Rock to Rock 2013 -- Year Five

A much overdue post about the annual Rock to Rock ride in New Haven. It's the biggest local group ride and it's been fun to watch its growth over the past years.

You can see posts about our participation in past years here,  here, and here.  I must admit that I am surprised to discover that I never blogged about last year's event even though we had friends from Brooklyn come up and join us.

This year was momentous because all three boys rode their own bikes for the entire ride. In the couple of years, we had hauled F on one of our cargo bikes, as well as his bike so he could ride the end himself, but he was ready to take on the whole route this go-around.

I must admit that I can find big group rides pretty nerve-wracking.  With my children, I seem to be on them constantly about riding smartly and predictably so that other riders know what to expect from them. However, I wonder if some of my nagging is simply because there are tons of other riders out there riding unpredictably, making less-than-smart choices, but it's only my own kids I can actually say something to! Unfair, I know...

Bicycling friends, who recently moved to Maine from New Haven, came down for the weekend to hang and participate.  I didn't end up making t-shirts this year but thought we should have some unifying theme going on for our crew.  Without any rhyme or reason, I end up settling on making fake mustaches. I merely mentioned it at one point, perhaps inspired by this bicyclist, and F latched on to the idea and wouldn't let it go.  So the night before the ride, we sat at the table making fake mustaches.

The result was pretty amusing.

No mustaches here, but had to include this snap of some of the cutest cargo around!