Dual Bagger!

Spun s'more miles on my new-to-me road bike this weekend and got a better feel to how she handles and all that. Love the way it rides...just waiting for Brett to call and tell me he has changed his mind and wants his bike back..Not!
Met up with the CCB ride early Saturday morning. Was a smaller group than the past couple of weeks, but still about thirty of us started out of Topsfield. I'm getting familiar with CCB and the way things are done. Some of these guys have ridden with the group for decades so they all know each other well. Then there's me..The out sider.
The first 18 miles were pretty much a warm up and when we hit the river we split into two groups, a long and short. Long today was 65 miles. Thinking of what Jeff was attempting I wanted to go longer than long but 65 had to do for now. I took a quick look as to who was around for the long ride and was pleased to see some familiar faces and knew there would be opportunity for some good efforts up front as I recognized four or five strong riders.
An hour later we were moving along pretty well (I thought) when I heard a bunch of bitching and complaining out of the rear of the group. I was mid-pack and could hear someone three or four guys back making comments like, "is this a group ride or a race"..and , "what's the rush, we got all day." Led me to believe this person was working pretty hard. I still don't have a computer on my bike so I had no idea how hard we were going...but wasn't all that hard. So, out of the fourteen of us this guy was looking for support from his friends to slow the group down. The group did slow but five of us in the group wanted to ride our legs into the ground. Any time the pace increased to where we (the five of us) were happy, moans and complaints flowed up from behind. -That kinda sucked. I thought the five of us should just break away and ride, infact I asked a couple of the guys if they were interested in just that, but the Saturday ride was supposed to be a group ride and no one wanted to break tradition. I don't blame them.
At the end of the ride Neil (large human who has been ripping w CCB for lots of years) told me about the Wednesday night rides and how that should quench my thirst for fast road rides. I've probably just opened a can of whoop ass on myself but we'll see Wednesday night.

On a crappy note, The Topsfield Highland games have been cancelled for unknown reasons. Got the news today from Justin. Sorry Jeff, I know you've been practicing your hammer throw. Maybe we can get everyone together for a kilt cook out and throw hammers there?

But on a better note...this is stupid to mension but worked out perfectly. Lesli and I were driving the Willys around town today. We noticed lots of mowers on the curb...seemed like everyone and their mother was throwing out lawn mowers. (Can u "throw out" a mower?) Anyway, I've been stalling to buy two rear tires for my Ariens ride-on mower and there on the curb with a "free" sign was my exact model - 1980's (safety orange) Ariens mower! Sweet!
The motor was junk but grabbed it for the rear rubber and the best part...it had the dual bagger attachment and electric start! yeah! yeah! I've been push mowing for the past few weeks...not any more baby!