There are no rules for birthday bike rides. I know. But I originally had plans to ride 60 km the day of my birthday with friends. You know, the traditional birthday bike ride. That’s your age in kilometers, the day of your birthday.
Still, one friend I wanted to ride with was new to cycling and nervous about the distance on her heavy hybrid bike. Another friend had a fancy new carbon bike but he’d only been back on the bike a month after taking several years off riding. One more friend hadn’t ridden at all this summer. My birthday would be her first day on the bike this year. And nobody was keen to ride at 9 am because first the friends had to get to Guelph and that’s a very early start. You get the idea.
As I thought about these friends backing out and coming to my birthday party and not the birthday bike ride, I realized, of course, that it’s riding with people that I love. Who cares about how far we ride? If I just cared about the distance, I could ride alone or with Sarah.
A new plan emerged. We’d ride 30 km on Saturday and 30 km on Sunday, and people could come on one or both rides. It didn’t work for everyone but more people were able to come for that distance.
How’d that shake down?
Terrific! I had a blast. I love being on my bike with friends. Happy birthday to me!
Part 1
Here’s our route.
Part Two
On Sunday morning a smaller group of us did a gravel ride.
We rode to Elmira on the Guelph to Goderich trail, stopped for lunch, and rode back.
Here’s the route.
Total: 69.37 km
We overshot our goal of 60 km but that’s just fine too.
When I turn 100 I might move to Canada so I can ride my age in kilometers instead of miles.