This Labor Day Ride?

Today is Labor Day in the US.

This year, the holiday is different:  Most large gatherings, including parades, have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  So have many organized bicycle rides.

I have to wonder whether these riders would have been sanctioned for not keeping their "social distance":

Perhaps they're all related?  After all, your family can't make you sick, right?

How "Kool" Is This Lemon?

Back in my youth (yes, I had one of those!), I bought a Schwinn Continental.  It was available in several colors.  One, as I recall, was called "Kool Lemon."

In fact, several Schwinn models were available in that hue.  One, a "muscle" bike with a "banana" seat and stick shifter (that may account for at least some of the decrease in birth rates), was called the "Lemon Peeler."

Somehow I'm surprised that Schwinn never offered a bike like this:

Bicycle Bob At 100,000 Miles

Back in 1991, he set a goal.

Last month, after twenty-eight years, he reached it.

His goal?  Cycling 100,000 miles.

That feat is, in itself, impressive enough.  More awe-inspiring, though, is that he gave himself that milestone, if you will, to reach when he was 67 years old.

Oh, and Bob Mettauer hadn't been on a bike in about half a century.  As a teenager in Long Island in the 1930s, he ran deliveries for a local butcher.  On Saturdays, he said, he'd typically ride 50 miles.

Then, as they say, "life happened"--in his case, World War II.  After serving in the Navy, he moved to California, where he worked for the phone company until his retirement.  

His neighbors in Casa Grande, the Central Coast  community where he settled 34 years ago, know him as "Bicycle Bob" and have followed his exploits.  He used to ride 20 miles a day when he was younger, he says. "It just kept adding up, so I set 100,000 as my goal."  These days, he rarely leaves his neighborhood because of the "crazy drivers" but was recently "doing nine miles a day in the morning."

To reach his goal, he's ridden three different bikes. The first didn't last long, he said.  The second one took him through 40,000 miles.  His current bike "has plenty of life."  But, he says only half-jokingly, "There's not much life left in the guy who rides it."

If I were a betting woman, I think I'd put my money on the man before the bike. He's only 95 years old, after all!