3,780 miles on the bike in 2023

I ended up riding 455 miles in December. That gave me 3,780 total miles ridden in 2023. That’s much closer to the 4,000 miles I had hoped to ride than I thought I would achieve. It came about because of an upswing in mileage that started the last week of September. That week, I rode 105 miles. It was the first time since I cratered with COVID in October 2020 that I had managed to ride 105 miles in a single week. But, the rest of 2023, I rode 105 miles every week. It signals a really nice improvement in my health that I’m hoping will last for a while.

Here is December 8th’s route. It was my only outdoor ride in the month of December.

Fall Rides

COVID in October, 2020 was such a life changing event for me, I find myself comparing the before and after, especially when it comes to my performance on the bike, because it is there where the difference is so stark, even after most of the rest of the things I do started being mostly like the before. But there were definitely improvements in bike performance in September and October. First, in mid September, I decided to change my weekly three 30 mile rides to 35 mile rides. So, since that time, I’ve been getting in 105 miles a week on the bike, rather than the 90 miles I had been getting. I hadn’t gotten in that kind of mileage since before COVID. I seemed to be completely over the flu bout that hit me so hard in the summer, plus my surgically repaired knee finally seemed strong enough for more miles, so it seemed time to start doing it.

Before COVID, my average speed on the bike was around 15 mph. I would be faster on high effort days, and slower on days when it was windy, cold, etc, but my average was around 15 mph. But since COVID, I hadn’t averaged over 15 mph on an outdoor bike ride at all, not even once. That is, until October 20th. It was a nice day with fairly light winds, and on that day, I averaged 15.4 mph on the bike. I’ve had so many rides faster than that in previous years, but on this day, I had to do a little fist pump in my driveway when I got home. I know I’m never going to get completely back to the strength and fitness level I was at before, but at 72 years old now, I probably wouldn’t have been at that level still anyway. It’s all relative, and right now I’m feeling pretty good about where I am. I also made a slight increase in the amount of weight I’m lifting in my dumbbell work now too.

I ended up with 16 rides for 403 miles in September, and 17 rides for 490 miles in October. That October mileage is the best I’ve had in a month since that first COVID bout. It just turned much cooler, so all of this week’s rides have been indoors. Winters always seem to be more challenging for my lung health. We’ll see how I do this year.

October 20th’s route.

Summer bike rides

After only getting 120 miles on the bike in May because of my knee surgery at the beginning of the month, I had hoped to be getting my regular three rides a week all summer. It didn’t happen. I got the flu on July 11th, it quickly turned into pneumonia that caused two trips to the ER and a couple of days in the hospital, and left me with bronchitis so bad that I didn’t ride again until August 7th. So July ended up just like May had, with me only getting in 120 miles on the bike.

I haven’t been setting firm mileage goals these days, but I had hoped to manage 4,000 miles on the bike this year, just like I did last year. It’s not going to happen now. At the end of August, I only had 2,000 miles, so I’m likely to end up several hundred miles short of that 4,000. Nothing to do but ride when I can, and hope for a stretch of better health now.

Last week’s route.

Grayson County creek – August 29th

I took off yesterday morning and drove to a Grayson County creek, one of my previous hunted and favorite spots. It was my first fossil hunting trip since early in the year. I haven’t made any fossil posts here since October of last year, and had made only a couple of trips where I didn’t find much since then. The multiple meniscus tears in my left knee finally became too much to allow for hiking creeks, so I stopped hunting. I finally had meniscus repair knee surgery May 2nd, but have not been able to kneel on that knee again until very recently. The past few weeks, I have felt like that, with a bit of extra padding, I could use my knee pads again, but with daily temperatures from 105 to 110 degrees, I have just not been willing to fossil hunt. Finally, yesterday was cooler, so off I went.

Here are some in situ photos. That first photo has two teeth.




