My first mountain biking in Oklahoma

Today I got to get out on my first Mountain bike ride in Oklahoma. The weather and timing have been stopping play for me until now. When it is wet, the trails are closed, I am guessing due to clay content in the soil.

Anyhow, yesterday I read that one of the local trails was open, today I decided to check it out.

The trail at Bluff Creek park, is a four ish mile trail which twists and turns through a local park It is around 5 miles from where we live so I think it's the nearest trails to the house.  The trail is flat and has a few roots interspaced to keep things interesting. There are also a couple of sections that have ride arounds/bonus sections. If I had to compare it to an Alaskan trail It would be like riding towards the sand dune from the Jodphur parking lot, albeit without the elevation changes, or the sand... so not really like it at all. :D

The trail is going to be a fun one to ride with the family and I am looking forward to getting out there with them. It would be fun to follow them whilst recording on a camera through the twisty parts.

The Strava

Oklahoma update

We have been here almost a month and are starting to settle in, I have been out riding and we have been swimming plenty since the pool is just down the street.

another quiet time at the pool!

We have some of our pictures on the walls and most of the things we brought with us put away although not always in the right places.
Now that we have a place with a garden we have been able to splurge on some non essential items.

We now own a telescope, weather radio and a weather station.

The Telescope

We bought a Celestron NexStar 130SLT. It was purchased from a local company (astronomics) albeit online. The telescope is really fun so far, we haven't tried the tracking feature yet but we have enjoyed looking at the moon and a few planets. Since we bought it we have had very limited clear sky to look at however, we are looking forward to seeing what this whole astronomy thing is all about.
Here is Amanda doing some back yard astronomy on the first night we bought it.

Back yard Astronomy

Here are a couple of snapshots taken with our phones through the scope.

Moon

Jupiter and moons

Next step will be to join the local astronomy club and really start to enjoy it.

The Weather station

Oklahoma has weather, which I have been informed that Alaska didn't have, right Amanda?

Weather warnings

"Interesting weather"

To be prepared for this we bought a weather radio so that when sleeping we will be woken up by weather alerts.

To track/record what has been happening in the local area we decided to invest in a weather station. We bought the Ambient WS2902-A. This station tracks a whole host of things but most importantly can be seen online.

While looking for a weather station I learnt that windspeed is measured at 33ft, this is not going to happen in this neighbourhood. So wind speed is never going to be that accurate however I did the best I could with placement and I'm sure it will be fun to track what is happening in our back yard.

Station placement. 

Link to our weather station. 

And this is our display indoors

All the data ready to view

Other things

As I mentioned earlier I have been out riding, see my other post about that here. I still haven't gotten all the bikes together yet but we can at least ride as a family. I haven't managed to get mountain biking yet as the trails have been mostly closed due to lots of weather (AKA rain) but I will get out as soon as the trails open. 

My first real ride in Oklahoma

Today I got out on my first real ride since leaving Alaska. I don't count the play riding in Whitehorse as I wasn't really pushing myself. I chose to ride with a local shop (The Bike Lab), they put on 5 rides a week, full schedule on the website.  After 5 weeks of the bike I knew today had the potential to be a rough one.
The ride started off great and I was doing fine, advertised pace is 18-19mph which in a group of 20 plus people should be very achievable, it reminded me a lot of riding in Denmark only a little less organised on the road. After we were passed by the ERR (Early Riser Ride) those guys and girls are FAST! we followed them for a little while then I noticed my seat was dropping (I really should have used the torque wrench when building the bike back up.)  I stopped to raise and tighten the bolt by which point I was off the back, way, way off the back. I tried to catch back on, but it was not going to happen. Not to worry though, the ride is a lollipop so I thought I would be smart and go the opposite way to the way the route was posted on my Garmin.

They should be right around the next corner

Just me, myself and I for around 17.5 miles

following a route, glad I downloaded it last night. 

Unfortunately they went the same way.  Oh well, I caught back on after they did the rest stop, AKA no rest for me. Tired after an 17.5 mile time trial I was then spit out of the back a couple of times on the return leg.

Big group

Me on a cross bike, everyone else on road bikes,
kind of like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

All in all it could have been much worse, I am excited to find a group down here to ride with, even if it is on the roads. On that note though, the drivers we encountered today were fantastic, even the ones in Dodge's!

The Strava