The Weekend...

 

If you said, "A Canadian singer/songwriter," you are probably a whippersnapper.  If you said, "Weekends were made for Michelob," you're probably somewhere beyond a whippersnapper.  If you said, "An escape from the working world," you are probably still a working stiff.

I am not a working stiff, nor a whippersnapper; weekends are different when you are retired: you tend to avoid things that bring out the non-retired... like malls, restaurants, parks, etc.  I will sometimes skip riding up South Mountain on weekends; well, for sure on the 4th Sunday of each month (Silent Sunday).  But, this isn't a Sunday and I felt like a ride.

The traffic on the mountain was different.  Quite a few bicyclists.  Not the usual riding-for-exercise folks I see during the week; this was a lot of 30-somethings wearing Spandex.  Slender people, who actually look good in Spandex.  Chugging away up the mountain and enjoying the "free ride" down.  A few other motorcyclists; sport bikes and a couple dressers.  Two cars of note that pulled away from me in the twisties: a late model Mustang GT and a BMW Z3 with historic license plates.  Historic plates?  That doesn't seem right - but, yes that car was first made in 1996 (in AZ, a car has to be 25 years old or more to qualify for historic vehicle plates).  The Z3 looked brand new, in a bright red.

The thing with the bicycles isn't just dodging them - it is cars coming at you passing them, especially on the many blind curve, putting the car well into your lane.  And there was one pickup in front of me that came to a complete stop as a sport bike came roaring around a blind curve.  That same bike had blasted around me on the way up the mountain - I heard the roar/howl of the bike coming up behind me; I slowed down, got to the right side of the lane, and waved him around me.  This guy was hauling.

Even with the traffic, I still enjoyed the ride.  The Beatles Channel playing in my Air Pods, running the B200 through the curves... in my mind, I'm going like the guy on the sport bike.  In reality, I'm not.  But, it's still fun just the same.