This Holiday (Labor Day) weekend the bike club did four rides, one each day starting on Friday.  The weather was absolutely perfect for all four days.  I think this was nicest weekend all year.  It was cool at night and it got to the low 80’s during the day with very low humidity, you couldn’t ask for anything better.  The sun was out each day with scattered fluffy clouds and I don’t believe we ever saw any rain.  With weather like this we had to take advantage and ride every day.  This story is about the first ride on Friday September 2, 2005. 

Pete had the day off work and I went in early and got off a little early so that we could do an afternoon ride.  We didn’t have any plans and neither one of us had eaten lunch yet, so our first priority was to find some where for lunch.  We headed south to Rochester to one of our favorite places to eat, Penn Station.  I was surprised to see a rather lager crowed still at Penn Station ordering lunch.  Pete and I went inside and we were waiting our turn to order when Pete quietly said to me we had to leave.  I looked funny at Pete and asked what was wrong.  Pete quietly pointed out the owner, who was working behind the counter cutting bread, wasn’t wearing gloves.  Apparently this freaked Pete out because he was serious when he told me we had to leave.  I told him the owner is a good guy and that he really takes his business serious and he must have washed his hands.  Nothing I said was going to change Pete’s mind, he was convinced to go somewhere else.  Pete told me it is better when you can’t actually see the people preparing the food.  This kind of thing doesn’t bother me, but apparently this type of vision really upsets some people.   

Now we had to decide on another place for lunch.  We kicked around a few different ideas for another place.  We wanted somewhere relatively quick, since it was such a beautiful day we didn’t want to be stuck inside for too long.  We settled on Taco Bell and started riding further south to the Target shopping center where the nearest Taco Bell is located.  If nothing else this gave us a cause to ride a little further.   

As we walked into the Taco Bell I looked around at the dirty floors, the over flowing garbage cans and the filthy tables.  I looked at Pete and asked him if he felt better about the cleanliness of this establishment.  He looked at the employees back behind the counter preparing the food and said at least everyone is wearing gloves.  I had to agree they all had on gloves, not sure how clean the gloves were but they were all wearing gloves.  There was a fairly long line of people waiting to order, luckily the line was moving relatively quickly.  Standing between the two cash registers was a young lady wiping plastic trays with a dirty rag.  This didn’t seem to bother Pete and we continued to be next in line to place our order.  I decided to order mine to go, I figured the bag they put the food in might be a little more sanitary than the plastic tray freshly wiped with the dirty rag.  Pete got his food on a plastic tray. 

After we wolfed down our lunch we were back on our bikes riding again.  Pete wanted to stop at the Ace Hardware for some glue to do a maintenance repair on his swimming pool plumbing, so we headed over that way.  I locked our bike together and I walked around the store just looking at stuff while Pete did his shopping.  Pete found some marine glue that looked like it would do the trick so he bought it and we were on our way again. 

We took our regular route home riding on side streets.  As everyone knows Pete likes to ride through circle driveways.   A few weeks ago we noticed at this one particular spot it would be possible to do four consecutive circle drives, one right after the other.  Basically all four houses on each corner had a circle driveway.  Pete obviously hadn’t forgotten and when we got to that spot again he decided to do all four.  I got out my phone camera and took a couple pictures as he went from one house to the next.  Apparently there was an elderly man standing in one of the driveways as Pete rode right past.  I didn’t see this man but I did hear Pete yell out “short cut” as he rode past the man.  I didn’t hear anyone yelling back so he must not have been too upset that Pete was riding through his driveway. 

As we got closer to home there were a few kids selling lemon aid in front of a house down by the street.  They were holding a sign that said it was for the hurricane victims.  Well, we had to stop and buy some lemon aid, not only to help a good cause but I was thirsty.  Each cup was 50 cents.  Pete had 80 cents so he ordered one and a half cups and gave the kids his 80 cents.  I had 79 cents in my pocket so I told them I would take one and a half cups as well.  Pete ordered first and he got the last clean cup.  Two of the kids raced off to get more cups.  I waited for a few seconds before telling the kid holding the bucket with used cups just to pull out the one on top sense that was probably the one Pete used and I would just use the same cup.  I figured this fit well into the theme for today’s ride.  I drank my one and a half cups, the lemon aid wasn’t really that good I hope it wasn’t the dirty cup.  I pulled out all the bike club stickers I had in my wallet and gave one to each of the kids.  I told them they were really cool stickers and they should put them on their bike helmets.  Next I had them pose for a picture using my phone camera and told them they would be famous and to check our website to see their picture.  See below for pictures of the kids and a couple I took of Pete while riding in the circle driveways.     

I was planning to take a dip in Pete’s pool after this ride, but I got a call from Diane and she didn’t want Max to be home alone once Melissa headed off for work, so I headed home instead.  Following are the statistics from this ride, 18.5 miles, 27.5 maximum speed, 10.5 average mph and 1 hour and 45 minutes of time on bikes and one and half cups of lemon aid each, mine in a used cup.
David Lindquist