When the Stars Align

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I forgot to tell you last night, but today was a Fabulous and Fifty-Plus Cycling Dudes, Ltd. field trip! There were no permission slips, but I felt like I needed one.

Bill orchestrated this wonderful trip into Boston, starting at the Minuteman Bikeway in Bedford.

http://www.minutemanbikeway.org/

Funny, how the same trail in my neck of the woods is a "rail trail," but in a the posh community of Bedford, it's a...tip nose up in air..."bikeway!" :-)

Bill's wife works in Boston every now and then. On occasion, he rides in to have lunch with her. Earlier in the week, he thought that instead of riding by himself, he could ride with company; thus, he invited Jim, Jeff, me, and Leigh to join him on this excursion.

Bill's wife had a bunch of "free lunch coupons," given that certain restaurants want her work to order lunches from them; thus, she was going to be buying us lunch with these coupons. Last night, Bill sent out the link to the menu, and we all picked our luncheon choices. On Wednesday morning, we were to meet at the rail, oh, excuse me, BIKEWAY in Bedford at 10am.

This morning, I put my bike on my rack on the car, filled my water bottles, restocked my granola bars in my little plastic baggie with my $9.50 for emergencies, got my gloves, my helmet, put on my pink skull-n-crossbone socks, put on my Crocs (yes, Crocs with socks, but you can SO get away with it when you're a cyclist!), and I left the house.

At about 9:45am, I looked around the car, and I realized..................................SH*T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......................I had remembered everything, except for my cycling shoes! I had done this once before. You'd think that I would end up doing this a second time, but there I was almost to Bedford without my cycling shoes!

When I was 5 minutes away from the "bikeway," I called Bill. He answered, and I said, "Bill, I can't bike with you guys today. I left my shoes at home!"
Bill asked, "Where are you?"
I said, "About five minutes away."
He said, "Just come here, and we'll think of something. There's a bike store here. Maybe they have a pair of shoes you can borrow. Meet us in the parking lot!"
I said, "Okay, I'll do that. But, I think I've totally screwed up here."
Bill said, "No. Meet us in the parking lot!"

Five minutes later, I turned into the parking lot, and Bill, Jim, Jeff, and Leigh greeted me. (God, I love these people!)
Jim said, "I could give you my sneakers and you could try riding that way."
I said, "I don't think that's going to work to well with my clipless pedals."

Bill said, "The bike shop over there opens in 6 minutes. Let's go over now."
I whispered to Bill, "Really, you don't have to wait for me, because I screwed up. You guys go, okay?"
Bill said, "No. We're not leaving you behind."
Just then I felt like I was in the movie "Saving Private Ryan."

We all walked across the road with our bikes and parked them outside the shop. We peered in the window at 10:05am, wondering when the shop owner would open the door. Ironically, while waiting, we noticed that Sidi, Mavic, and Shimano shoes were on sale!

At 10:08am, we saw a guy turn on lights and start up the register, but he didn't open our door. Just then Jeff said, "Well, maybe there's another door!" Jeff and I went around to the right of the building, and lo and behold, we found a door that said "OPEN" on it. We entered. Just then the "guy" opened the rear door at which we had all been waiting.

When I encountered the "guy," and said, "I forgot my cycling shoes, so do you rent them?" He looked at me like I was crazy, as I knew he would. I then said, "Err, do you have any cycling shoes in a woman's size 11." He frowned. At that point, I said, "Look, I don't care if they're men's shoes." He left and came back with a few boxes.

As I sat there trying on my shoes, Leigh, the other female cyclist, who is a Rock Star hill climber, saw THE pair of shoes that she had wanted for a very long time; err, her current cycling shoes were FIFTEEN years old). They were a pair of Sidi shoes, and she asked the guym, "Hey, do you have these in a 6.5?" At the bike store in her neck of the woods, they were $200; here, they were 50% off!

I had to try on several different pairs over 15 minutes, but I finally found a pair of Mavics that were (Goldilocks speak here) "just right." Leigh fell in love with her shoes before I did, whipped out her credit card, and she had new shoes before I did!

The funny thing was that I had said to Bill that I needed new shoes since I met him. Err, if you have all been following my blog, you'd know that the top strap on my right shoe does NOT remained velcroed! I kept telling Bill every day we rode, "I really need to get new shoes."

At that point, I felt horribly guilty because I had kept them all waiting, but then I was equally amused, because Leigh found the shoes of her dreams at a price that her wallet could afford.

Bill assured me that they were not going anywhere without me, and by 10:35am, both Leigh and I had new shoes and were ready to bike into Boston, because the stars aligned.

Anyway, if you've read previous blogs, you know that once upon a time my gears were squeaky; well, after my gears became unsqueaky, it was apparent that my shoes were squeaky a few days ago. After riding two miles with my new cycling shoes today, I said to Bill, "Hey, did you notice that? My shoes aren't squeaky anymore!" And, he laughed.

We biked from Bedford to Arlington, and then we reached Boston. How? I have no idea how?! But, we did. And, if my Bucket List was to bike on Mass Ave, Storrow Drive, and the McGrath highway, well...been there; done that, okay! :-)

At around noon, Bill's wife called wondering where we were. He said, "We're about 5 minutes away." We biked on and Bill said to me, "Jean, there's the Garden!' Okay, it wasn't really the "Garden" anymore. TD Garden, it was. Am I the only one that thinks that Boston Garden is still that much better than "TD Garden?" Tom, you agree, yeah? :-)

Finally, we met Bill's wife outside her building all our ordered lunches. She was just too lovely, providing lunch for all of us; however, it was like a Homeland Security nightmare when she tried to get us all into her building to pee after we had lunch, because they wanted IDs from all of us. And, we had all left them in Bedford with our cars!

After eating, we biked off, and I have to tell you that biking through the streets of Boston was a bit of a high. As we cycled through one intersection, I yelled back at Leigh, "We're not in Kansas anymore!'

When we finally arrived back in the parking lot in Bedford, we had cycled 35 miles. I found that hard to believe, but it was true. We all chit-chatted, and then I said to Bill, "Thank you so much for waiting for me this morning." He said, "We wouldn't have left you." Then he paused and said, "No, we wouldn't have even thought of going anywhere without you, Jean." <3

Rover Health Note: She now has pancreatitis, kidney disease, her thyroid has worsened, her phosphorus is high, and she might have hypertension. I will keep her comfortable. Thanks, Tommie and Suzebabe.