In ten years and some three hundred or so rides with Point83, I really haven’t learned all that much. I still listen to Derrick from time to time; I’m still prone to follow Ben up a mountain; and heaven knows, I still always eat the whole cookie.
But this I do know: it’s a mistake to base your decision not to ride on the weather, especially on the weather prior to meet-up, and most especially on pre-ride weather forecasts on the internet.
Case in point: I wore my rain gear to Westlake and got reasonably soaked coming down Jackson circa eighteen hundred and thirty hours, but by the time, thirty minutes later, I was wandering around the park and being fairly impressed by the size of the rally and march peacefully (thank God) protesting the killings of Black men by White police officers, the rain had stopped, never to return for the rest of the night.
Had I decided (as I almost did) not to ride just because it was a little icky early in the evening or due to the fact that weather.org called for showers all night long, I would have missed out on a number of reasonably enjoyable activities, including drinking beer and kibitzing as a simple tire change turned into a tutorial on disc brakes and further evidence in support of my decision to stick to cantilevers; drinking beer and ruminating on the origin of the phrase “All hat, no cattle,” as a dozen or so bike riders relaxed beneath our city’s largest example of cowboy headgear or looked like Hallmark card photos back-dropped by flowering artichoke plants and giant sunflowers ; drinking beer and taking Rza’s suggestion that a bike club ought to ride bikes to heart, thereby spinning, at water level, all the way crosstown to the karaoke joint for a nightcap.
And one final lesson confirmed on the misty ride home: being drunk is still not a mechanical, cantilevers rule.
But this I do know: it’s a mistake to base your decision not to ride on the weather, especially on the weather prior to meet-up, and most especially on pre-ride weather forecasts on the internet.
Case in point: I wore my rain gear to Westlake and got reasonably soaked coming down Jackson circa eighteen hundred and thirty hours, but by the time, thirty minutes later, I was wandering around the park and being fairly impressed by the size of the rally and march peacefully (thank God) protesting the killings of Black men by White police officers, the rain had stopped, never to return for the rest of the night.
Had I decided (as I almost did) not to ride just because it was a little icky early in the evening or due to the fact that weather.org called for showers all night long, I would have missed out on a number of reasonably enjoyable activities, including drinking beer and kibitzing as a simple tire change turned into a tutorial on disc brakes and further evidence in support of my decision to stick to cantilevers; drinking beer and ruminating on the origin of the phrase “All hat, no cattle,” as a dozen or so bike riders relaxed beneath our city’s largest example of cowboy headgear or looked like Hallmark card photos back-dropped by flowering artichoke plants and giant sunflowers ; drinking beer and taking Rza’s suggestion that a bike club ought to ride bikes to heart, thereby spinning, at water level, all the way crosstown to the karaoke joint for a nightcap.
And one final lesson confirmed on the misty ride home: being drunk is still not a mechanical, cantilevers rule.
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