School is out for Summer, and it is Friday, which means a big fat Saturday morning lies ahead of us. Who’s riding where and with who when?
If you aren’t riding your bike, what are you going to do?
Wherever you live, I would like to know what you consider to be the essential version of a “Saturday Stroll” in your neighborhood, town, city, pueblo, or village.
For me it is coffee at Lake Ella, then a nice volunteer stint cleaning and selling bikes down at Joe’s. The music is up, Pete is busy wrenching, and an unsuspecting public wanders into our little bike paradise to receive enthusiastic, if unorthodox service.
In the course of a day I will likely ride a 3 wheel foldable, a couple of cruisers, a fixed gear, a 29’er, a BMX bike, a variety of mountain bikes, but probably not any road bikes. I will ride them to chase dogs, get lunch, visit with pretty ladies, and mainly just to experience the way each one of them rolls.
Lonely folks who don’t necessarily ride bikes will stop by to get un-lonelied by Joe and us, his reluctant disciples. Three or four generations of Joe’s mechanics will stop by, most will pick up a wrench at some point and get involved in a good diagnosis, whether it is some migrant worker’s Roadmaster, or a techno-weenie and his tri-bike. Skills will be flexed.
Tonight I will roll around Railroad Square www.railroadsquare.com , enjoying the unpretentious First Friday Gallery Hop scene.
Peek in the doors of Krank it Up www.railroadsquare.com/tenant/KrankItUp.html , to see what sort of bicycle chaos they have going on, drop into ArtAffects www.artaffectsgallery.com to see Leigh Anne, and wander the BFA warehouse where the youngsters with intense visions and grand dreams are hacking, painting, and brooding there way towards legitimacy.
I will wind up down at Tocamos, www.tocamos.com getting down to the Afro-cuban rhythms under the tiki torches.
It’s summer man, nobody cares about your VO2 max, or your lactic threshold. I want to know what makes life sweet where you live.
Now cue the crickets…
Juancho
we’ll be riding from here Sunday morning:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?oi=eu_map&q=Oxenhope&hl=en
a hilly moorland route but with gloriuos sunshine predicted it’ll be smiles and miles for the pootle crew
http://www.oxenhope.webspace.fish.co.uk/gallery/html/viewfrompenistone.htm
This pic says a lot about the pootle crews good taste I believe.
Big Worm’s linguistics crew is almost done decoding your letter Fat Lad, any day now we’ll have you answer. Cheers to the pootle gang from the BRC and 10th Ave.
My normal Saturday mornings find me reading the Free-Press over a couple cups of coffee and then heading into the yard to garden, mow, weed, plant, trim, blow, prune, etc. It’s planting time up here and my seedlings have barely survived the neglect they have received on my front porch since I bought them last week. Tomorrow is different though as I will be spending it at a half-day board meeting of Camp
Fire USA (my newest charity project). Building tomorrow’s leaders, though, is just as important as tomatos, peppers, and herbs. Sorry I can’t join all of you on your weekly ride. It sounds like fun.
I’m working Saturday morning.
Now cue the big sigh…
I’ve got a charity ride this Saturday morning. I’ll be climbing out of bed in just 5 short hours to wend my way through minneapolis. Otherwise, my idea of a sweet saturday morning involves about 5 hours of saddle time and a little bit of rest time. If it’s a beautiful day, I want to spend a large chunk of it on my bike. A little long slow distance on back country roads with blue skies, green grass and chatty red-winged blackbirds and I’m all set. Throw a coffee shop and a grassy meadowed make-out session into it and it doesn’t get any better.