Kimball’s Last Ride

You have all heard the stories of the Texas Rangers and their demise during the outlaw days of the Wild West. The Hole in The Wall gang supposedly killed them all including Dan Reid the brother of the leader of the Texas Rangers. “Who Was That Masked Man“. The Lone Ranger of course, thought to be dead and nursed back to health by Tonto his future side kick, to ride and fight injustice where ever it may be found. Charming story. Todays Lone Ranger is riding off to Greece to spend some time with his “side Kick” Diva! Now that is much better than any old Indian I’m sure. So Kimball is leaving us for several months, leaving for Greece to play in the Parthenon and ride the hillsides of the Greek Isle.

His last day here was spent riding along the Rio Hondo bicycle trail to the constant crooning from Stan, “I Love Riding My Bike” to the tune ‘Oh Give Me A Home……Buffalo’s Roam’ or something like that. The weather was fabulous starting out a little cool and ending up in the mid 70′s. You can still see the snow on the San Gabriel Mountains and the run-off from the hills is still brisk. The water ways are full giving the water foul plenty of room to play among the reeds.

I used this as a little warm up ride after a hard Sunday jaunt to South Pasadena and back through Sierra Madre. I did check out the Chantry Flats road and its open now all the way to the top. Cool, that means I can beat myself up on this hill any time I want.

The Dean custom El Diente titanium frame I ordered a couple of months ago with S&S couplers should be done by the end of the month. This will be my travel bike which I will take to RAGBRAI this year. The cool thing about the travel bike is that it fits into checkable luggage. No added expenses for shipping the bike. How SWEET is that. The cost of the frame will be covered after several trips just in the recovery of shipping costs. Well maybe more than a couple trips but thats OK. Its the prinicple of the thing. Last year I spent almost $300 dollars in shipping costs for bikes traveling around. Now I will have a bike to take to China the next time we go. Now that is something I am really looking forward to.

BTW, I have a new camera. Maybe this is the inspiration to get me to start posting more often. Its the Nikon CoolPiX P5100, a 12 mega pixel wonder. All of the new photos from this little baby can be seen at flickr.