Like A Rainbow

It was like a rainbow. It was like when the sun shines after several days of rain and grey skies. A variety of colors all in one place and glowing.

The BABBLE ride did occur as planned. There was a larger group than some of us expected. Word spreads, it seems, when there is something of interest to share, and the event was of sufficient interest that bicycle enthusiasts traveled from far reaches of the DFW area to participate. As I recall there were folks from Dallas, Flower Mound, Richardson, Irving, and even Ennis. My ability to join-in was initially uncertain, but little obstacles faded away, and I made the trek down from Sanger.

It was primarily a social ride. The pace was conversational, the distance was decidedly not exhausting, and there were a couple of planned stops at local bike shops along the way. Those short intermissions gave folks with a love of the bicycle opportunities chat about the object of their joy.

The diversity of participants was a delight. We had a wide range of ages and a wide variety of bicycle styles. For a group of roughly 15+ it amused us all to have old and new lugged steel road bikes, mountain bikes, a beach cruiser, carbon fiber, fixed wheel bikes, old and recently modified 3-speeds, and a recumbent. I think our youngest participant, Rose, was a group favorite. In the photo above she took a break from her trailer and tried on the recumbent for size. Plenty of growing room.

We wandered through downtown and through nice older neighborhoods.

We took our time and enjoyed perfect weather.

We assembled for lunch and talked about bikes and cycling in our respective local geographies. We patted ourselves on the back for choosing to make the effort to travel to a social ride with folks we'd never met before.

And we reminded ourselves that people with vastly different backgrounds, ages, geographic locations, and family situations can find something in common to share and bond us together.

A paint palette of people and bicycles, like a bright rainbow of color after a many rainy days.