Ken Johnson and I giggled and grunted our way up the bike trail yesterday enjoying what turned out to be our version of...

THE ALASKAN IDITAROD
Bellville style

Usually, on Thursdays, he, Lynn Rush and I do a two hour exercise program in his Bellville home’s basement. But, this day he was nursing a sore shoulder and Lynn was absent, nursing a sore nose.

With an additional nod to his pesky ailment he proposed, instead of a traditional bike ride, we hop on his side-by side tandem cycling rig and head up the bike trail toward Lexington and see if it is still clogged with ice and snow.

It was.

We set off—and were barely north of Bellville when we were slogging through multiple inches of snow just now morphing into a slushy mess of winter’s residue.

We did a Chinese fire-drill of randomly riding and hopping off to push while one of us hopped back on trying to steer. We were never totally stymied in our progress but we had to be quite a sight to traffic whizzing high overhead on the interstate highway.

We must have looked like a moving bicycle wreck still arguing about which of its halves had the right-of-way.

We grunted and giggled some more; resting periodically on ice-free pavement and enjoying the squirrels and the bluebirds cavorting through winter’s last fling.

To our right melt water was gushing through the meadows hurrying to be somewhere while just ahead of us a small herd of whitetail deer lazyied across the trail—their sentinel pausing to consider the silly apparition heading his way.

The deer’s ears twitched and it correctly identified us as peaceable as he and his companions disappeared slowly into the marsh—and we were thankful for the gift of their presence.

About then we noticed another source of resistance to our progress. Ken’s front tire was flat.

Not really a big deal at our modest velocity and we finally cranked our way up the hill into the Y-Not Bike shop’s Lexington parking lot.

Ken works there part-time as a mechanic so it was easy to acquire and install a new tube while other bike shop customers peered at our curious mount.

We zipped north on US 42 a bit for a cup of coffee at the Speedway station then zipped back for our return to Bellville, waving often at remarkably civilized drivers who appeared just as curious about us as the earlier deer.

We marveled at how much the snow had melted since our upward passage and mostly cranked our way home.

In a spurt of enthusiasm we crossed the Bellville RR bridge like it was a finish line of sorts.

Ken chortled “Geezer Power!” to the lady standing there with her posse of small dogs. She smiled and waved at our silliness.

We enjoyed a handshake and a smile as we put Ken’s bike away for another day; each of us in his own way, knowing something very special had just been shared and would be long remembered.