Thanksgiving Day "Morning Ride" Memories

As I'm sitting at my breakfast nook this Thanksgiving morning looking out the window I'm seeing all this white snow on the ground, I started thinking of a period of time when several of my riding buddies and myself would get together for our annual "Thanksgiving day morning ride".

We would generally meet up around 9am, and ride the trails in and around Barberton, Ohio for about 3 hours before it would be time to head for home and prepare the family bird. The trails where a mix of single-track, double track, railroad bed tracks, and few roads that where created in this area over a period of time by a large amount of 3 and 4 wheel ATV's and dirt bikes. Today, most of these trails are long gone, in their place stands a new "Target", retail plaza, and plenty of newer homes.

Most of these riding buddies have moved on as well, many of them leaving mountain biking for other sports such as kayaking/paddling, as more of the ole trails gave way to the bulldozers and more time was spent on raising our families. This was a great group of guys and it was these guys that turned me on to the sport of mountain biking. We would have epic long rides. Mostly, we met early on Sunday mornings and would ride for 3-4 hours. We tended to follow Gary, as he helped create most of the trails with his dirt bike in his younger years. Derrick was the groups main mechanic and works today for Century Cycles in Peninsula, Ohio. He always kept the group on the trail even with all the parts we tended to break. The regulars consisted of Chris, Tom, Larry and Eric and my nephew Joe as we shared these great moments. We would ride some, take a quick break and bullshit. Most of our breaks came from someone having a flat tire, gears not shifting quite right, or the occasional morning hangover effects from a late night the prior evening.

So, on this day of giving "thanks", I give a "big thank you" to Gary, Derrick, Chris, Tom, Larry and Eric for introducing me to a sport that I truly love. I think they used to have side bets with each other on these rides on how long it would be till I would have my 1st crash. Thanks guys. - Bob

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Comments

[Derrick Kortvejesi]

Bob,

Man, those were the days! Those were the best rides we ever had. The trails may have gotten harder and more technical, the bikes, more complex, but those rides and friendships are unbeatable.

Derrick

[Bob Myers]

Thanks for checking in with your ole ridin buddy Derrick! Yes, those were great times. We need to get the band back together Derrick... What do you think?