Usually on ST Patrick’s Day (or the Saturday before) I’d ride with our club in the parade and then we’d both ride around participating in all the festivities following, but this year we didn’t make it. We did go for an afternoon ride to the casino for a beverage.
While there we rubbed elbows with who we believe to be members of the band Collective Soul who were playing there that evening.
On the way home I tried to chase down a few hot air balloons that were landing nearby.
Sunday we were the hosts for the monthly old bikes ride. Being the host just meant that we would pick the starting time, starting location and route. Sounds simple enough but it’s something I stressed over. My goal was to get participants to ride in a part of town that most probably hadn’t ridden in before and I wanted it to be a loop ride. Determining the length of the ride was the biggest dilemma. I know some people in our bike group who might show up don’t do a lot of riding and are in it more for the enjoyment of collecting and tinkering with the old bikes and others are in it just for the social aspect. On top of that some of these heavy old single speed bikes can be difficult to ride. Especially those that are left as original as possible with no modifications to make them easier and more comfortable to ride. I didn’t want it to be too far that someone might struggle, get discouraged and not participate again yet it needed to be long enough to make it worth our while.
I come up with a route that I thought matched all the criteria I was looking for and the ride went down with only a few mishaps, one of them mine.
We made a stop to play around on the old soap box derby hill. It’s a pretty steep hill so everyone ended up pushing their bikes to the top and coasted down.
Me, being a show off, raced my bike all the way to the top. When the ride resumed after, my bike kept throwing the chain and it eventually got bound up in the rear cog. I guess the stress of going up the hill was too much for the 90 year old skip tooth chain. A plate on one of the links had broke. Nova, being the awesome person she is, volunteered to lend me her bike so I could continue with the group while she walked mine until I come back to get her in the truck. I guess at some point she got it to ride again briefly before the chain broke in two. She figured she could at least coast down the hills and did but then was reminded there wasn’t any way to stop since it’s a coaster brake. She had to Flinstone it lol.
Prior to the ride I never mentioned how far we’d be riding. After the ride someone asked if I knew how far we’d rode. I told them 10 miles and there were cheers and high fives all around. This was the farthest some had ever ridden. That made me really happy. I didn’t stick around though as I had to go find Nova which I did. She said she enjoyed her few miles of hike a bike and coasting so all ended well.