Trail cats, KOM attempts, Ozark Trail Ridge Update, and Ice cream!

 Trail Cats!

My daugher has started kindergarden last week and she has to get the bus at 7:45 AM every day. This means that I have to wake up at 6:30 to help get everyone ready for the day. It only takes about 15 minutes for me to get everything ready and my spouse takes on the rest of the things. I mostly take care of the night stuff and tend to the overnight needs of the kids and my spouse does the morning and day time stuff so I can work. I say this mostly just to paint a picture of my day and why I am able to get my stuff done in about 15 minutes. After I am done I get to get on my bike and go for a ride. 

Over the past week I have gotten out on my bike 3 times in the morning I was going to end up going for a 4th ride but we did not have our alarms set right so we woke up in a rush and I missed out on getting the 4th ride in. With these morning rides I have been able to go longer than I have in the past as I have about 2 hours before I have to be online for work. I have had tons of fun with these morning rides and they are exactly what I need to start my day it seems. 

My most recent morning ride on Wednesday I encountered one of my favorite things. A trail cat!

As I was going around a corner I saw a at on the prowl for something and in the middle of the trail so I slowed down and made the common kissy noises you make a cat or a dog with the intent of it just noticing me and running away. Instead of running away it came running over very excited and happy to see me. I started pawing at me to get me to pet it and meowing like crazy. This cat was one of the friendliest cats I have met on a trail. Most of them do end up running off but I think people have to be feeding this one because it did not care I was a stranger to it I just wanted me. 

KOM attempt and failure.

On the same ride as the one I encountered the cat I was feeling quite happy so I decided to try for a KOM. King of the mountain on Strava is silly to me but there was a segment that is short and has a slow current KOM. The current leader was only going 20 MPH and finsihed the segment in 52 seconds. This is just a bit of gravel, two turns, and a slight up hill part nothing too crazy so I figured I would attempt it. 

I slowed down just before the segment to make sure that I had some stamina to push it and make it a fast run on the segment. As I started to approach the segment I got into my racing position and then took the turn into the segment and WENT FOR IT! I was going 21 MPH according to Strava at the time so this was going to be a sure victory... Until I went a bit to wide on a turn and slid on the gravel and into a thorn bush. Now I did not fall off the bike which is perfect I could salvage this but I did crank the pedals fast as I could but my leg was still in the bush and I did not notice it until it was too late. My leg started to sting and hurt as I kept trying for the KOM. I got to the end of the segment and dismounted my bike to look at my leg. Well there was blood going down my leg and covering my sock... I sprayed it with some alcohol that I keep on me for first aide and wiped it down with some tissues I have. There was about 40 small holes and 5 or so big scrapes across my leg the small holes were mostly fine but the scrapes were bleeding so I waited about 5 mintues to see if things were going to get better or worse. Lucky for me the bleeding slowed down and I was able to get riding again with some pain. The worst part of this is I did not get the KOM I ended up being 19 MPH and 5 seconds off at the end. 

I am going to end up trying this segment again and I not going to end up in the thorn bush this time and get that KOM I am after.

Ozark Trail Ridge Update and Ice Cream!

I have been riding the Ozark Trail Ridge and loving it. I started to get a bit weirded out with something about it but in a good way. I was looking at others reviews and others upgrade ideas on it and mine is not the same bike as theirs. I must have a V2 version or something because there are so many minor changes that make it a nice bike. 

Starting with the cranks and the front chain ring. The one I bought has a narrow wide with no platic disk around it. This was what came with the bike I did not have to take anything off of it it was just like this from picking up the bike. It was going to be one of the things I replaced almost right away because I heard the one that came with the V1 dropped chains quite a bit. Along with the next upgrade I was going to do a new rear derailleur as that was another thing I heard ended up causing a lot of dropped chains. 

Well here is the back end of the bike there is a nicer derailleur already. You can see here that there is a clutch on it and that is what I was going to end up upgrading to. Well not this particular derailleur but one just like it and this is another very happy upgrade to see on the bike. So next thing I was going to upgrade is the brakes did they have upgraded brakes on the V2 version? 

It is hard to see here but zooming into the middle of the above picture they added a 180mm rotor to the front brake and have a bit better brakes than the other version of the bike. These brakes are JAK or some off brand still but that is expected as the Ozark Trail Ridge is a cheap bike so they had to have parts be cheaper somewhere. I will say I am still going to upgrade the brakes on this these things kinda of suck. They stop the bike and they do help me let people know I am coming as they squeek so very loud. I want to replace them because they don't stop the bike as well as they should and the squeeking is very annoying. I also hate the pads they use and the set up for replacing the pads they are not as simple as pop out a pin and put new pads in with these you have to unscrew stuff and reset things after the pads are replaced. If I am going to go through extra effort for replacing pads I might as well get hydraulic brakes and just have as much stopping power as I can. My point of this bike is still mostly to pull the kids around in so brakes are some needed upgrades. 

The last thing I heard that did not come with the bike is a kick stand. This is nothing special and it is something I would remove normally for a bike I ride trails with but I need it for loading and unloading the kids so having this on the bike was awesome for me I did not have to buy anything extra or take parts off another bike to get riding. Over all the upgraded parts on the V2 are nothing special they are still cheap parts but they are better than what I thought I was getting so I am happy with the upgrades. 

This weekend was the second ride with the Ozark Trail Ridge and the ride was very smooth. We ended up going the normal 16 miles for the morning and then we rode for another 6 to an ice cream shop to get something for the kids. 

The only problem with riding the Ozark Trail Ridge for a long distance is I realized that it is missing a lot of higher gearing. I have been riding my bikes everywhere these days and I might not be super speedy but with the kid cart in the back I am still often in the top gear. I wont complain about this too much though as the low end is perfect for this set up and I can get to where I am going with out worry about hills.  Also this bike is not really set up for what I am using this for so me expecting to have a bit higher gearing on a 1x to go faster is a bit silly of me. Either way its the only thing I do not like about this bike so far. The low end and going up hills is so much better than on the old bike I had set up for pulling the kids. I am not even a little worried about running out of steam or getting worn out from hils being to hard to go up. 

I plan on going out again tomorrow for another ride on the Ridge and I bet it will be another good ride because it is a good bike for the money at least the V2 version I have anyway. 

I am off to continue the journey! Have a wonderful day and thank you very much for reading!