However, Labor Day weekend is here and that means summer isn't over and you therefore have one or two more chances to attend the kind of gathering that requires you to put your name on a red Solo Cup.
No matter what's in store, I recommend that you follow the Rules
of Summer. I don't have the time to go over all of them, but I'll
just share a few:
Summer Rule # 8: Silliness
Now if your last days of summer are at
a nice resort, you may come across one of these; probably near the
pool area.
These are Italian-made Sirenetta surry
bikes; you can actually buy them through the great American bike and
trike company, Worksman. They are sometimes built for two or four.
They are heavy, slow, look weird, are expensive to rent and can't go
very far.
And you gotta try one.
On the last days of a recent vacation I
was in a hotel that had these. I had already ridden a considerable
distance on my New World Tourist but since I had put it away and had
20 minutes before I needed to meet my wife to head to the airport, I decided to give it a
go.
Of course, since this is DIYBIKING.COM,
I decided to take the surry bike for a great adventure and to answer
a simple question that I'm sure has been on the mind of many a surry
bike rider: what is the top speed?
When I travel, it's B.Y.O.G.P.S.
It is impossible not to feel relaxed as
you pedal one of these. As a single-speed vehicle the size of a Smart Car it just ambles along. However,
if you put your feet down (and I would have installed my clipless
pedals if I had them on me and the hotel staff wasn't looking) you
can build up some speed. I did three runs along the promenade - and
may have scattered a tourist or two in my wake - and I got it up
to...12.8 miles an hour!
And I intentionally went through a
puddle. Yes, intentionally.
I also tried several times to make it
skid but each time it would lurch, silently, to a stop.
Worried I'd be banned from the resort,
I ended the ride after the third run and returned the surry
bike...with a big grin. So if you have the time or the ability to
ride something that has absolutely no purpose or value whatsoever, do
it. It's summer.
Summer Rule #22: Local Ice Cream Shops
You know where they are, and if you
don't or are visiting an unfamiliar area, ride around until you find
one (this one, Annabelle's, is in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
Exploring the area very early one recent morning it was too early to
go in, but my wife and I were able to go a few days later and it was
excellent). Try to bring friends and family when you go and try to
ride or walk to get there. There's nothing additional to say, really.
Summer Rule #13: Bluff Point State Park
I know, if you aren't within driving
distance of Bluff Point State Park in Groton, this rule doesn't mean
very much to you. But it means a lot to me. Bluff Point State Park
has been a consistent mountain bike stomping grounds for me and my
cousin since before we were old enough to drive there ourselves. The
trails are that much fun.
On our one and only trip there this
summer, I followed him closely on my second homemade mountain bike
and after just a few minutes, we came to a dropoff that my cousin, M.C.,
barely noticed but gave me pause. Taking a 'safe way' around the
dropoff, I almost immediately lost control and crashed; pitching over
the handlebars for my bike to land on top of me.
After a crash, you know you are biking
with a great partner when he or she can say “Are you okay?” and
still be understood through their laughter.
After I assured M.C. I
was fine, he offered to show me how it was done. So I took a picture
of him on his second run.
When I uploaded this, I could only
shake my head: there are photographs of Sasquatch that are more in
focus than any picture I've taken of M.C. on a bike.
So Bluff Point is a must for anyone in
Connecticut. At the moment you may not know this because a search for
'mountain biking' at the new Connecticut tourism site Ctvisit.com,
doesn't give you a hit for Bluff Point State Park. It's not that I
expected the governor of Connecticut, Dannel Malloy, to mention road
or mountain biking in his introductory letter (though it would have
been nice). It's not that I expected a clip of cyclists on the bluff
to be featured in one of the 'Still Revolutionary' ads.
Though it would have been nice.
But a search for mountain biking on
Ctvisit.com doesn't bring you to Bluff Point. Now, if you search for
'Bluff Point' you will eventually find your way to the state site,
but a random person with a smartphone at a rest stop with two
Specialized mountain bikes on the roof isn't going to know that as
they head through the state looking for a place to ride. Now
Ctvisit.com does seems useful in finding out what is going on in the
state this weekend, but be aware the The Bluff Point Omission (that
sounds like a good name for a Robert Ludlum novel, doesn't it?) may
not be the only gap in mountain biking coverage on the site.
