Great ride and a fun bridge!

This was a great ride on a beloved bike that's no longer with us. It was about four years ago and I was doing a loop I love. Eastern Kentucky has tons of swinging/suspension bridges (for people, not cars). This is a loop that's about 35 miles and coming back near town I cross this bridge. It's at River, Kentucky and is claimed to be the longest plastic pedestrian bridge in existence. Yes, it's plastic. I trust steel in bicycles but I sure entrusted my life to plastic when crossing this bridge high above cold waters.



'Twas a nice fall day in the Highlands. I set out on a ride with some hard climbing, a dirt section, one long downhill, nice backroads, and two swinging bridge crossings. The bike was a Kogswell F-58. Interesting bits were Nitto Albatross bars flipped upside down, a Shimano Nexus 7 speed internally geared hub, Brooks B-17 saddle, and a Carradice Barley saddlebag. The bike nor the hub complained. It was such a nice ride, my body didn't even complain.

Here's the link to the route. http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ky/paintsville/593459183841

Feel good (to me) bike story #1

Over a year ago, my wife's nephew lived with us for six months. He's from Idaho, just like her. Kentucky was quite an adventure for him. He made the flight without his parents. I can't imagine having done that at nine years old. Quite brave!!!!

He was with us during Christmas and while his parents sent him good stuff, my wife and myself had a great experience. Elijah charmed everyone during his stay and a couple of great folks who we didn't know really well bought him a new bicycle for Christmas! These are great folks and we got to know them better through Elijah.

Anyway.......We gave him his bike and asked him to name it. He named it Christmas. He hadn't learned to ride yet so we got to experience his first pedal strokes! We took him to a parking lot across from the house where we used to live and turned him loose without training wheels. He immediately started riding smoothly. It was super to see him start riding and gain confidence over the next couple o' months. It's a testament to how easy one can learn to ride a bicycle. It's not rocket science but the more you do it, the better and calmer you'll be.

Elijah showed me that it's pretty much intuitive to a person to be able to hop on a bike and go. That's an exciting thought because I learned to ride so long ago that I can't remember the feeling of conquering a bicycle.

He learned to ride in about thirty seconds so, surely, all of us adults who haven't been on a bike for years can get it pretty quickly and painlessly too. It's worth a try!