Recap

Note:  I wrote this last October and just noted that I never published it.

My 2009 mates.  A great group of men who bonded like only two days had passed rather than two years.  I miss them already.

The Eastern Seaboard tour ended a week ago.  Life goes on now for everyone.  The cyclists had to compete for a lane riding into Daytona Beach with over 100,000 motorcyclists who were there for their fun and games.  Many of them are in the same demographic as our cyclists.  To each his own, but the pedaling lifestyle is much healthier.

The final banquet was great.  Each of the riders expressed appreciation for the comaraderie and support of the group.  Larry Friedman received the map.  Larry was a guest of Al's and had never completed even a single overnight bike trip.  I enjoyed reading his blog leading up to the tour.  If I ever get some spare time, I will go back and read all the blogs.

Robin and I went to Atlanta for three days after leaving Florida and visited family there.  We arrived home on Wednesday.  I went to CrossRoads world headquarters on Thursday and helped to offload the truck.  It was amazing to see how everything is put together.  Everything has to be placed in the storage unit just so to maximize the efficiency of putting a truck back together next spring.

I went out for a ride on Friday.  It was nice to ride on my home turf again.  In a one-hour ride, I saw more riders than on any single day of the tour.  It was great to ride up and down hills again after the very flat last two weeks of the ES tour.  It was great to ride on a 55 mph highway that actually has a six-foot shoulder.  I thought it would be great to use the smaller chainring on a hill, but did not need it, even on a six percent grade.  Must have become stronger.  It was great to see 30 mile and more vistas rather than have vision obscured by dense forests on every side.

Opening day

As I was pedaling toward downtown Denver today, another rider told me he was going to the Colorado Rockies home opener.  I thought I would see if I could capture some familiar smells of a baseball game -- popcorn, hot dogs, candy cane.  It was nearly 2 hours before the first pitch and the crowds were still outside the gates.  So there were no familiar scents to be had there.  It was not a good opener as the home team lost -0.  It seemed as if everyone else was half my age, a familiar experience these days.  I have a young mind that enjoys young persons' experiences, but there seems to be a big disconnect at times when I look at everyone else.  I had the same experience on Friday night going to a first Friday art gallery walk.

It has been a warm spring so trees are budding, flowering, and leafing out much earlier than usual.  I missed baseball scents but these trees told me my olfactory senses are still working.

It was a glorious day for a bike ride.  I covered 51 miles today, the most for me in over a year.  Robin and I will be staffing the CrossRoads tour this year and I will have the opportunity to pedal all day at times, so I thought I had better getting prepared for the long rides.  It has been a very windy spring as the picture below from last week shows.  It was nice to not fight the wind today.