Summer Rule # 31: Stop at Lemonade
Stands
You see them every summer. Under no
circumstances do you keep going. I don't care if you're in the middle
of the bike (or the swimming) portion of a triathalon. You stop. Even
if you can see from the color of the liquid on the table that the
kids are using Crystal Light and are, in the words of Stringer Bell,
'cutting their product' with warm water, no refridgeration and tiny
cups you'd normally associate with NyQuil, you stop.
I stopped at a few this summer. My
favorite was one on a random side trip in Pennsylvania. These two
little girls were running both it and a tag sale, and one of them
upsold me from a $0.25 cup of lemonade to a $10 bike that belonged to
her mom. When I bought it, the two of them ran up to their mom,who
was on the porch of the house, to share their excitement. I ended up
chatting with the mom as I loaded the bike into my car. Since I was
to be carrying passengers (one of them being my mother-in-law) I
couldn't use my homemade Honda Element bike rack and instead was
thankful I keep a number of tools in the car.
I later brought the bike home to tune
it. Chatting with the mom told me she had used the bike when her
girls were small and it hadn't left the garage in ten years. But the
tires, brakes and the drivetrain were all good, and when I cleaned it
up I found myself with a very good road bike.
After I removed the baby seat and gave
it to my cousin for his young son to use, I rode it to work several
times. Since I saved a dollar each time I was more than halfway to
paying back the $10.25 cost of the lemonade/bicycle combo. It was a
great bike, but I already have a lot of great bikes, so I gave it to
a good friend in New Haven who needed one. I had a decent cup of
lemonade, got a new bike, and made a couple of people (and me) smile,
so that's why I always follow Summer Rule # 31.
Summer Rule #18: Stop to help
To often when going to or coming from
things, we are On A Mission and don't let anything distract us. But
stop to help if at all possible; everyone else is On A Mission too.
This very week, in glorious weather, I
was riding during a lunchbreak on High Ridge Road in Stamford and
came across an Otter-box encased iPhone on the shoulder. I thought
about the day I met Stacey (which can happen any time of the year if
you keep your eyes open) when I picked it up and carried it back to
my office.
Unlike finding credit cards, I had no
name. I don't have an iPhone myself, but I knew enough about this one
to know I needed a four digit code to access it. All I could see on
the screen was a very short list of missed calls, including a phone
number (that led nowhere when I called it) and a woman's name
followed by the '2' in parentheses, and no phone number displayed.
But when I pushed the power button
after I put it on my iPod cord to charge, I noticed Siri, that
voice-assistant thing that may or may not be a little creepy,
switched on. So I decided to interrogate the iPhone:
“Siri, whose phone is this?”
“Siri, who does this phone belong
to?”
The responses looked mostly like this,
and its disembodied voice was talking so loudly I had to shut my
office door.
I got the digital assistant equivalent
of staring at someone blankly two more times as I pressed Siri to
tell me whose phone it was. As I realized Siri 'thought' I was the
owner, I asked Siri 'what is my home address' and even though it said
it wasn't in the address book, an email address was briefly
displayed, so I followed with “Siri, what is my email address?”
I got an email hit, and promptly sent a
note with 'did you lose your phone?' in the subject line.
To hedge my bets, I decided to ask Siri
to tell me the phone number of the woman whose name was displayed on
the incoming call. Though Siri kept misspelling the name, it
eventually gave me the woman's number, and I called to ask if anyone
she knew had lost a phone recently. She quickly and excitedly told me
it was her husband, who had left his phone on the roof of his car
when he left the house that morning. Thanks to the phone call and the
email, which did reach the owner, I was able to reunite the iPhone
with the owner (they both asked if there was anything they could do
to repay me and I said they didn't have to do anything, but looking
back on it I wish I just asked if they'd drive safely around all
cyclists, which is what everyone needs to do in summer and the other
three seasons of the year).
So those are some of the Rules of
Summer. You can follow them and add to the list if need be, but
whatever you do have fun, travel safe, and let's have a party, let's have a party. Thanks for reading.
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