That last photo shows the biggest Ptychodus tooth I’ve ever found, sitting up pretty as a picture, on the gravel. I’ve always hiked a fair distance from creek access points, figuring my chances of success were better further away from popular easy to access spots. But in more recent trips to creeks in Grayson County, even my more remote spots show plenty of evidence of other fossil hunters. Yesterday was no exception, with digging evidence everywhere on the gravel bars, even the ones furthest away from access points. But that big Ptychodus tooth serves as a reminder that, even with very picked over conditions, you still have a chance of finding something you’ll really like. Here is what I brought home: 4 Ptychodus teeth, 1 gastropod, and 49 other teeth.

Here are two views of that biggest Ptychodus tooth.

Here are individual photos of some other teeth from the day.

Back on the bike after surgery

I had my left knee scoped on May 2nd, to repair multible meniscus tears. Exactly three weeks later, Tuesday of last week, I had regained enough range of motion in the knee that I returned to riding. I just did a 10 mile ride on the trainer that day, a 20 mile ride two days later, and a 30 mile ride the day after that. I’ve been riding an extremely flat virtual ride on the trainer, and thought that route would be easier on my knee than actual road riding, plus when doing a virtual route on the trainer, I have the ability to stop at any time, if I need to.

Those rides went well, so this Tuesday, I was back on the road, doing a 30 mile ride there. I did another 30 miles today, and plan on another 30 tomorrow. I hope to eventually tackle some longer and more hilly routes, but for now, I’ll just stick to the easy 30 mile route to Mabank that I’ve been riding for the last couple of years, while I’ve struggled with all these health issues.

Just before my surgery, I bought a new Garmin cycling GPS unit. Up until then, I had been still using an old Garmin Edge 705. The heartrate sensor strap quit working, and when I got online to buy another, I found out that Garmin had stopped making it. I’d already been thinking bout upgrading to a new GPS, so this seemed like the time. Before the Edge 705, I was using an Edge 305 that I bought in 2007. And the data from all my rides since 2009 is on the Garmin Connect website. And, since I’ve started doing Rouvy virtual rides on my trainer, data is shared between the Rouvy and Garmin Connect websites, so the data from both my virtual and road rides is on both websites. So even though Garmin cycling GPS units are pricier than I really need with the simple close to home solo riding I do these days, I really wanted another Garmin, and not another brand.

I knew that I really didn’t want or need the mapping or many of the other bells and whistles the new units have. But, in the 16 years I’ve been riding since I bought that Edge 305, I’ve really become used to having my heartrate and pedaling cadence on the display in front of me while I ride. So even though I was willing to settle for a simpler unit now, I still wanted one with the capability to display those. I ended up buying the least expensive new cycling GPS that Garmin makes, an Edge 130 Plus. I found it on sale on Amazon for $199, and that included the new style heart rate sensor. It works with the cadence sensor I already had installed on my bike, so I didn’t need to buy anything else.

It’s tiny, but has the brightest, clearest display I’ve ever seen on a cycling GPS. Here it is next to my old Cateye cycling computer.

The sun was behind me in that photo, so it does a good job of showing how good that display is, even in bright sunlight. Even though it’s much smaller than my old Edge 705, the display isn’t that much smaller.

And once again, compare that display to the old one. Of course, there are other differences from my old unit, too. With it, I used a USB cable connected to my PC and the Windows Garmin Express app to upload my ride date to the Garmin Connect site. Now, all I have to do is have the android Connect app running on my phone, and when I click the button on the 130 Plus to save the ride, the phone automatically uploads it to the Garmin connect site. Such a powerful GPS in such a tiny package, I really like it.

Off the bike for most of May because of my surgery, I only ended up with 120 miles ridden for the month. Here’s the data from Tuesday’s ride.

