Victor and Harmony

By Allan Edmonds

It was a warm evening and a hilly route southwest of town. We had almost 20 riders show up for this leaderless OWLS ride on Thursday evening. The route went out Victor all the way to the end, turning on  Harmony Road, eventually turning onto Leonard Springs and That Road back into town.

Even though we had no official leader our system actually worked almost perfectly. At 5:45 Tom Reynolds took responsibility and asked if everyone knew where we were going and then we all took off. People are getting the idea that they need to be on time and that they need to check the map shown on the BBC Ride Calendar in advance and make their own copies if they need them. Thanks again to CE Taylor  for developing the maps. (Shelley Bradfield and yours truly helped CE lay out a schedule, and Ron Brown developed an OWLS Ride Maps Page. Check out that cute page if you haven't already done so!)

At some point Tom drafted Patrick Kelly to sweep and Patrick undertook the job beautifully, almost as if they had planned it all out in advance. He called out "car back" numerous times, including once when a car was starting to pass at just the moment a couple of riders started to pull out to pass a slower cyclist ahead of them. He helped one or two riders get their chains back on. And he even pushed Ken Dau-Schmidt up a couple of hills! This is a guy who can ride up steep hills no-handed sitting up straight. He was a perfect sweep: Perhaps the strongest rider in the group, yet able and willing to watch out for everyone.