 70 degrees. This year he rode year round, while I had a dismal 126 miles for the first two months of the year!

This is turning into quite a wind up. Of course, if there's one thing I can be counted on, it's to tell the entire story! Lucky you, I have left much of the agony of the Rotor crank story out.

However, we come to the real agony section. My mother went in for a low risk surgery on April 9th and she did not make it. There was no being prepared for this. Our biggest worry was how to keep her in bed to recover. No one considered that she wouldn't make it. When they have all of those little boxes for you to check off, that you understand the risks of surgery, they aren't joking.

Talk about knocking my world off center. I consider myself a private person - yet I now cry at the drop of the hat. Especially on the phone with strangers while I cancel another of my mother's accounts. It's tough.

My mother was still an active business woman, working seven nights a week at the movie theatre she had owned for 51 years in Delta, CO. What to do about the businesses? Oh, boy. Short story is that son Luis is going to try running them long distance from Denver, making bimonthly trips to Delta.

I'm determined now more than ever to live life to the fullest. You never know when goodbye is really goodbye.

Ready or not, I'm touring this year. I need the fresh air and exercise to keep my sanity.

The troublesome Rotor. If only I could find someone capable of installing it.

The dependable Stratus XP on tour in Arizona.

My mother in high school. Notice the pretty necklace. Family lore goes that this was the one romantic gift my grandfather ever gave my grandmother. Permission was denied to wear the locket on school photo day. Notice that she's wearing it anyway. My mother was like that.

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