Chet Rideout – Port Townsend, WA

I looked at Jason Reber’s knee during preparations for dinner and the swelling looked a lot worse.  The climbing of the last few days had strained it, and he had a nasty fluid buildup.  I said, “That knee is going to be trouble if we continue the ride, don’t you think?”

It was September 2006 at Bruceport County Park, Washington, five days into a ride from Port Townsend, Washington, to San Francisco along the spectacular Pacific coast.  It was only a day’s ride to the Oregon border, but Jason and I found our problems were increasing.  We figured his knee would need at least a week of recovery time, and I learned my wife Lynn’s medical problems required surgery.  Also the Burley Company, which had supplied me with a Koosah recumbent and two Nomad cargo trailers for the trip in exchange for a story, had just gotten out of the bicycle business, now selling only trailers.  Any strong argument for continuing the ride this year had evaporated.  After a sit-down talk, we reluctantly decided to “pull the plug” and called our friend Bill to drive us home the next day.

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New England Mountain Bike Association’s biggest festival of the year next weekend will feature two days of mountain biking, skills clinics, group rides, kids rides, a bike swap, a barbecue pit and Mountain Bike Olympics. The festival also will feature a mountain bike skills clinic offered by staff members of Highland Mountain Bike Park, bicycling expo, a bicycle swap and bike demonstrations. The Mountain Bike Olympics include a wheelie contest, tire tossing, bunny-hopping, log pull and bicycle limbo. NEMBAFest will be held Saturday and next Sunday at Bear Brook State Park in Allentown, N. H. , as part of the Kona Bicycles-Fox Shox Mountain Bike Adventure Series. The event was called NEMBAFest and has since been folded into the Mountain Bike Adventure Series lineup. Cyclists also can ride on their own along marked trails or participate in some of the many group rides, most of which are scheduled to start between 10 a. m. and 2 p. m. There will be a Saturday night ride sponsored by Exposure Lights, and two...

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