Rainy Sunday

It stormed Saturday night and Sunday morning, but in the afternoon the roads dried so we pulled out the tandems. Most of the time we were out, the sky continued to threaten rain, but for the most part we stayed dry.



Notice that something is missing from the big blue Burley? Quinn's legs are now long enough that he no longer needs the child stoker kit. With his saddle pushed all the way down, he can now reach the pedals with a simple set of bolt-on crank shorteners. This is really nice because his center of gravity is lower now, and we don't have the added weight and drag of a third bottom bracket, third crankset, and third chain. The difference in the center of gravity is only slightly noticeable when we're riding. The difference in weight is noticeable only when I lift the bike over my head to mount it in the rack on the van.



We were racing up a hill on Willoughby Road and the girls somehow dropped their chain when shifting down to their littlest chainring. This had happened once before a couple of years ago. The chain ends up stuck between the bottom bracket and the little ring, and it requires quite a big of greasy maneuvering to work it free. Extra messy since I'd just oiled the train. This is what a stranded all-girl tandem team looks like.



Last fall, a two-year road work project on the south end of the MSU campus was finally completed. Now we have good bicycling access to campus again. What this means for our weekend bicycling is that we can now include the MSU Dairy Store as a stop on our standard route.



We had coupons for free waffle cones with two scoops of ice cream. Two was too much, so we settled for a scoop a piece for the kids, and Cindy and I shared a scoop. Ours was mint chocoloate chip. Yum. Abbey had chocolate chocolate chunk.



Quinn had Death by Chocolate. All over his face.