By Ed Chasteen
Terry Anderson saw our Saturday morning rides listed on the Kansas City Bike Club website and emailed me to find out when and where to meet. No one has come when I arrive in front of Biscari Brothers. My computer screen said 30 degrees and cloudy as I pedaled from home. Hardly any cars on the road early on New Year’s Eve. I get to the bike shop faster than I’d expected. I’m 30 minutes early. Then a red pickup pulls in with two bikes in the back. All the way from Grandview, Terry has brought his friend, Glenn Dutcher. By our appointed 8 AM departure time, we are joined by David Eaton, Seth McMenemy, Nan and Rick Lueckert, Steve Hanson and Petra Toye.
These eight have been at Sarah’s Table for 10 minutes or more when I arrive. I was here yesterday in my car to bring MS calendars to Sarah, her mother, Norma, her sister, Tammy, and waitresses, Betty and Janis. Sarah’s Table is a $1000.00 sponsor of our Greater Liberty Bike Ride for MS. This is my third time here this week. Not an unusual week. Betty and Janis often wait on me. Betty comes this morning to gently chide the other riders for leaving me last. She knows I ride last by choice, to be sure no one is left behind. She also knows I’m naturally slow and might have a problem. Then who’s riding sweep for me? I’m not concerned. But I find it comforting that Betty is.
Biscuits and gravy, pancakes, both blueberry and plain, omelets, bacon, coffee and lots of water fuel us to step back into the cold and mount our bikes to return by a different route back to Liberty. Some of us and others of the more than 200 who have ridden on Saturdays with us will come on New Year’s Day in the morning to Steve’s house. Out to Paradise we will ride, then circle back by another way to his house, where his wife, Sharon, a regular rider but this morning our chef, will have breakfast waiting for us.
Some might think of a better way to begin a new year than to pedal a bicycle in a Missouri winter up and down Missouri hills and then to come in from the cold to a warm house still decorated for Christmas, appetite honed razor sharp and teased by mouth-watering aromas rising from the kitchen, in the company of riding companions who fully comprehend the addiction of winter riding. Then to have that raging hunger fully tamed, replaced by a contentment of mind, body and soul beyond any state accessible to the sedentary. I myself might with much thought think of a better way to celebrate the new year. But I prefer not to try.
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