So after a series of episodes of bad luck with tires (and various other issues), my Sunday ride yesterday turned out to be a much better time. I wound up with over a dozen registrants, many of whom I didn't know... and one of whom was by far the youngest rider on any of my club rides. Sabine R (I need to get her to tell me how to pronounce her first name, although I'll probably only ever refer to her as "Ms R", as is my habit) came out with her father. I was a little concerned when I saw how young she was, but I needn't have been. She was regularly riding off ahead of me (but within the club guidelines), and I'm fairly sure that the only reason she wasn't off ahead of me all the rest of the time was good breeding and politeness. As I remarked at the stop, she's another electron: she has next to no mass, and travels at or near the speed of light. (I was probably a little more profane when I was addressing her, but I suspect she'll recover. Young people are remarkably resilient in dealing with the stuff that we elders get all "tut-tutty" about.)
We did this route, with all the annoying hills. My newer folks were, I think, a bit dismayed by how late in the ride the break comes, but they'll manage (or they'll become leaders, and start leading their own rides, with routes more to their liking).
We stopped at Thomas Sweet.
They were kind enough to listen to a commercial about Ramblin' Wrench, my bicycle maintenance venture. Maybe I can get some work out of one of 'em...
They were mostly faster than I, and I heard a rumor that on the way back, they decided to try to maintain 19mph. Good for them; I hope they had a good time. A few of us rolled back to the start at what I like to call a more ambassadorial pace.
It's a day later, and I'm still glad to have gotten this one in. The last of those benighted tubes from the previous post has split in the tire, so now I'm rid of 'em, and I hope I can go back to more predictable tire and tube performance.
In other news, I've gotten an ultrasonic cleaner, with which I'm having an inordinate amount of fun. My cassettes are gonna be all shiny for a while!
I was less than impressed with their riding etiquette. But overall a good day!
ReplyDeleteThat bad, huh?
ReplyDelete