Alright, I'm really excited for social group rides to start happening. Black Rock King Rollers is one of the groups I ride with. I help organize the rides. We no longer meet in the Black Rock neighborhood but the name is still with us. It's a social bar hop ride with outdoor stops. It's always met every Thursday around 6:30. We struggled to keep it going every week last year but I really want to start this up again. It's the first group I started riding with and all my cycling friends stemmed from this first group ride.
I need to say something here. Anyone can be a cyclist! Get out and ride! Meet people and do new things. See your city by bike!
Ok, back to my story. We have always been a small ride, with 8-10 people being a good ride. It's a fairly casual pace, about 10-12 mph and 15-20 miles total. We used to meet at the Essex Street Pub but have moved it to McGarret's this year. I mainly suggested moving it because this place is cash only. I love Essex, but it often became impossible to get everyone out of the bar as everyone had to settle up with their credit cards, which often led to people ordering more drinks when seeing people still in the bar. This should be much quicker getting people to leave when they have already paid for their drinks. As a bonus, this bar has a lot of bike racks out front.
I posted in our FB group (I won't print that website name on here) and just hoped people might show up. I'm still not drinking so I got a glass of water. Matt and Kathy showed up. They each had a drink and then we went off to our first stop.
We didn't have far to ride as a couple of our Thursday riders were having an art show at the college down the street. We couldn't skip this.
Besides the awesome art, these shows usually have free food and beer, or in my case free sparkling water. After an extended stay here, we went to an outdoor stop at the new pedestrian bike bridge near the Peace Bridge.
We then rode to the diviest of dive bars, where I was still younger than most everybody there. Cook's is the kind of bar you would never find unless you had directions. It's right on the line between a residential and an industrial area. It's on the end of a street of houses on the corner of a street that bears a sign saying it is "not a street." There is a more well-known bar at the other end of the "not a street," but most people there might not even know about Cook's. The "not a street" is actually the property of Con-Rail as it is next to the railroad tracks. Cook's is just awesome and cheap. It feels like a room in somebody's house. There is a short shuffleboard table but it was covered up by raffle items as they had some sort of event earlier that night. The bowling game was available to use though.
After this we went our separate ways. It was a great night to ride. It got chilly later, but I wore enough thermals to keep warm. Hopefully it's nice enough for another ride next Thursday!
