Weekend Riding And Registration

My new night ridin' buddy

A while back now my son, who is 9 years old, was asking me about riding at night. Apparently the idea caught his fancy and he started pushing me for an "adventure" in which we would ride at night to a little lake and back.

I figured it would be fun, so this past Friday evening we hit the trail. I set him up with my Planet Bike 2 watt commuter lamp and a blinker light attached to my old Osprey Raptor 10 pack. He was pretty stoked to be kitted up like Dad with water in the hydration bladder. In fact, we had to stop a few times so he could use that feature! (I told him not to fiddle with it at night while he was riding.)

Anyhow, I secretly stashed some chocolate bars from his Halloween cache of candy into his backpack. Once we reached a suitable point going around on the single track which encircles the lake, I called for a stop, and lights out. I then told him we needed to look into his back pack, and the candy was a big hit with him, as you can imagine. We stood there on the beach, munching our candy, chatting, when he was suddenly eager to move along.

I said to him that we needed to enjoy some peace and quiet. He turned back, and we stayed there quietly talking for another ten minutes or so. Then we left to go back home. We didn't get very far before he spouted off and said, "You know, that WAS really peaceful back there, and we should come back out here again sometime." 

Yep- that made me smile!

Okay Rookies- The bar has been set pretty high!

Another thing that made me smile was this post card that was hand delivered by Craig, one of the 3GR regulars, for his entry to Trans Iowa V9.

I have to admit that I didn't see something here right away. Craig kept saying that "I borrowed some of your photography to make this...", and I took that to mean the road image. What I didn't see until much later when my son pointed it out to me was that I am the face of the devil there.

Oh!.........now I get it! DOH!

Sometimes the obvious escapes me. Anyway, the Veterans of past Trans Iowa events are sending in post cards to get into the next edition of Trans Iowa. They have 49 spots to fill out before their registration ends on Saturday, or gets filled up before then.  Of course, there is no USPS deliveries today, so everything I get today will be hand delivered, or come via UPS and FedEx overnight letter. The Rookies will get there chance starting a week from today.

I'll be updating the T.I.V9 site throughout the day.