Bike rides with the happy birthday unicorn and the angry unicyclist!

I love long weekends. Nothing better. And the best sort of long weekends involve bike rides with family and friends. This one also involved baked goods (thanks Nat!), birthday cake, lots of coffee, bike cleaning, and the hot tub.

Friday was my daughter Mallory‘s 23rd birthday. Happy birthday Mallory!

She wanted to go for a birthday ride–of course, she did!–but not at 8 am, the time I had wanted to head out with Kim and Jeff. David (the friend I did the F4LBR with last year and the Halton Epic Tour) wanted to ride too but also not at 8, ditto our friend Rob. (What is it with people sleeping in on the weekends?)

So we planned two rides, one 8-10 (ish) and one 10-12 (ish) with coffee at the Black Walnut, our neighborhood coffee shop, in the middle. Kim, Jeff and I rode out to Byron to meet up with Jacquie for ride 1.

Whee!

And then back to the Black Walnut where we lost Kim but gained David, Rob, and Mallory for ride 2.

Nat was supposed to come too but she had a killer migraine and instead stopped by with hugs and strawberry banana scones and banana bread. The first photo is us.

The unicorn helmet is Mallory.

Lots of fun though slow going at times through the park on the multi use pathway. There was an Easter egg hunt going on it turned out. But we had long stretches on quiet country roads too, with only cows and each other for companionship.

We only had one unpleasant encounter and it wasn’t with a car. It was with another cyclist. A unicyclist!

I’m a big pluralist when it comes to the cycling world. I like all the bikes! And we’re all, whatever we ride, real cyclists, deserving of respect.

But I get that not all cyclists feel the same way. Unicycle guy certainly didn’t. He glared at us and swore! “Fucking roadies!”

At the time we were sitting upright, smiling, riding at about 15 km/hr. Mallory was even wearing her unicorn helmet cover. Who could dislike that?

Oh well, we weren’t going to let one grumpy guy on a unicycle spoil our day. Instead, we went home for more scones, coffee, hot tubbing, and bike cleaning.

Happy birthday Mallory and happy Easter everyone!