A Nice, Early Summer Evening

 One of the differences between New England and Virginia is that in New England, we sometimes have what could be called "cool" summer evenings. On the other hand, in Virginia, almost all summer evenings were pretty much hot and humid. 

And last night was a gem of a "cool" evening here in western New England. Temperatures were in the upper 60's when I went for a ride, which is pretty comfortable, being only about 10 days before the Fourth of July (overnight, the temperature got as low as the mid-40s). 

 

 

For me, that's good riding weather. It's warm enough to be comfortable, but cool enough not to be sweating through your clothes and into your helmet. I took a nice ride to a nearby lake on my Schwinn Racer. A local triathlon club was holding a training nearby, and there were lots of people out running and biking along the local roads too.

Nice Evening

 

Here are a couple of shots from my recent long ride down to the next town to the south. It took most of an evening, but in mid-June, there's plenty of daylight. The weather was hot to start, but the weather at the end of the week is great. Just be careful in the tall grass next to the road - lots of ticks!

Plan Accordingly...

A few days ago, I got to have a solid little race on the 1960s Schwinn Racer with an incoming thunderstorm to get back to my place in time to avoid the rain and lightning. The Racer made it back with about 10 min to spare, so earned its stripes.

One recommendation I have to make is that you bring a cell phone with you in your saddle bag and have a weather app/alert on it for lightning. When I got down to the lake in the next town over, everything looked OK. There were some clouds, but nothing serious that I could see from where I the park where I stopped. My phone buzzed and warned of incoming lightning and heavy rain. I figured I'd follow the phone's advice and start my return rather than going farther out.

It turned out to be the correct decision. As I left the woods and got on the main road, I noticed the dark clouds were approaching very quickly. Having looked at the weather radar on the phone app, and seeing the clouds moving in, I gave it everything to beat the storm back to my place. The Schwinn Racer performed nicely and I made it back with 10 minutes to spare.

Late Spring Ride - Phillips Roadster

 It was a nice evening for a ride, so I took out this old Phillips roadster. It has the classic "old style" roadster feel: tall and a little "clunky", with plenty of heft on the frame and big wheels. The gallows seat post makes it ride even a little more upright, in that old style. The rod brakes are the old-style type without offset pads, and with the side-mount Phillips bell crank system.

It's not exactly a quick bike, but it's comfortable, stable, and it has that old-style feel you look for in a roadster of this sort. It's pretty good looking too.