Had a great ride Thursday, my third and longest on the Catrike Speed, 82 miles. I not only took my time to "smell the roses" (someone on the Catrike forum says that on a trike you are at the right level to smell the roses) but I left the trail several times to create adventures. The "haunted house" above is just a couple of blocks north of the trail in Bassfield. As with most such houses there is a haunted tale. I’ll let Danny tell you about it shortly.

Before the ride I made a couple of modifications to the Speed.  First, there was a problem with the mirror. Well, the problem was that there was none, and not even a place to mount my preferred model.  The mirror I like attaches to the end of the handlebar. However, my trike uses bar-end shifters as you can see here. Following a suggestion made on one of the recumbent forums I mounted an extra bar-end just for the mirror. Click for a better view.

The pipe insulation you see around the left kingpin was added to ease the rubbing of my outer thigh on the hard metal. I’m just a little wide for this model’s frame. I ended up taking it off and placing a cushion in the seat which raised my bottom just enough for clearance. I also moved the boom in and, thus, sat a little more upright which provided a little more clearance.

I also added some pipe insulation to the T-shaped, original headrest. I may use this instead of the car-headrest until I can order and receive the nice one I imaged in an earlier post. You can see the original headrest and the seat cushion in a photo below.

The weather was great and so were the views. There were many plants in bloom but the azaleas were especially nice.

The dogwoods had bloomed earlier and now their flowers were falling, covering the path in places. Seeing them flutter down reminded me of snow flakes.
I mentioned the wisteria in my last ride report. They were still blooming with some blooms at eye level and others in the tree tops. If the last ride was perfect this one was perfect with more mileage. On some of the climbs I would travel about 5 mph, lean my head back on the headrest and look up at the sky. Sometimes it would just be sky and at other times the trees would overhang. I would glance forward under my glasses to stay on the trail.

Sorry, major bike ride distraction! But this was not just a bike ride, it was an adventure.

The ride

I went to work from 8:30 to 9:30,  my scheduled office hours for Thursday, as they are for Tuesday. I recently changed them to give students with conflicting schedules a chance to see me. Or, was it so that I could get longer rides in? Maybe one is the rationale and one is the reason. After hanging around the office for a little over an hour (and no students showed up) I drove straight to the USM (Hattiesburg) station in my van, like before. Since I left the building a little late, 9:45, I ended up pedaling off at about 10:00. The goal was to be in Sumrall at lunch time, which I was.

I took snacks to eat but thought I might actually eat at La Tori’s. Again! However I did neither. I remembered that the community center serves lunch to seniors during the week. It was good, especially since they only charge $1.25. Here is the crew that fed me and entertained me. After the picture the lady in the blue hat kept telling everyone that they were all going to be in the Hattiesburg American (for you non-residents that is the local news paper).

It was a happy meal (sorry McDonald’s, not that kind). The guy with the big smile talked to me while I ate. Here is some of the conversation, paraphrased.

I had my bike clothes on and he assumed I was riding a bike without asking, So the topic  went to the trail and specifically to people liking to ride their electric carts on it. I had observed this several times myself. I recall once meeting a group that had left Sumrall headed to Hattiesburg to have lunch at Stricks. At that particular time I was riding from Hattiesburg to Sumrall to have lunch at La Tori’s. For some reason we found that amusing, at that time. Back to this conversation. There seems to be a lot of interest in Sumrall over riding what I call golf carts. Enough interest and disagreement to fight over it. Someone even wanted to start a business  selling and servicing  the carts. (The idea of an electric-cart-friendly city reminds me of where my sister in-law lives, i.e. The Villages, a golfing community in Florida.) The Mayor is/was against the whole idea (is against it, was the Mayor). Why? Because the carts will not pass the state inspection for road vehicles. The Mayor and the city council have been fighting over this. The Mayor just up and resigned. My lunch companion then told me that the Mayor had been a professor at USM. Either I had already told him that I was on the faculty myself or I did then. He suggested that maybe I should move to Sumrall and run for Mayor. I told him "No thank you" but said I thought I could explain the source of all the misunderstanding. So I did, and that being that "Professors are use to making things up and having people believe them. When people don’t, such as possibly the good people of Sumrall didn’t, it is not only a surprise it is also confusing and irritating." My companion seemed to be entertained by my explanation but not enlightened.

On the way out I met a few others arriving. They seemed to think my trike was “something else”. The red-headed lady was particularly taken with the fact that it had a rear-view mirror (and I was particularly taken with the red-headed lady). As it turns out she is running for the Mayor’s office in the upcoming special election.

She is also starting a new business called Ginnovations in what I thought was the old pickle factory but was in fact the old cotton gin, thus the name. Not sure what she will sell but will surely check it out.

Here is the building, just to the side of the trail as you enter Sumrall. I learned that the "pickle vat" was just to the east of the cotton gin. I don’t know what a pickle vat is so I’m going to figure that out and then get right back to this trail tail.