Last weekend I drove to Spokane to visit family, celebrate my Mom's birthday, take in a minor league baseball game and do a ride on the Ibex "clunker". Saturday dawned as a lovely summer day and we headed out around 8:30 am to avoid the heat of the day, mid 90s is plenty warm for this Seattle boy. The view above is from my brothers deck looking out on the Spokane river.
Its was a pleasant ride along the Centennial trail which is mostly flat and shady. I got to ride with my brother, sister and sister-in-law (whose bike I built), which made a nice break from my normal solo rides. I ended up getting in 12.52 miles or about 20% of the challenge distance and took a detour on the way back to Rocket Bakery to fuel up on espresso and pastries.
Did I mention it was a glorious summers day? The bike performed admirably,I certainly learned the shifting and the saddle while not awesome, was not as bad as I feared and was fine for a 12 mile ride with a few breaks.
The genesis of this trip, besides visiting family, was to attend a minor league baseball game; the Spokane Indians of the Northwest League, a minor league affiliate of the Texas Rangers. My brother scored good seats and it was pretty accessible for my 87 year-old mother; great park, great atmosphere and they won!
Now Indians isn't the most PC name but to their credit the name on the jersey is in the native Salish language.
On my long drive home I was thinking of bikes, of course, and my thoughts are these:
- July -finish the Moto_GT,; hub parts are taking a sonic bath as we speak
- August - build the Cresta GT; really looking forward to riding this bike
- September - rebuild a few to sell; the Schwinn Prelude and probably the Specialized Allez.
I am really of two minds on the Allez, there is a lot to like about this bike but I come back to the fact that I have tightness between my shoulders on any ride of more than 20 minutes. I want to get the Cresta GT together and give it a ride for comparison, but I think the Allez is trying to tell me its not the right fit.
Ride. Smile. Repeat.
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