Crusty Cassette

It was a bit like attending the funeral of someone I didn’t know. I wanted to be there, but as I arrived, I felt very out of place. One of Sarah’s friends said she’d be so impressed by the crowd, but that gave me no solace. The crowd was large and the speaker was soft spoken. I heard him say we’d ride no more than two abreast and remind everyone that this was a ride of respect- to express respect for Sarah and her life, but also for the community though many in the crowd are disappointed in the community right now. I couldn’t hear anything else the speaker said. People of all sizes, shapes, and ages were there on bicycles also of all sizes, shapes, and ages to honor Sarah Howard, a 48 year old cyclists stuck from behind by a Hummer running a red light as Sarah sat in a bike lane waiting for the light to turn green.

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Honor Roll

Mike and Nicky

Doug Goodenough

Linda and Corrie

Debbie and Scott

Bill and Helen

"I'll do it," Linda offered. "I'll coordinate the litter pick-up."

Thanks to Bill and Kathy Cone the Twinriverscyclists have adopted a two mile stretch of Tammany from Dippel road to Barr. Twice each year we gather to pick up trash and try for an after event bike ride. Learn more about our Adopt a Road program at http://twinriverscyclists.org/Events/Adopt/adopt.htm

Linda reallly did all the planning and arrangements with the road department last spring, but guess what retirement gets you? Yep, a closer relationship with the Nez Perce County Road department.

Mike and Nicky have been no shows at Sunday rides in October. Yard work and help son, Sean, with his new house. They broke away not only for the pickup but for a ride around Lewiston Loop on the tandem.

Poor Bill had no idea what he was in for. Back in town from Alaska, Helen wasn't up on the calendar and called to ask about our 1 pm start. She was pretty much stuck at that point and so was Bill.

Doug's the new guy on the bike and has the chain ring tatt to prove it. He's a bit gung ho. Showed up for a night ride in the rain last Tuesday. That's okay, Doug. Steve would've been there too.

Wrong Way Whitely was very confused. See he usually rides Lewiston Loop counterclockwise. We made him go the right way and he had to make three stabs at getting up Lindsay Creek before we called it good. Of course he rode down McIntosh and then back up. He looked so natural riding against the group's direction!

The sun had tried to shine about noon but the wind came up and made the pick-up a bit chilly. Linda said she'd just ride home from Dippel Road but when the sun came out she headed on around. We got to ride in late afternoon sunshine--beautiful.

Thanks everyone for pitching in. It looked a little sparse at first be we had just enough to thoroughly cover the two miles in just one and half hours.

A few more photos

A poor precedent.

"I'll meet you where the llama farm was," Caroll explained over the phone.

"Barr Road?" I asked.

I had tried the new calendar at http://twinriverscyclists.org as a means of sending out ride invitations.

When you create a new event in a Google Calendar, you are given the opportunity to invite guests and you can invite them from your addressbook. Very simple. I transferred most of my cycling addresses into a gmail account and there they were. I like this system and used it to invite some likely suspects to the Weiser River trail ride in May. As a result we ended up with a trial trail ride last weekend and several takers and maybes for next spring. Cool.

So why not for my ride invitations? And there was the light!

I have stopped sending out invitations to the list I've been using on the strength that the new twinrivers group should be more interactive. Not only do you hear from me but from all those others proposing rides and discussing them.

I am disappointed that so few of the original list members have actually signed up. Using the calendar to invite specific individuals seemed a clever idea and I was reinforced by Caroll Ellis's immediate Maybe. It was also nice to know for sure that Doyle and Dave Tibbals were not coming. Not that I wouldn't have enjoyed their company but I wasn't going to have to wonder if they were showing.

So Caroll's call was good news. We were talking and although it looked as though Caroll would be my only guest, I liked that the discussion had started. Caroll was being timid about joining what I have described as an endurance ride. Turns out she had her mother's promise to bail her out should she need sag some time during the day.

And just as I was putting on my helmet Saturday morning, Caroll called again. "Could you meet me at my house? I don't like that section of road from Barr to Web ridge."

So here was Caroll once again managing just the sections of the ride she wanted to do.

I already knew she'd call home before riding up Lindsay Creek, but when she began lobbying for a road bike ride on the gravel of web-canal so that we'd not have to climb up to Web Ridge, I called her on it.

"If you're trying to avoid Web Ridge, you have no business . . ."

". . . climbing to Winchester," she finished with a grin.

Some times you just have to set boundaries for Caroll. I think this managing of what portions of the ride you'll do, is likely a bad precedent. But I was happy to make this concession for Caroll's company today. And did I mention the light?

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So how slow was Caroll?

In her own words: I'm so slow the spiders are building cobwebs on my bike.

To be fair the webs were dangling off my bike as well. The spiders were having their annual outing spinning webs and letting them drift in the light breeze wherever they might.

But when we turned out on 95, Caroll sped off making me work to keep up. "Too much riding with Sean," I thought. She had a tendency most of the day to push herself a little hard though she was concerned both about slowing me down and with overdoing. I was confident she'd do fine. She had ridden from Palouse to Colfax in high winds earlier. This was going to be a cake walk.

And it was a great day for lolly gagging along the road.

On Wednesday the sun had come out making me turn a 30 mile ride into a 50. The forecast for the weekend was even better. This might be the last chance of the season to ride out of the valley and Winchester is my favorite ride. I knew it would be cold when I started and that it would likely be cold at Winchester, but temps in the 50s? If the sun is shining and there's no wind, I won't even need a jacket. I couldn't resist the invitation.

"Did you talk with Caroll all the way?" Linda wanted to know when I got home.

"Pretty much." Linda, of course, is a connoisseur of conversation and I knew she ached to have missed so much time with Caroll.

But we did talk. I learned that Caroll (shh) supports some form of socialized medicine. I learned she's enjoying meeting and coming to understand her new patients with patience. I shared my relief in being retired, my burnout with education and its issues. I learned Caroll has relatives all over these hills. And, finally, we agreed we both liked Sean better when his knee hurt him.

And there was the light.

Caroll had never ridden down Gifford-Reuben and was also looking forward to watching the fall colors. They didn't disappoint. We dropped arm and leg warmers for the climb up Winchester under a cloudless sky though cumulus clouds darkened over Winchester itself and we needed those jackets riding by the lake after lunch.

The air was clear and crisp as it so often is not in the summer. Trees of gold contrasted against the evergreen backdrops. A single evergreen in a field stood out against the stubble so golden as to be almost white in the slanted sun. There an occasional red tree stood among the yellow. The fields had been cut, plowed, in large swooping swirls accenting their swollen surfaces. A tractor swooped through burned and blackened earth spraying and raising a black cloud to remind us this was working country.

And, oh, the light. Bright but slant leaving long shadows even at noon to create lights and darks giving relief to landscapes too easily dismissed as bland under heat-dimmed, dusty aired, summer skies. Everywhere one looked, contrasts drew the eye. the light.

The light