derek carlson

Bike Club Rides Again!

My good friend Derek runs a great Bike Club at Lake Harriet Community School. Lucky for me he always gets a big enough group that he needs an assistant. This fall he's got about 50 kids signed up to get out and ride together for an hour after school. Lake Harriet is about 6 blocks away from the school, so we typically ride to the lake and do one loop of the lake after a quick stop at the bandshell concessions stand (mini donuts, popcorn, cookies and more!).

There's always a lot of fun and smiles mixed with a bit of drama at bike club. At today's ride we got to the lake and through the snack stop, but shortly after that one of the boy's bikes had a major bike break down (oops, my pedals won't spin... well son, it appears that your derailleur fell off). So as I'm looking over the bike to determine if anything can be done (not really, just pretending I might be able to do something, but clearly there are absolutely no options here) the bike club quickly disappears around the corner. Being that I'm on my nifty Airnimal Joey I realize that I can get my seat low enough for this 4th grader to ride it. So I send off my new Airnimal rider to be with the group. I turn back before I took off kickbiking the other direction to see him ride off on my beautiful bike with my Arkel Briefcase pannier fully loaded (Powerbook, cameras (still and video) and many other daily essentials.

Good news! When I got back with the group my rider, bike and pannier were all with them. Whew! That loss would be difficult to explain without me looking like an idiot.

When I got home my daughter who should have been at high school tennis was home. When I inquired about this she pointed out that it totally looked like a storm after school so tennis practice was called off. Bike Club 1, Southwest High School Tennis Team 0!

Great Job Bike Club.