Wednesday after work and scouts and leaders assembled at the church for a bike ride. A quick inspection of the bikes did not reveal any major problems. The seat on Coopers bike was set so low that his knees were always above his seat. It took about ten minutes to convince him that his legs would get very tired on a long ride while sitting in this position. Finally we were able to raise the seat to the proper position. Cooper’s bike chain and gears had shredded the right leg of his sweat pants, but this did not seem to bother him. I ended up giving him one of my leg ties. Cooper also showed up without a helmet so we biked to my house to loan him one of my old helmets. Strange, but Cooper is the best athlete of the bunch.
The first part of the bike ride gave us the choice of zipping down a steep hill on Church Road or winding our way through a series of smaller hills in an adjacent neighborhood. The second route was chosen because the large hill does not have a shoulder, can be very busy with automobile traffic, and there is a stop sign at the very bottom of the hill where it tees into an even busier road. Julie and I love to coast down Church Road hill and we regularly reach speeds of 43 mph. A good set of brakes is needed to stop before the busy cross road.
Choosing the route with the smaller hills turned out to be a very good decision. The sound of scrapping and dragging feet came from behind me as Jacob tried to slow down his borrowed bike on the first little hill. A more thorough check of his bike showed that the brakes were moving but exerting little force on the wheel. The brakes were quickly adjusted.
Cooper, our athlete, complained the whole time. He wanted to stop and buy a drink. We were going too fast. The hills were too steep. How much further did we have to go! The only thing that took his mind off the work of riding was his efforts of trying to touch his front wheel to the back wheel of the bike in front of him. He loved the rubbing sound of the two wheels.
Cooper also had problems with riding on the wrong side of the road, playing chicken with the oncoming automobile traffic. Constant reminders did not seem to get him on the right side of the road.
Tyler had sore legs and seat at the end of the ride. I think the other boys and one of the leaders did also.
The bike ride was ten miles long. The boys had to stop five times to rest. During one rest stop Cooper had to lay down and refused to get up. We had one motorist yell at Jacob to get off the road. Total time was seventy-five minutes for a whopping eight miles an hour. The bicycling merit badge requires a fifty-mile bike ride. That will be interesting.
