Well it rained. Rained all the way to Kensington Metro Park and all the way home. However St. Ghisallo put a stop to it long enough for us to ride. It was a great ride, although hills took an early toll on most of us old rascals. At one point about 3/4 of the way through the 22 mile course that Mark Agree had mapped out I was feeling pretty good and surged ahead to the first two riders. I was keeping up on the flats and feeling like King Kong...then we hit some of those steep hills again. You can guess what happened then. I never saw those two young whippersnappers again until we stopped! Geez, Mark makes it look so darned effortless. I suppose it doesn't hurt that he's about 20 years old and built like Superman! (A little exaggeration never hurt anybody, here.) At any rate I dropped back to talk with Ken Freeman who I rode most of the ride with and we had a great discussion of everything from Classical music to good food to Chicago museums...subjects we both are fond of. Ken was a fount of useful information and I'm looking forward to getting together again over a cup of coffee with him and solving all the world's problems. We rolled back into the parking lot where we started from and I tried to get a swap meet going, but succeeded largely in giving away a trash bag full of old saddles I had brought. Some business man! Greg Parker met us there and we all swapped stories for a while and some went to a local restaurant and some of us had to go other ways. Generally a good time was had by all and some cool bikes ogled. I'm going to suggest a Paramount theme for the next get together. Lots of us seem to have them.
A partial list compiled my Mark (who frets it might not be complete) of
those in attendance and their bikes is like this.
Chuck Wicht - 1977 Raleigh Professional
Allan (Walter) Manning - Bottechia fixed gear conversion
Douglas Grant - Bridgestone XO-1 (with bags on front and rear)
Ian Grant (Doug's son) - ... mtb? (with bags on front and rear)
Jack Keoshian - Black __?__ with fenders
Tom Dusky - 1972 Paramount in chrome
Jeff Potter - 1980s Atala & family in the Pottermobile
Heather Arkell - Cannondale lightweight (and she was fast!)
Chris Arkell - mid 1970s American Masi GC
Ken Freeman - 1980 American Masi GC
Jimmy Katynski - 1974~ American Masi GC with pantos and mills
Tom Sanders - Masi 3V
Mark Agree - 1975 Italian Masi GC "Super"
Tom Sanders
Lansing, Mi