‘Bent as in recumbent, meaning a laid back bicycle. We have been trying for a couple of years to get together with Bob Bryant and his platoon of recumbent cyclists in Port Townsend, Washington. Today we made the connection. The first thing we found out was that Port Townsend is built on a series of hills. Judy and I got a nice early start and rode from our camp in Fort Worden over to the designated coffee shop for the 09:30 gathering. (Did you get the significance there? We came from a military fort so I used military time. Pretty cool, huh.) When we complained about having to walk our bicycle over the hill, the response was an unsympathetic ‘well you picked the steepest hill in town to come over.’
After scones and coffee and introductions all around, we got down to the serious business of comparing our rides. We definitely qualified for the strangest bicycle. We then were all herded out into the street and began the ride. Judy and I were relieved to find that indeed there were much more reasonable ways to get across town and back over to Fort Worden. Our first stop was at Point Wilson, the far north eastern corner of the Olympic Peninsula. I have a photo of the group posted below.
If you check out the photo you will see that they are a pretty laid back group. They don’t go for the flashy polyester jerseys that hard core bicyclists tend to favor. It is all about comfort: Levies or shorts and tee’s are just fine. Judy and I were dangerously close to being over-dressed in our matching Nike shirts.
Next we rode over to the camping area at Fort Worden and I got to show off my trailer full of tools. Everyone made nice ahh! and ooh! sounds at the appropriate time. In fact the whole group was pretty good to us. They rode slowly so we could keep up, and we really appreciate that.
Next the group rode another couple miles to what they call the North Beach area for another rest stop. Just as if on cue our ride, Path, the green dragon tandem bicycle, came up lame. He stripped out a shifter cable and we had to limp home on three gears, all of them low gears for climbing hills. So we missed the ride back to town and ‘the best hotdogs in Port Townsend.’ Aw shucks.
We send thanks to the Port Townsend Recumbent Group for showing off their town. We had a good time.
Sonja, Jack, Judy and I are laying low in Sequim Washington over the Labor Day weekend. We will spend the weekend with Genaveve and Karl and their daughter Mara. It has been about four years since the three sisters have been able to all get together in one place.
