When the end of March comes around, and one of the weekend days is predicted to be 70°+F, and the other day is predicted to be rainy, you can expect a large number of cyclists to be out. Laura had called for a flat ride to a stop she wanted to try, and seven of us took her up on it: Chris C, Bob N, Andrew A, Peter G, "Front Wheel" Ricky G (more on the nickname below), and new-to-the-Slugs Dave (he cracks jokes like a Hill Slug and can keep up with the discussion, but I'm not sure he can reliably ride slow enough to make it through the arduous initiation).
Laura, true to her recent behavior, wasn't even cutting it close on the start; we had way plenty of time for ride sheet signatures, the obligatory pre-ride speech, and the usual abuse and character assassination.
But also at the Mercer East lot was a group of probably twenty others, who claimed to be a group from Bernie's bike shop in Hamilton.We let them go first.
After all, there were many more of them, they appeared better-organized, and they would have rolled over us as if we were so many bugs.
We rolled out..
... and OF COURSE there was a bridge out:
...but just because it's closed to motor vehicles doesn't mean it's closed to us.
Laura's choice of stop was a place called Charleston Coffee. I liked it a lot, and I hope we get to stop there again. There was the usual assortment of baristas with interesting hair, a bagel shop in a communicating store, available toilets, and they treated us like folks (which is enough for me to like a place). Laura didn't like the vanilla in the cold brew, but since I am a coffee Philistine, that didn't bother me. I hope we get to go there again.
Uh... No thanks, my tremor is bad enough. Below, Laura show us one of the dance steps she learned at the Hill Slugs School of Deportment:
While at the stop, Ricky got to talking about last week's ride where he had left his front wheel behind when he had driven away afterwards; Andrew told me that Ricky had given him a ride one day and had almost left before giving andrew back his front wheel. I want to start calling Ricky "Front Wheel', in hopes he'll not make that mistake again.
Also at the stop, Bob pointed out that we had not had any flats on this ride. He must have awakened the ire of the goddess of flats, because it wasn't too long before...
Yeah, that was on his front wheel.
We had a discussion abut the goddess of flats, Pneuma (or Πνευμα, if you're fussy about the Greek. I felt like being fussy). Edit: I've discovered that, on some computers, the Greek letters don't show. Oh, well.
Bob felt lucky that it was his front wheel, and I said we should mark this day with a white stone, in the ancient Roman custom.
Laura asked if Pneuma like white stones, or grey or black. "Bridgestones", I said, with a little more self-satisfaction than the joke could really bear.
Pneuma must have been upset, because a few miles later, she smote Ricky's rear tire.
How many Freewheelers des it take to change a tire? (If you come to my tire clinic after the Spring Fling, I'll tell you.) Also in that picture above, chis is holding forth about an insulator he'd found. He rode back with it. It didn't slow him down much.
Laura had got lost a bit, so we wound up with a little over 50 for this 47-mile ride.
And today, in the rain, I've been cleaning off the grime of winter from all the bikes, and giving them a polish and lube. The chain on the Krakow Monster is showing rust (I only take it out in the worst conditions, and it knows it). There might be more maintenance due. I need the occasional rainy day to keep up with the mechanics!
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