You Are All Idiots

I went for a bike ride tonight. It wasn’t a very long ride, but it brought back a lot of memories.

We are in the midst of a Southern Ontario weather pattern. Hot during the day which is something that I can deal with, but it is also hot at night which I don’t like at all. I am used to having the temperature did into the low double digits at night which makes it easier to sleep and it keeps the hooligans off of the street. The neighbour two doors down had his truck stolen the other night. What a bummer!

It looks like we will have this weather for the next little while. The garden seems to like it pretty much, but gardens rarely do too much complaining. Well, mine does, but I attribute that to just plain good sense. It doesn’t complain as much as wither and die which is the ultimate form of complaint.

The bike ride brought back memories of hot and sticky nights when I had nothing better to do than to get a couple of buddies together and go riding. We didn’t care where we went, it was more important to generate the wind which would cool us off. The difficulty was that although it was cool when we were riding, just as soon as we stopped we would sweat far more than if we hadn’t ridden at all. The only solution was to never stop, or at least ride until the air cooled off. Sometimes that was months.

 

We rode all around our area of the city and some of the more “exotic” locals. By exotic I mean places that I never went to or wanted to go to in the daylight. Sometimes we would have a destination in mind and other times we would just ride where the wind took us. I liked riding to Edwards Gardens which was empty at night and if I remember rightly, it would feed into Allen Gardens. I just looked at a map and nothing is how I remember it. Possible because I didn’t have a satellite vies back then and it has been over forty years. Things change.

 

I remember one of the rides when we found a very steep hill that looked as if it had a trail straight down. There were no mountain bikes back then and certainly no disk brakes, but what we did have were K-Mart ten speeds, no sense and a reckless abandon when it came to our own safety. We did have a small amount of skill in the saddle and a large amount of luck which is probably why I am alive to write this. We all made it down the hill without serious injury or death…the first time.

That was a pretty late night since two of the bikes needed to be walked home. Those bikes all came with a pump, but a pump is pretty much useless unless you happen to have a patch kit or a spare tube. Not to mention the tools needed to change the tire. When I ride now, I take a full set of tools, a spare tube, a pump, a snack, a cell phone for emergencies and I don’t really go very far.

Times change!

One thing that hasn’t changed is this stinking heat! I know there are those of you out there that just worship hot weather, the hotter the better. Well, you are all idiots! That isn’t just my opinion; it is the opinion of all right thinking peoples every where.