Hey, why is the distance on my Garmin stuck at 33 miles? The Sequel

Today was certainly a gong show on multiple fronts. It’s made me realize how incredibly lucky I am to log as many miles as I do with few issues. In the moment when things are going wrong it can be incredibly difficult to remain positive.

On Thursday, 3/6, I received an early morning text from Mark Hyken asking about meeting up to ride over to Pedal & Pour for the start of the Saturday Adobo Velo Taco Ride. Of course I agreed and we planned on meeting at the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd and Cactus at 6:30 and then ride over to Pedal & Pour from there. Mark had also mentioned bringing Jennifer, Anna, and Adrian along as well. The more the merrier!

Saturday morning I picked up Boots at our usual rendezvous point at 6:00 a.m. Almost immediately she had problems with the shifting on her bike not working correctly. We stopped several times and swapped batteries on the derailleurs to no avail. Eventually Boots was able to manually up shift the rear derailleur to a gear she could make some decent progress with. I sent a few text messages to Robert and Mark letting them know the situation, to start their rides without us, and that we would eventually catch up.

As Boots and I made the left onto Cactus we spotted a few riders out ahead of us. It was approximately 6:45 and I was worried it was Mark the group we were set to meet up with. The worry stemmed from the fact that if we were catching them now at 6:45 they were almost certainly going to be late to the scheduled 7:15 start time.

As we approached this group stopped at the I-15 overpass I recognized Moose and then slowly realized the other two riders were Stuart and Kant. While seeing Moose wasn’t unusual, seeing Stu and Kant this early on this side of town was certainly out of the ordinary. As we rolled up on them we all of course got to talking. I learned that the pair had left a few hours earlier in order to ride down to the Strip via Alta before continuing south to where we were now.

As we continued west I remembered that Kant has a SRAM drivetrain like Boots and I asked him if he knew how to change a hood/shifter battery. When he said he did I was thrilled. Boots had the required CR2032 battery with her; we just needed to get it installed. As we sat at the light at Valley View, I let everyone know that we’d be stopping at the next parking lot. Thankfully we were able to pull off just before Arville. We huddled close to one of the closed shops while Kant worked his magic on Boots’ shifter. In less than five minutes he had her back up and running good as new.

I updated Robert on our progress as we hit the road. The four of us, Moose had gone up the road ahead of us, made like banshees for Pedal & Pour. We were cruising along at a decent pace for sure, but the head wind along Fort Apache made for slower progress than we typically make.

Arriving at Pedal & Pour I was surprised to see everyone still hanging out despite us being easily 15 minutes late. As I chatted with a few folks outside, Robert came up and said he needed a few of us inside. Walking in I’d totally forgotten that Robert had wanted to take a picture of everyone in their new Adobo Velo Endurance Jerseys. We all lined up and smiled as we got the group picture taken.

The pre-ride festivities taken care of it was time to get going and it wasn’t a minute too soon. The natives were growing restless and were ready to ride. The route of the day was a clockwise Red Rock fly-by loop followed by some light climbing to a taco truck near the top of Redpoint.

Things started incredibly fast and difficult straight out of the gate. With a tailwind pushing us south along Fort Apache we were riding fast without putting in much effort. This put a bug into Dave’s cap and he shares, “Hey guys I’m three seconds off a PR here can we step it up a little.” Unfortunately, no one in our small group at the front understands the definition of “a little” and we proceeded to try to murder one another. We were absolutely pushing with all we had as we rode south. This would continue onto Blue Diamond when we started a steady rotation among the six of us.

Making the turn onto NV-159 we briefly considered waiting to regroup with the others, but thought better of it and continued on. It was at this point our lead group of six was reduced to four. The four of us changed to taking half mile pulls and once we reached the few climbs before the Overlook we got all split up. Eventually Dave and Josh would make it to the Overlook while Paul and I came in a short time afterwards. Along the way we’d passed Moose, who had ridden straight here skipping PnP all together. Eventually, the whole gang of Dave, Josh, Kant, Moose, Paul, Rick, and I all left the Overlook together with a goal of the DFH Dunkin’ for a coffee and donut break.

After hanging out for nearly 20 minutes while the boys enjoyed their coffee and donuts, we finally got rolling. We’d been keeping an eye out on my Garmin for Robert and the rest of the gang and saw that they would be along shortly. The timing worked out perfectly as they came riding up right as we were about to leave the parking lot. Unfortunately, we’d missed Boots as she’d already gone by not knowing that we’d stopped.

The ride up to the top of Redpoint went quick and when we arrived there were a handful of riders already there including Boots and a few others. I would hear later that Boots had gone up Redpoint to check for more Taco Trucks as the first one her group came across had no one there. I’d also heard that Boots Garmin mount broke while crossing the cattle guard on NV-159. A few minutes later Robert and the rest of the gang rolled up and we all descended on the poor taco truck ladies and ordered our early lunches. After an amazing Chorizo breakfast burrito and Coke, we gathered everyone up and headed out for the return ride to Pedal & Pour.

The ride to Pedal & Pour was a quick one as it usually is along this stretch of Summerlin. As we pulled in Boots asked how many miles I was at. Lo and behold she had somehow managed to stop her ride probably at the Taco Truck. It’s also possible she stopped it when she had to put her computer into her pocket due to the broken mount. Of course now at PnP she could get it restarted and naturally that meant more miles because if they ain’t on Strava they didn’t happen.

To make up for those lost miles I decided to take us back north. Now Robert, Kant, and Matt had rolled out before us and I thought we might catch them. I decided to route us through Mesa Park and around. I kept a passing eye on where Robert and company were and we nearly caught them at Sahara. We probably would have if it wasn’t for the light; however, we did go on to catch them at the intersection of DFH and Charleston. It was nice because we got to say our goodbyes before setting off for a flyby.

From here on back to the Starbucks at the Bicentennial dog bone was pretty uneventful. We just did our thing logging the miles. We made a couple passes in Southern Highlands in order to be certain we’d make the total mileage we wanted, and took the opportunity to make a quick stop at one of the neighborhood parks to top up our water bottles.

Great day for a ride and I had an absolute blast.

New bike fund: $88.84 (+$0.01), €1.52 (+€0.00), ₱10.00 (+₱0.00), ֏10.00 (+֏0.00)
1.49 new miles — From Wandrer.earth
708 total shifts, 50 front, 658 rear. 88.7% of the ride in the big ring, 11.3% in the small ring. Most time spent in 52×21, 19.9% — by di2stats.com
645 vehicles @ 5.5 per mile, 1.7 per minute, Speeds: 42.5 mph (avg), 77.6 mph (max) — by MyBikeTraffic.com
Clear-Sunny, 47°F-65°F, Feels like 42°F-69°F, Humidity 34%-14%, Wind NNW 8mph-NNE 6mph — by Klimat.app
— myWindsock.com Report —
Weather Impact™: 8.4%
Headwind: 61% @ 8.2 – 30.2 mph
Longest Headwind: 01h 7m 30s
Air Speed: 19.8 mph
Temp: 46.5-62.9 °F
Precip: 0% @ 0 Inch/hr
— END —