Hello from the chilly midwest. This Sunday's Kansas City vintage ride featured six hardy velo-heads on a variety of vintage/classic style iron. The air was like champagne on a brisk clear day that brought out the tights and balaclavas. The route was a relaxed 20ish mile loop through Lenexa streets, around Shawnee Mission Lake on paved trails and a spirited blast back to Old Town Cyclery for the last few miles, thanks to a tailwind. Kudo's to Sarah Gibson for ace route planning. The box score is as follows:
Percentage of lugged steel bikes: 100% (way to go, team!)
Ratio of toe clips to clipless: 2/1
Oldest Bike: Calvert Guthrie's fine early 70's Gitane Interclub, nattily attired with twin handlebar bottle cages and green color coordinated aluminum bottles. 'Tres chic!'
Nationality Quotas: England still rules the road, with 33% of the bikes: Doug Havach's nice mid 80's Holdsworth Triath-Elan and your correspondent's restored and hot rodded '76 Raleigh International. There were also one French bike (Calvert's Gitane), one American (Sarah's Rivendell) one Italian (Doug III's lugged Lemond) and one Japanese whose brand I can't recall.
Youngest rider: Your correspondent at 40. Also grayest hair, most overweight, slowest, etc etc.
Sarah and Calvert were operating cameras, so I'll put the pressure on them and tell the list that there should be pictures available soon. Sarah said something about a KC Vintage Club web site. Sarah?
A great time was had by all, and it's an event well worth your time. So come on out for the next ride. The current schedule is for 8:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of the month at Old Town Cyclery in Lenexa. Contact Sarah Gibson for details.
Tom Adams, Kansas City