Weekend dirt ride swap
Like many families with young kids and cycling parents, it’s hard for us to make time to get out for a bike ride that’s just fun; ie., not also a run to the grocery store with full panniers and Burley in tow. It’s been years since my wife and i rode our mountain bikes, which is natural, given that singletrack isn’t Burley-friendly and baby sitting ain’t free. It’s also a bit ironic since many of our early dates were bike rides out in the woods and we’ve both done some mountain bike racing.
Finally this fall, we’ve been getting out in the dirt again, and it’s been really fun. This weekend, for example, is the first in months, literally months, that we haven’t had a pre-scheduled commitment of some sort, so we made a riding time swap. On Saturday, i joined up with the Hiawatha Cyclery regular Saturday ride, which turned out to be their monthly dirt ride down along the river bottoms. I had the usual great time riding with Jim & Kevin and some of the usual suspects (Ray, Bob, John) and some new to me. On Sunday, Autumn did an extended version of the same ride with Malte and some of the Wheelmen.
Autumn and I have largely converted to being road bikers (though not Roadies) since having kids out of necessity and choice (doing most of our errands and commuting by bike), but it sure is fun to ride in the dirt once in a while.