Yesterday, on my commute home, I was kinda just poking along and turning onto the Seward Park hill I saw a very strange thing. It made me pause, and when I caught up to it (him) I paused some more, because he wasn’t going very fast.
It, rather he, turned out to be a BikeE tandem recumbent carrying what ended up to be the mast for a Hobie Cat.
A Hobie Cat (for everyone but BopOp and JC) looks sorta like this.
This is what it looks like on the back of a BikeE tandem.
Now this young fellow, let’s call him Hobie, was more than happy to provide me with a picture, he even asked if I wanted him to stop for the shot.
Nothing could have been further from my mind – him stopping that is. So I got the picture and was then nearly clipped by the back end of the mast as he rounded a parked car.
About then we were passed by an oldish gentleman, let’s call him Adolf. I would estimate Adolf to be 75 or better, riding a vintage steel lugged 10 speed, with wavy shoulder length white hair, and motoring up the hill at a 4+ minute pace, doing quite well.
As he passed, Adolf said,
It looks like you’re running guard position!?
That sounded like fun, and traffic was rather heavy, so I ran wingman for Hobie to the top of the hill – a 3 minute climb for me that we managed in about 6.
During this 6 minutes I found out a number of interesting things about Hobie and his quest.
Among them:
- This was Hobie’s first time riding a recumbent (WOW!)
- He only fell over once on the ride, at slow speed, in a deep dip in the road.
- He finds the seat to be terribly uncomfortable.
- His gearing was perfectly sufficient for climbing just about any hill (very low gearing on tandems).
- But his stoker (the ~40lb mast) wasn’t helping out much.
- He was bringing the mast to his Dad’s house.
- He’s nearly at the end of his ride since his Dad lives only 5 blocks further on – at the top of the hill.
And where did you start?
..ake …ity …
Uhhhh, did you say Lake City?
…ep
WOW!
- Once Hobie’s dropped off the mast he’s RUNNING back to Lake City (WOW WOW!)
Did you say you were running back?
…ep! (BIG grin)
I guess, that might be ok for you (looking at him full in the face) what are you…17?
…eah?!…lmos…ighteen
- That’s right, Hobie is only 17.
That was the last question I got to ask Hobie before he pulled off the road to his Dad’s house.
I wished him well and then…I reflected.
I reflected, as I returned to my 20mph pace, that he looked like he was having fun.
He was certainly enjoying the unique challenge and that I myself might have done something similar if the NEED presented itself.
I also reflected that BopOp likes to tow things like bikes and lumber with his bicycle.
In fact I snapped that picture with lumber in mind.
Getting further down the road, I remembered that TheAmboyObserver brilliantly recognized that we could cart a half-rack of homebrew (each?) home for the holidays from the UW on our bikes when we were only marginally older than Hobie is now.
And further still, now seeing Adolf growing larger, my thoughts turned to Grumpy.
I confidently asserted to myself that, like the aforementioned family, Grumpy wouldn’t be might be found dead doing something crazy like this.
It was at about this thought that I neared Adolf, and I aligned myself to pass.
I won’t speculate on why I didn’t just say “on your left!” like I normally might – but perhaps we shared a bond? Instead, I said,
Ya know, maybe I should have asked that kid if he was German!
(and without any perceptible pause Adolf smartly replied)
HA! That did look like a German act!
and then reaching the edge of earshot I heard a prizewinning exclamation
ĂśBER ALLES!
blief 