Fishing the Tiny Child Rig

Since I haven’t been fossil hunting lately, and my bike rides are the short little rides my knee is restricting me to, here’s a fishing update. I stopped fishing bass tournaments in 2006, and since that time have mainly been a crappie angler. But I’ve been doing more bass fishing the last couple of years, mostly just finesse fishing to suit my aging body. I posted a while back about the new finesse worms I was making and using. On a light shaky head jig, these have worked well late spring post spawn and throughout the summer. But I haven’t had that much success with them in the winter or at spawning time, so I set out to add a new finesse bait to my bass bait arsenal.

I had tried a Ned rig last year. It’s a rig that uses a Finesse TRD bait on a mushroom head jig. I caught some fish on it, but it hangs up so much that it’s really not very practical for Cedar Creek fishing. I read about a new way to fish this same bait, called a “tiny child rig”. This involves adding a tail weight to the bait, and using a Texas rig hook. There’s no better way to test a finesse bait than to watch it and bass’ reaction to it while sight fishing on beds. Lake Fork is a great sight fishing lake that’s not a bad drive from home, so I’ve been making some trips there to test this rig. The results have been pretty spectacular. I’ve never seen as good a bass finesse bait as this. To say I had success with it at Lake Fork is an understatement. I’m looking forward to trying it on Cedar Creek.

Yesterday’s trip to Lake Fork produced three five pounders.

Here are the tiny child rigs I’ve been using. The bait on top is a Zman Finesse TRD. It’s a 2.8 inch bait made of a unique material that’s very stretchy and spongy. The bottom bait is one I’ve started making from a Do-It four inch Senko mold. I’ve been using a tougher plastic than you’d use for an actual Senko, since I want it to hold a tail weight when I glue it in. The color shown has proven to be a good fish catcher, but a perch color I’ve started making has been better for the Fork bed fishing.

Here’s the tail weight I’ve been using. I make them myself with another Do-It mold. Like all the jigs I make, I use a bismuth/tin alloy, and not lead. Most tail weights are just slender weights you stab into the tail of a worm, but these mushroom head tail weights really put the weight at the very tail of the bait, and give a better action in the water. The baits really want to stand up, and with the hook on top while they’re standing, they really hook the fish well. I’ve been using a 1/16 oz weight in these small baits.

The tiny child rig is a unique bass bait unlike anything else I’ve seen. With the hook at the top end of the bait and the weight at the bottom, these are more weedless than any bait I’ve ever used. They also seem to hook bass better than any weedless bait I’ve ever used. And I seemed to be able to catch bedding bass at Fork better than anyone around me, even following others and casting to fish they couldn’t catch. As I said, I’m looking forward to trying the bait out on Cedar Creek.

2023 Bike Rides

I took off on the F5 yesterday morning and rode my 30 mile Mabank route. It was my first outdoor ride since early November last year. The weather this winter has been fairly mild, and there were days I could have ridden outdoors, but I wanted to make sure my vertigo issues were well enough under control before I tackled an outdoor ride again. But ever since I’ve been taking meclizine, my vertigo episodes have been infrequent, very mild, of very short duration, and never while I’m being active. I finally got to see a physical therapist for my vertigo. She did lots of testing, and thinks the source of my vertigo is my eyes. So I’m doing some eye exercises to see if that helps. If not, I’ll be seeing an ear nose and throat specialist for more testing.

So I think my only limitations right now are my left knee and my not-so-great fitness level, and I’m going to start doing mostly outdoor rides on the days the weather permits. As has been the case in recent years, I had my challenges getting my miles in this first quarter of 2023. Ongoing pain in my left knee has limited me, plus I had my usual January cold which turned into my usual January bronchitis, and I took a couple of weeks off the bike for that. I used to just ride through colds and bronchitis, but trying to do so these days seems to make getting well again take far too long.

I ended up with just 750 miles on the bike for the first quarter, much less than I would like and expect. My left knee surgery has been set for May 2nd, so I’m hoping for a better second half of this year on the bike. I’ve only made one fossil hunting hike this quarter, and didn’t find anything worthy of posting about. I’m hoping to be doing more of that as well after the surgery. The surgeon is just scoping my knee, so I’m hoping the recovery time won’t be too long. Yesterday’s Mabank route is more challenging than the very flat Cozumel virtual route I’ve been riding on the trainer, but it’s still a flat easy route. I don’t think I’m going to tackle anything longer or more challenging until after my knee gets fixed.

