Bike 4 the Brain

Memorial Day was a beautiful day to ride around town on a bike. It was also Bike 4 the Brain, or as my friend and sometimes riding companion refers to it, 'Bike for Brains.'

Full disclosure, the love of my life and delight of my heart is on the board for this thing, but even if she wasn't, it's where I'd want to be.

The morning was so cool, actually, I kind of wished I'd brought a light long-sleeved t-shirt for my arms as I left my Mom's (she was watching my daughters) house for the starting line.

The start was so much like a Critical Mass ride (except sanctioned, with law enforcement providing traffic direction instead of harassment), I found myself calling out, 'Happy Monday!' to delayed motorists.

I saw a bunch of friends from my JoCo group ride days, some I've done a better job of staying in touch with. Jill made it, I saw Caroline the calendar girl and at least two guys I won't name who will never, ever, quit pining for her.

It was the kind of day where you could ride hard without overheating or take it easy and not get chilly. It was bright. It was Ferris Bueller's Day Off on a recognized national holiday where you don't even have to sweat getting caught by Ed Rooney.

It was good to get to ride for awhile with Jill. I used to see her pretty much every Monday night on the Trek Recovery Ride. I lured her downtown the other day, but not to the actual Pons Asinorum of my urban cycling romance.

Thanks to stellar route planning, I got to show Jill quite a bit of what I've been trying to tell her about the past few months. KCK's status as the red-headed stepchild of the metro area is ill founded. It can look forbidding to cyclists if you look at it from a car, but there are excellent cycling routes to get across tracks, highways and rivers.

And those routes put you in touch with some of the finest Mexican food you'll find north of the border at prices that make you wonder which side of the border you're on.

Plus, there's the Bike-Pedestrian bridge under I-70, part of the route, which is where I plan to wed Corinna next May.

I didn't get to do the whole thing. I would have ridden the 75 mile route, one of the great things about B4B is it gives more choices of route length than any other charity ride I know, but I didn't have time. I had to get back to my Mom's by noon and the long route spit me out right where I needed to be with ten minutes to spare.

In the process I got to see some corners of the city I had missed. And got to see a part of town I lived in for five years and felt lucky to escape from. I think maybe I missed out on the good stuff: I know people who lived there before me who liked it (and sold me on it), and the people who live there now are reaping the benefits of gentrification. It seems to me if you were going to pick years that would be lousy for home ownership in the area, I picked a trifecta.

Speaking of trifectas, There was a tandem-tandem riding the route. Dad, as far as I could tell, was doing the real work. When I suggested that his stokers weren't pulling their weight as we climbed 34th Street, he shrugged and said, 'That just means I get a better workout.'

The route was well-marked, the scenery was amazing, and I doubt anyone didn't see a part of town they would have otherwise missed. Maybe those who took the absolute shortest routes, but having those ten and twenty mile options is important, too, because more than a few people who showed up for this, that was all they could see themselves doing. If you only post long routes, how are you going to recruit new members into the cult?

As I rode down Cliff Drive, where I used to go on bike rides with my brother, a woman rode up behind me and nervously told me I was the leader. I pointed out that there really wasn't any way she could make a wrong turn, they don't have to tag the route every quarter mile when there's only one way to go.

And it was genius making Cliff Drive closed to cars and trucks, it cuts way down on the dumping that used to characterize that stretch of road.