This weekend, even thought the club only had one ride scheduled for Sunday February 22, 2004, I personally was lucky enough to be able to go on three rides.  

Bob got a new comfort bike this past week and since he wasn’t going to be available for the Sunday ride he was planning to go for a ride Friday morning.  Well it didn’t take much arm-twisting to talk me into taking a vacation day on Friday to join Bob for an early morning ride.  We left around 8:00 am and we had a nice ride to the Rams Horn for breakfast on Rochester Road and Hamlin.  The weekday breakfast specials are very reasonably priced and you get more than a fair amount of food.  Based on the weather reports the night before, we were concerned we might get wet.  But the rain held off both on the way there and on the way home.  This Friday ride I estimate was about 15 or 16 miles round trip and the temperature was around 32°F when we started, and it was rising. 

The official ride was held Sunday February 22, 2004 and attended by Rich, Steve and myself.  It was partly cloudy and the sun only peeked through now and then.  It felt like spring outside, the starting temperature was 34°F and it was 38°F when we finished, another perfect day for a bike ride.  Rich and I rode over to meet Steve at our normal meeting point, Brewster.  We waited for just a few minutes when a car pulled into the parking lot and approached us.  At first we thought it might be a bike club fan stopping by to say hi.  It turned out to be Steve still smartly dressed in suit and tie.  Steve was running late, but he still wanted to attend the ride.  Rich and I rode over to Steve’s house and by the time we got there he was changed and ready to go. 

With Steve still on probation for the incident last week, I was planning to pay close attention to Steve’s actions to try and determine if he had a hand (foot) involved in Pete’s mishap. 

The three of us decided to head south again this week since we knew the sidewalks were clear.  We briefly considered taking the trail north, but Steve reported it was still in rough shape the last time he checked.  We took a combination of side streets and side walks most of the way.  We ended up at the new OPC (Older Persons' Commission) building on Letica and stopped to check it out.  It wasn’t open so we only hung around for a few minutes, enough time to take a couple pictures.  We stopped at the trail entrance to Bloomer Park but with the packed snow starting to melt it made for very difficult riding.  We turned around and skipped Bloomer this week.  We ended up going past the Onyx ice rink and Rich had never been there so we stopped in for a couple minutes to look around.  We continued on to Parkdale Road past the big water tower.  We cut back over to John R Road on Avon and went south on John R until Hamlin.  We debated going further south but Steve had a curling function to attend later in the day in Sarnia so we decided to head over to the Pub for lunch.  Check out this site for the basics to curling. 

Rich our safety coordinator asked me to report that today’s ride was an outstanding example of bicycling technique and safety.  Everyone was using the proper hand signals for turns and following the proper traffic laws.  Steve’s performance was exceptional and based on his actions this week his probation has been lifted.  We now believe Pete’s mishap was probably self-inflicted, not sure why we didn’t come to this conclusion originally. 

Quick report on our promotional items.  One of our better customers recently sent us a very nice note.  You might remember her, I have spoken about her in the past, she is a member of a shopping club.  She expressed how impressed she was with the quality and variety of items.  The car window decals came out great, if you haven’t ordered yours yet you might want to soon because we have word that they may become a fad with the kids at the local high schools.  We were planning to offer all our items in other languages, but we are having trouble negotiating currency for these transactions, so these multilingual items are currently on hold. 

At lunch I had the Monte Cristo sandwich and Rich and Steve had Ruebens.  All the sandwiches were good as usual.  I always try to report the quality of the diet coke where ever we eat and this week Rich was kind enough to offer an assessment of the regular coke, he reported it was good.  On our way out of the pub we noticed a club logo sticker on the public phone in the entranceway.  It looked very good on the phone, but we want to caution our fans, please be considerate in where you place your stickers.  We don’t want the club to get a bad reputation due to our promotional material being placed in locations that might offend.  Thank you for your attention on this matter. 

I wasn’t kidding about Steve having to get back in time to head out to his curling event.  Steve is actually a very accomplished curler.  My brother in law Barry has somewhat recently taken up curing as well.  Barry, this is another reason you need to join the bike club, you will have a fellow member to share stories about your rocks.  We made good time and headed straight home after lunch.  Rich led the way and we even averaged 10 mph going up hill on Tienken for a good distance.  We got Steve back in time and over all we had a great ride. 

My speedometer starting working again today.  I think it was just too cold for it to work properly the past few weeks.  I checked the instructions and it said the operating temperature was 0°C to around 55°C.  For those of you metrically challenged when it comes to temperature, 0°C is 32°F so this could definitely have been my speedometer problem.  Well, since it was working I can report the following ride statistics, 23.7 total miles, 22.4 mph maximum speed, 11.2 mph average speed and a total time of 2 hr and 7 minutes of pedaling time. 

Don’t worry we have not forgotten about the ride to Red Coat Tavern in Royal Oak.  The city of Auburn Hills never cleared the snow off their sidewalks along Squirrel Road and this is a good portion of our beginning route for that trip.  We will still have this ride once all the snow is gone. 

 Thanks again for checking in on us.  Steve did have his camera so at some point we will have pictures to add to this weeks write up.

David Lindquist