In hindsight, it may not have been the best conceived plan but I am a firm believer that a bit of naïvety makes for a good bicycle adventure. An open mind, willingness to go-with-the-flow, sometimes a series of weird events comes together to make for interesting life experiences.
Quick string of events leading up to the "accidental" purchase of a HubbuHubbuH tandem: - 17 year old daughter tears ACL second time - Cancel snowboard/ski trip to Whistler. (Role reversal - daughter skis, 46 year-old dad snowboards.) - Impromptu replacement vacation March west-coast road-trip places father and daughter in Walnut Creek - Daughter - Dad best favoritist tandem combo ever takes HubbuHubbuH out for test ride - hooked and instantly regret having not been on pre-order. - Place name on "list" for "if there is ever a second run of tandems, I'd be interested." - Email to contact Dave at Rivendell that there are a few tandem frames available - Call, talk briefly with Dave - how could I *not* order one? Before ordering the Rivendell, I'd rationalized how good we had it with our old steel Abatrossed Trek T200. My next bike was going to be another Rivendell custom to replace my beloved and dearly departed Quickbeam. I've got parts on the shelf waiting for just the right inspiration, but none of it really what I wanted to use on the tandem. My first foray into 584 wheels, I had so little I could use, I've had to spread the wealth among various bike shops near and far. It's been a bit of a scramble to put the HubbuHubbuH together. Once road-worthy, it's been the bike I've ridden most this year. LOTS of good miles, ice-cream runs, laughs, and wandering, What a blessing to have a 17 year old daughter that WANTS to spend time with dad, wants to cruise around. In a separate and closely related life thread - my 20 year old daughter FINALLY discovered that she likes to ride a bike. Likes to ride enough to ask dad if maybe his telling of 30 years of RAGBRAI stories warranted giving it a shot. Time to create something more than the dumpster-find-become college get-around bike... Queue up another new bike purchase and build. With the older sister interested, so much saddle time on the new tandem, one thing led to another and so this was the year. This was the year that the kids were FINALLY going to join dad on his annual trip to Iowa. Somehow, perhaps by obscuring details, over-selling how much fun it'd be... I managed to convince both girls that the only way to truly experience the *fun* was to do as I have for the last 20 years or so... pack up and ride TO Iowa first, join in the folly of the ride across the state for a few days, then turn back north to get back to Minnesota. Maybe my trying to convince them was equal part trying to convince myself that heading off on an upright-barred cruiser tandem was a good idea... Fully loaded on a tandem with a kid with arthritis and a torn ACL, what could *possibly* go wrong!? Skip to conclusion... aggressive mileage plans were adjusted. 6 days of riding together, everyone still gets along and there's talk of "next year" The HubbuHubbuH is an amazing bike, I have amazing and patient friends, and I have even more amazing kids. Some photos compliments of my good friend Scott who joined in the fun: https://photos.app.goo.gl/aFk8SBsJMTZNkCpU2 <https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aPAtr38z-p4/WYANkpcOLrI/AAAAAAAAE-0/v7eGXD8PNMsECcRb_IGKVgjBKbZ6fHaZACLcBGAs/s1600/Sunset.jpg> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
