Fathers' Day Ride with Family -- say no more, OK a little more

Fathers' Day Ride with Family -- don't need to get imaginative with a title here — this is all I need.

Wife/kids don't ride with dad much these days, especially not the teenage son, so it's always appreciated when they come.

M,  R & G used to ride the trail about 8 years ago, but when the kids stopped riding with the "embarrassing" parents (understand this is situation normal for a lot of male teens), it put a bit of a crimp in the bike outings.

Now, road riding in traffic is not their idea of a good time, and they don't care much for the rigors of the trail when it gets technical, gravelly, sandy, or too closely fringed with poison ivy, and clingy or thorny as it does in some places (can't blame them for that, either). And M's ankle is on the DL (that's hockey parlance for disabled list) for any hard pedaling, so easy ride today. Just glad to have the family company.

R and G had not ridden in about a year, and their bikes were in teenager-borrowing-proof mode: deflated and disengaged tyres. (Understand the resident teen has tended to bring back his own, then his brother's borrowed bikes in various states of trashedness; broken brake levers, broken derailleurs, with busted just about everything, so the rest of the family's bikes are now off-limits.).

Getting the stuff together, then. was a wee bit of a challenge...and wouldn't you know, I ended up forgetting a couple of helmets. Oops. rob wore my helmet and I put on a Walz cap and marg a baseball cap, *cough*. This was going to be a slower pace ride.

Three full-size MTBs is about all this 5-bike rack can take.

The Bethpage bike path is a relaxed place, anyway, and most of the irregular punters are headgear free, so we kept a chill pace and rode mindfully as possible.

With the rain last night and the day before, the path was lined with verdant SHRUBBERIES, and the remnants of spring's fragrant blooms. Yes, this was/is a summer solstice ride too, so ... the very end of spring.

Green finches/gold finches, other blue-gray birds I've never ID'd before, cardinals, rabbits, and one kangaroo-like thing ;) ;) -- musta been a very large rabbit! ... a fellow walking up ahead studied the bushes into which it had vanished. Lengthily studied them.

With a late start to mitigate the mid day heat we came home at dinner time — Wild Fig in Roslyn Heights does a rather decent approximation of a falafel sandwich, although their approach to a falafel sandwich is more akin to Moe's Southwest Grill — it ends up being a bit much, but after a decent ride, who's complaining?