Judy and I ride our homebuilt recumbent tandem bicycle just about where ever we go. On Monday we set out to ride from Gilroy to the outskirts of San Jose to have lunch with Glen and his family. We cut our time too short so with a few quick calls on the cell phone we arranged to meet everyone in Morgan Hill at the Morgan Hill Museum. The museum was closed but they had a nice garden with benches where we ate our lunch.

We have named our recumbent bicycle “Path” after a mythical green dragon in the Ann McCaffrey, Dragon Riders of Pern series. Since “Path” is a mythical being I find it easy to assign her a personality. She can sometimes be caring and helpful and at other times cantankerous and hard to get along with. This particular afternoon she was leaning quietly against a tree at the edge of the parking lot, waiting patiently for us to continue our ride. Because our tandem is custom built and designed exactly to our sizes, we haven’t had too many people even try to ride it. Bill Patterson and my son Glen are the only ones I can recall who have successfully made the ride as Captain.

The boys were there, grandsons, Cody and Patrick and a friend Matt. They suggested that they were now over six feet tall they thought that they could ride our recumbent tandem bicycle and asked permission to try it. Now I didn’t consult with Path, but she seemed to be in a good mood that day. Matt took the Captain’s seat and Grandson Cody took the stoker seat. Patrick thought the best way to help was to grab the dragon by the tail and push. To say this was not graceful is somewhat of an understatement. Path bucked and twisted and turned and tried her best to discourage the boys. They got to rolling several times but never achieved a stable ride.

Eventually I stepped back into the Captain’s seat and with each of the boys taking a turn as stoker we were able to take several quiet turns around the parking lot. My son, Glen, photographed the whole episode and there is a video on Youtube. Follow this link to see the boys riding “Path.”

If you have a slower link you may want to take this link to our own website where I have a couple stills of the event. (Below)

We are still in Gilroy California, but we will be heading for the Northwest on Monday.

Gary and Judy, Riders of the Green Dragon named “Path”