We planned an early ride to beat the impending heat. However, the phrase of the day was “it’s f*&%ing hot. It was a 30 mile ride along the East Bay towns of East Providence, Barrington, Warren and Bristol, R.I. We ended by taking a ride up the Washington Bridge that takes I 195 across the East Bay in Providence.
It was a slow-ish ride on a MUP and the heat and humidity were relentless. With that, the helmets were doffed and we worked on our bald spot tans. Weekday mornings on the Multi Use Paths are pretty much dedicated to seniors or retirees on bikes. We ran into dozens of them as we moseyed along and a funny thing began to happen. Riders stopped acknowledging us. Nick noticed it and I said, bear with me while I call someone in Austin. On that call, I mentioned that no one will say hello to us and we are getting dirty looks. Brandon in Austin said, “you must be riding without a helmet”. Yup, if you ride at 10 MPH on the bike path in R.I. your going to die and go to wherever it is bad people go these days. We do have an answer to that though.
We had our hearts set on a great little ice cream place in East Providence and passed up a couple of spots that were appealing. The dam place was closed when we arrived at 11:30. What kind of ice cream place is closed when it’s 98 degrees and humid. We did stumble on to a joint in Westport. I asked Nic if he wanted ice cream or a burger. “Cheeburger and a frappe”, he replied. “Make that two of each” I told the young girl at the window. Little did I know that I would be in the Pulp Fiction movie. They didn’t have five dollar shakes, here they were six. Two burgers and two shakes came to twenty eight bucks. To add salt, they charged and additional 5% if you use a credit card. I have to say that both the burger and shake was really good.
There are no group rides planned for next week by amidnightrider.com. It’s family time.
A Midnight Rider 