Rural Pearl

Sometimes you just have to sign up for something. This weekend there was an organized bike ride that departed right from our town. In fact, it was on the trail that connects to our subdivision that we ride on every day. I debated a little about signing up for it, because there is an entry fee and we could ride on this trail any time we feel like it, but the reality is that although we ride almost every day it's usually just a couple of miles at a time. And the fee went to the local youth assistance as a fundraiser anyways.


So we even convinced Larry to join us, and we signed on for the 16 mile loop. I got out a box that containing old cycling clothes, and there were some shrunken jerseys in there from "Team GM." That was a group that I was a founding member of in the early 1990's. It was the one truly cross-functional team in my experience where we had executives though hourly workers joining together through their dedication to cycling, philanthropy, and the company to put together a GM team for the MS150, a 2-day 150 mile ride. I eventually disconnected from that when the kids came along, although it did pop up at the health fair I attended at work just before I left. I was glad to see that it was still going, and that they had come up with MUCH better jersey designs by now. Anyways Larry and Timmy pulled on the ugly old jerseys, loaded with irony, and away we went.


I was immediately glad that we were doing this when at the sign-in there were lots of colorfully dressed cyclists milling around, along with Bike Shop Guy doing checks, and a goody bag for local businesses. It helped to make the bike riding seem like more of a cool sport to the boys, instead of something that you go along and do with Mommy because she's says you have to. And the ride along the trail was beautiful. We saw a lot of deer, and a young one even came on the path and trotted alongside of Timmy for a moment. Honest! It was tiring riding on the crushed gravel path because you can't coast like on pavement which we usually ride on. Plus no one but me had trained very much for this. I kept pointing that out but they didn't want to hear it.
By the end of the ride we were all glad that we did it, and now I'm looking for another ride we could do yet this season. And then I'm going to sign us up for it.