Cycling Sunday with Scientists

Riding the Greenway and Around Salem Lake
I was freshly sore in all new ways after my ride at Tanglewood. With loads of things to do over the weekend and during the week ahead, I had given in on the idea of riding again. It was a comfortable excuse for my aching backside and I put my mind to the chores of the week.
All my ideas were turned on their ear when someone knocked on my door. My neighbor,  a tad older than me, zen advocate and scientist named John, offered a proposition -- how about a ride with him and our mutual friend, Bob. Before I knew what to do, I said, "Sure."
It was another hot day, but the ride would be different. We were to ride the greenway to and around Salem Lake and back. This ride is as easily suited to the Steelman, but I opted to take the Univega again. I wanted to learn more about the gearing and see how different it would feel than the cross bike.
Bob is also a budding cyclocrosser, so we've crossed (ha!) paths a couple times. He was fresh from a cycling trip in Denmark. He is also a scientist and he and John work together. So, three amigos were off for a ride.

We started in the parking lot behind Marketplace Mall and I learned that some changes have been made tot he greenway connector. It was nice to see that the city has put some money to keeping the cyclists out of traffic and on the greenway. Nice.
One fear we had was that there had been considerable storms over the past few days and flooding had occurred in a number of nearby areas. Knowing of my water mishap near the lake, we were ready to ride or turn back. In any event, we decided on treading carefully.

They're discussing something you or I wouldn't understand.

It turns out that, while there was water, we only had two areas where we had to ride through a foot or more of it. We did tread carefully and made our way to the Dam. I was surprised to see that they like to ride counterclockwise around the lake. To me, this is the wrong way around. I used to ride that way just to keep practice, but haven't done so in years. It would be good to put a new twist on the old ride locale.
When I usually ride the lake, I am most cautious near the end of the ride, where there is a descent of some significance. Since we were coming from the other direction, it then become a steady ascent. As I like this type of climb, I was encouraged. However, I then learned a little bit about the new shifters, as I had chosen the wrong gear for climbing. I had to huff and puff my way to the top. Educated, I decided I'd manage differently from there on out.
The second thing I learned is that the seatpost was slipping. It took a while to figure out that 20 minutes in I was significantly lower on the bike. I made an adjustment, but fell back to the position a second time and decided I could finish the ride but would have to adjust the cam on the lock afterward.
We took turns with the lead and it was plenty of fun. On the way back, the water served the purpose of washing the tires and the bike was actually cleaner on the way back than when I began! Ha!

Cool new greenway addition.

The third gear seems to exist solely for pavement. When we got back onto the greenway, I let loose and was tooling!

Dr. Bob

It was a great ride -- me with the two scientists. And I found myself out of my conversational depth as often as not, but it was a splendid way to spend the morning. There was talk of making it  a more normal event and then we all gave reasons why we couldn't do it for the next few weeks. So it goes.

Sunday had started with cycling and it looked like it would be on the back side of it as well with a cool cycling-themed event that night, the Super-Mega Ibrahim Explosion.