I have been inspired by a friend from high school days (Thanks Dave L!) to take up riding again, after seven or eight years. Getting my one remaining operating machine out of the garage was easy; getting back on the road with a 56-year-old body is more complicated, but I am taking it slowly.

On this bike I have done some amazing rides: as a member of the Boston-area Charles River Wheelmen outfit in the late 70s – early 80s, one of our favorite rides was to leave downtown Boston at 4am and ride to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod in time to get on-board the 3pm ferry back to Boston (about 120 miles); the Wheelmen is not a racing club but one has to be in shape for the ten hour or so ride at 10mph average.

I rode this bike once from Boston to Mystic – probably another 120 miles (mailed a set of clothes ahead of time); I don’t remember how I got back but it wasn’t by bike.

My most impressive ride was Labor Day weekend of 1982. I mailed a change of clothes to the youth hostel at Truro on the Cape. Leaving Saturday morning, I rode from Boston to Truro, arriving late afternoon. On Sunday, I woke up and rode back. That was about 100 miles each day.