Yesterday’s 30 mile Mabank ride.

2022 bike mileage

I ended up with a total of 4,014 miles ridden in 2022. That’s a whole lot less than I rode in my strongest years, but it’s a lot better than the 2,800 miles I had the year before. I got a shot in my left knee, and was pain free for a few weeks, but the pain and swelling has returned. I’m getting an MRI next week to determine what’s next for my knee. I’m still just doing flat routes at old man speed on the bike. I’d still like to try and get stronger when my knee is enough better to let me.

And my knee isn’t my only health issue these days. Thanksgiving week, I was at the ER twice with vertigo so bad I was completely incapacitated. I have patches and pills to help me with it, and I’m getting MRI’s next week to eliminate brain or inner ear tumors as a possible cause. I’ve been getting out for some fishing, but I’m not hiking creeks to fossil hunt, and I’m not riding anything other than my bike on the trainer, until I’m satisfied that I’m not going to crash and burn with the vertigo again at an inopportune or dangerous time. I’d had a better stretch of health since early in 2022, had been off my Wixela inhaler since June with no wheezing, and had no other major health issues, so these bouts of vertigo were a big setback for me, health wise.

The really flat virtual route I’ve been riding lately on the trainer.

Central Texas creek – October 12th

I took off yesterday morning an drove to a central Texas creek to fossil hunt. This is not the same spot I visited last week; it’s a creek I hunted in September of last year. It is also Wolfe City formation. I’d hunted a gravel bar briefly in that last trip, but had found all the teeth I brought home in outcrops on creek walls afterward. Considering how many teeth I found in those outcrops, I planned on hunting the gravel bars below them better this time.

I first made the hike to the outcrops. I had found all the teeth on my previous trip in a narrow part of the outcrop just above the water level, and had noted to myself that lower water levels would be a better time to hunt this area. I thought that yesterday would provide those conditions, but it didn’t. Not only was the water level not lower, but the bank just below the part of the outcrop I needed to hunt was very muddy, making it tough to maintain footing while hunting. In addition to that, weeds and brush up against the outcrops had gotten so thick that I wasn’t able to hunt a couple of the previously productive spots at all.

But I did find some teeth in the outcrops. Here are some in situ photos.



This creek has had a lot of cattle traffic in the past year. There wasn’t much doubt of this once I left the outcrops and walked down to the gravel bars below them. The wetter gravel bars had been trampled to the point that there was no longer any visible gravel, just mud. And even the drier gravel bars were trampled, and had weeds growing everywhere. Here is the one where I finally managed to find a few teeth.

Teeth were very tough to spot on this gravel bar under these conditions, but I did manage to find a few. Both of these teeth are hard to see, even in the photos, especially the very small tooth in the first photo (hint: it’s perched nicely on top of the rocks, just left of the glove thumb).

Hamulus worm tubes, on the other hand, were plentiful, and I picked up quite a few of them. Here is what I brought home.

This tooth from the first in situ photo is my favorite from the day. Scapanorhynchus texanus?

Some other individual photos of the teeth. Several of the smaller ones were the most intact.







Summer bike mileage

I just realized I hadn’t posted riding miles since April. My left knee is still making riding tough, though it’s improved some recently. Here are my monthly mileages on the bike since April:

May – 382 miles
June – 330 miles
July – 315 miles
August – 247 miles
September – 415 miles

My mileage in August was down because of my 10 day trip to Scotland. The 415 miles in September is the best mileage month of the year, and more mileage than I did in any month last year. I’m taking that as a good sign. Physical therapy helped my knee some, but not enough to keep it from swelling and giving me pain when I ride. It looks like shots are next.

Monday’s ride route.