I like bicycles

 Have I mentioned that before? Maybe. Regardless, one aspect I often, frequently, but granted not always, like about bikes is the people that ride them. Yesterday I enjoyed repeated examples of that. Despite periodic drizzle, but never truly rain, it was a biker kind of day.

I had a late morning COVID vax appointment at the Hadley Senior Center (I try to avoid for profit pharmacy vaccinations if possible), to which I had changed from my original appointment in my own town of Granby at the end of this month. Hadley had two advantages. While not closer, it was a more desirable ride, just off the Norwattuck Rail Trail, and it also boosted my protection two weeks earlier, so the switch felt like a win and a win.

As opposed to this past Saturday, when I rode through East Hampton after a morning group run at Mount Tom, yesterday I remembered to bring the rear wire baskets I had offered to Alexis, the rider and MassBike employee who lives there. When I reached out in the morning, I joked to her that I hadn't just been waiting for a rainy day to deliver them so I'd been riding the de-e'd bike with the water-spray-friendly belt drive that she'd given me last year. Early she'd asked if I always rode that bike to events where I might see her. It always seemed to threaten rain on those parades.

Of course, East Hampton isn't right next to Hadley. I had to pass through Northampton first, all on rail trail, and that gave me a chance to visit with my dear friend Adele, especially since rain also meant they wouldn't be doing Pedal People lawn care work that day. See, more bicycle people! It was a good visit for the hour plus that our schedules aligned, and even better, our sleepiness aligned as well, so the visit also included a fifteen minute nap, with us both crashed out on the rug in the front room after a game of Bananagrams.

Oh, there was another bonus of visiting Adele. It let me stash the somewhat small Giant Nutra in the garage at their apartment after I found it leaning against a dumpster next to the rail trail on my way to delivering the baskets to Alexis. I'd gently ghost ridden the two flat tires a couple hundred yards down the trail and stashed it in a thicken of knot weed to collect on my return trip. Despite the brand name, it's a wee bit wee for me, but it would be an excellent bike to add to the basement collection at Bike Lab across town, and it seems I was gentle enough with my ghost riding that both flat tires were fixed by inflating them with the floor pump at Adele's! I was also exited about the bright red rear rack and bar ends, which of course I'll middle mount. Those came home with me.

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Of course, I had to get home, but happily, that just meant another trip on the tail I'd ridden that morning. It gets even better that that. Part way through Hadley, I passed, just barely moving faster, a rider pulling a kiddie trailer with the sides partly folded. On the drizzly day, I hadn't seen many bikers on the path, and it turned out, I'd seen only one. Louis was the same person who'd passed me that morning, before being ladden by the trailer found in Northampton.

My slow pass had inspired Louis to match my pace, and after negotiating the Route 47 crossing, we started chatting. It turns out Louis is one of Adele's coworkers, on the trash hauling side of the Pedal People cooperative business, and I suspect that may have been a factor in is finding a discarded trailer. I guess it was a good day for not completely trashy discarded bike bits.

It was also a great day for meeting bikers who would brave slightly inclement weather. We had lots of room on the trail to roll side by side and chat, so I learned about Louis's move from Saint Louis to join a partner who is teaching art at Amherst College, so beyond being a coworker of Adele's, they are both partnered with coworkers at Amherst College!

Louis was a great find, even if it took a second crossing on the path for us to actually meet. I also learned about the land purchased in Warwick and plans to build a house there, so yup, we had lots and lots to talk about. I made my pitch for passive solar design, and after I let Adele know we'd met, I didn't even need to trying remembering the exact order of bicycle and Louis for the print website louisbicycle.com.

See, I think we'll get along well.