Three Speed Adventure April Personal Break

After first announcing a hiatus, the Society of Three Speeds announced a revised Adventure April.  I just haven't gotten around to jumping on board.  It's been a tough transition to working at home, though I am extremely grateful that it is not the same as the transition to being out of work, which so many of my fellow citizens have made.  I hope you are all doing OK out there.  In spite of being grateful, I have my moments of being cranky about all this virusness out there, and I just haven't been able to nudge myself to taking three-speed photographs.

We are bicycling a lot, but on several different bicycles.  We bike "to work" every morning, usually about 12-15 miles - one big loop back to the house.  I started the month using the Rivendell, since it's been hanging on the wall for quite a while.  It's a fine and beautiful touring bike, but I'm back on the old Raleigh most days.  I took this photograph of the moon this morning from the Santa Fe Railtrail, from atop the Raleigh.

There's several things I like about the three speed over the Rivendell.

a) in spite of the higher than standard handlebars of the Rivendell, my neck ends up hurting from craning my neck to look forward.  I know that I'm supposed to keep my head more in line with my body and look up with my eyes, but my glasses are usually slipping down my nose somewhat, so I usually end up tilting my head back to look ahead.  I don't know how the racers do it.  My neck never seems to adjust, no matter how often I ride more (currently) mainstream bikes.  (I didn't think I'd ever call the Rivendell a mainstream bike.)
b) I just like the simplicity of the three speeds.  True, it's nice to have a low, low gear to get up the hills around here, and I don't think I'm ready to tackle the mountains on a three speed, but three speeds works fine around town, even on the steep hills.
c) At some point, ever derailleur equipped bicycle I have develops squeaky derailleur pulleys.  I really don't like messing around with taking them off and greasing them, so I ride with the squeak while it slowly drives me mad.
d) The ride of the old Raleigh is surprisingly smooth and comfortable.

In the afternoons, we've been doing another 10-15 mile loop, and we've been doing it on a recumbent tandem I found at Goodwill for $85.  We rode it in two Santa Fe Centuries, and we've blown past people on racing bikes down the side of the mountain outside Cerrillos.  Our best guess is that we were doing around 60 mph, since on of the people we blew past was doing 52.

Unfortunately, the front tire blew out yesterday, and we had to walk it all the way back home.  It has a ten foot wheel base, so it really doesn't fit in the Subaru.  The tires haven't been replaced since we stopped riding it over ten years ago.  It's a pain to store, and the front wheel sort of sticks out in the sun and the rain from our back porch.  It was already going bald.  We might replace it.  It is nice to sit back in a lawn chair like position and chat together at the end of the day. 

I don't have a good photo of the recumbent, but here is a bad one with chicken - It's a Ryan Duplex: