Monday March 20, 2006 we had a new member join the bike club.  It is rare to do a club bike ride on a Monday.  Matter of fact I am not sure if we have ever done a ride on a Monday before.  For what ever reason Pete and his son Paul were going to ride this Monday.  Pete called me to see what I was doing.  I was just putzing around trying to stay busy doing a few things around the house before dinner.  Pete asked if I wanted to go for a short evening ride.  I thought why not. 

It had been a nice day, but it was starting to cool off quickly.  I didn’t take the time to do much more than throw on a fleece pull over and put on my helmet.  I was ready to ride.  Pete pulled up shortly in my drive way and with him was his son Paul.  I was surprised to see Paul was wearing shorts.  Definitely a little too cool for me to wear shorts, but kids are tough. 

I asked Pete where he wanted to go and he didn’t have any firm plan so we headed out to ride around the neighborhood.  Pete’s parent’s live relatively close so I suggested we go over there for a quick visit.  Pete’s bike was making a lot of funny noises.  It sounded like something was rubbing against his rear tire.  I can’t remember if Pete had his bike radio on, but for what ever reason he couldn’t hear the rubbing noise.  Paul and I were both laughing at Pete’s bike.  Finally Pete pulled over and tried to adjust the plastic fender he has mounted under his burrito basket.  Thinking he had fixed the problem we started riding again.  We had only been riding for a hundred feet or so when the noise got even louder.  Again, Pete stopped to monkey around with his bike.  This happened two or three more times.  At this point we had spent more time stopped while Pete tried to fix his bike as time riding.  I was beginning to think it was going to be dark before we even got more than a few blocks from my house. 

For Paul to qualify as a club member the ride has to be a minimum distance of 10.0 miles.  At this pace we would never make 10.0 miles.  Finally Pete just started ignoring the noise and we kept riding.   

We got to Pete’s parents house and Paul went up to the door to see if his grandparents were home.  They were home and they invited us in to warm up for a minute.  We stayed and chatted with them for a very short time before we said we had to leave.  We were only there a couple minutes and Pete’s Mom laughed when I said it had been nice talking with you as we started to leave.  I was being sarcastic since we hadn’t been there long enough to even have a real conversation.  It was nice to warm up since the temperature felt like it had fallen below freezing. 

We retraced our path back to my house making sure we rode far enough to get over 10.0 miles including the distance they rode over to my house and then from my house back home again.  It hadn’t gotten quite dark and I used my headlight and turned on my light up spoke reflectors for the ride back to my house. 

So, the next time you see Pete’s son Paul make sure you congratulate him on being the newest member of the coolest bike club in Oakland County, the Rochester Hills PCT Bike and Hike Club.  Following are the statistics from this short evening ride, 10.73 miles total, 17.4 max mph, 34 min 35 sec time on bikes (not including the trip from Pete’s and back) and 10.6 average mph.
David Lindquist