A good morning's ride

Yesterday I got out for a morning ride for the first time in a week or two.  Our weather here has been pretty miserable... hazy, hot and humid.  Temperatures near 100° and a heat index between 105° and 110°.  Blech!  But Wednesday dawned clear and cooler... while I wouldn't call it "cool", it's all relative, and it was much nicer than it's been, so off I went.  LOTS of folks out on the trail, enjoying this break in the heat.  And I had a chance to ride for a short way with one of my regular customers... a very nice fellow who rides a couple of older road bikes, mostly for transportation. I've seen him now and then out there, but we've been going opposite directions. Yesterday we actually rode side by side for a while, which was fun.


This time the remarkable wildlife sighting was a sad one... a little bluebird, dead on the pavement.  I don't seeing wildlife killed any time, but bluebirds seem so precious and rare, it seemed somehow sadder than seeing a sparrow.  Of course, that's really kind of a strange value judgement, isn't it? And it calls to mind both the old Simon and Garfunkel song "Sparrow", and the passage in the Bible about God knowing when a sparrow falls.


The crepe myrtles are still in bloom, but beginning to fade I think. Still lovely though.

Trek 530 (cherry tomatoes behind!)

Today's bike was my 1978 Trek 530, the "racier" of my old steel Treks. Set up with mostly original parts, from the Shimano 600 "Arabesque" group. A very nice riding bike, and a very smooth shifting drivetrain. And I'm constantly amazed at how well Trek's paint jobs from that era hold up. They (and many other US builders) used a DuPont paint called Imron, that's very durable and pretty.  And unfortunately very toxic to work with, if I recall correctly!