Three riders, red, white and blue
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| Met these guys Sunday on my way to Bassfield. They had been to the state park/lake just this side of Prentiss where they spent the night camping. That is a camper’s stove hanging from the rider-in-blue’s handlebars. You can’t see the sleeping bags they carried behind them. No tents. They didn’t get a good night’s sleep. I’m sure it being a cool night and damp didn’t help. The rider in red is wearing a Mississippi State hat and is in the engineering program there. He is visiting his brother, standing next to him. The third rider is their friend.
I stopped to see if they had mechanical problems but they were just taking a short break. They had most of the 40 mile ride ahead of them on the return to Hattiesburg. I thanked them for giving me an excuse to take a break and continued on my way. However, I didn’t get very far, about 100 feet, when I thought to take their picture; so I did a 180, i.e. picked the bike up, turned it around while still astride and rode back the short distance. After the photos I continued for real and later wondered if they reach their destination before the showers came; I didn’t. I rode the X-Stream on this ride. It does really well in wet weather but the back end started drifting a bit on the down slope going into Sumrall (yes, you climb out of Sumrall going either east or west), so I backed off the 20+ mph speeds to 18 or so and that helped. Well, I was dodging water puddles and debris and even 18 may have been a little too fast but I stopped leaning into the turns. I would not have wanted to be on a high racer, like my Strada, with the higher seat height, bottom-bracket, and center of gravity. |
