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Back on July 15th, I posted about riding to see my Dad during his battle with cancer.
Well, on July 28th, he left us, peacefully, in his sleep. Now relatives are arriving from around the country to mourn his passing.
One of Dad's favorite sayings was, "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade."
My son Sean flew in from Hollywood to attend the funeral. My lemonade recipe included a ride with him down on my favorite paths in Hastings on Tuesday night.
I was extremely frustrated with the lighting conditions during our ride. It seemed that this particular cloud was determined to block the sun from illuminating any of my shots:
So I had to set a ludicrous ISO of 1600 - 3200 in order to get a fast enough shutter-speed to avoid blurring. This rendered all my photos grainy and dull - My apologies for the poor image quality.
Still, it was a beautiful ride, and we had a very poignant conversation about our memories with Dad. I was riding a bike that I just recently completed stage 1 construction on - a 1984 Peugeot Canyon Express:
Stage 1 construction means mechanically fitting all the components and testing them so I know that they will work together on the finished bike. Stage 2 is stripping it down to bare metal and painting. Stage 3 is final assembly.
This bike is one of the first generation mountain bikes from Peugeot; the top-of-the-line, above the "Orient Express" by virtue of being a lighter frame and having better components. So I am making only minimal modifications with the focus on comfort and reliability. I really like the way it rides so far. There is a lot of surface corrosion to repair, and I will be doing a full repaint and custom decal application over the winter.
We stopped at the usual places in Hastings...
Including my favorite restaurant in the old part of town, "El Mexican" - (Which Sean thought was a hilarious name for the place - and said he would have a lot of fun showing his Mexican friends out in CA.)
When we arrived they had been closed for 15 minutes. But when they saw us pawing at the door like lost puppies, they let us in and fed us "street tacos" with chips and salsa.
After thanking them profusely, we rode back to the truck and headed for home. This was a badly-needed break from the hassle of funeral arrangements and all the other crap I have to deal with in the wake of Dad's passing.
I look forward to the ABCE (All British Cycling Event) coming up next month, after all this unpleasantness is behind me.
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