Change of Pace

I passed on riding with the hill slugs this week to do a local ride and see a few people I haven't seen in a while. I rode over to Ira's C+ ride and picked up Herb on the way. Since it was a warm day there were a lot of people there. I think there were 20 people on Ira's ride including Lynne, Bruce, Marc and a few other people I haven't seen in a while.

Ira's took us through Roosevelt and down to Emily's hill before making a stop at Phil's. I spent most of the ride just catching up with everybody and enjoying the fact that I wasn't leading.

At Phil's, Herb had a soft tire so I helped him change it. We told the rest of the group to leave with out us as we were planning on taking a longer way back anyway. After the tire change we headed out on 526 and in about a half mile I hit a large sharp piece of gravel that nicked the sidewall of my back tire and gave me an immediate pinch flat. So within 2 mins of changing Herb's tire I had to change my own.

At this point neither of us had a spare tube so we decided to take the shortest way back home. Which took us past Reed Rec area in Allentown where Chris and Ron were hanging out after their ride. We stopped by to talk to them for a few minutes before heading for home. We made it home with out any more problems. It was a nice relaxing ride and a nice change of pace after the last few weeks.

P.S.

I also heard from my Swedish astronomer friends. After an extended vacation in the US they are back home and sent me a few of their eclipse pictures. Since I didn't take any picture on today's ride I decided I would share the spectacular picture they took just as the sun was emerging from behind the moon. It is definitely one of the best eclipse pictures that I have seen.