At the end of the workday, at the end of the workweek, it was time for a bike ride. And, on Fridays, we ride a bit longer. This involves leaving the usual route through the adjoining neighborhoods and then turning left, instead of going straight.

Going left meant different rollers, and two or three cycles through the same red light, cars parked in the bike lane and a small handful of other indignities to a good ride in the first four miles. After that, though, it moved along nicely.

The next 45 minutes were all on the same road, so you settle in and duck the wind and try your best. We’ve done this route the last three weeks in a row and if you do such a thing often enough you begin to have an understanding of what you can do over such roads. Sometimes you do your best, which is great! And sometimes your legs and your mind and your bicycle have formed an unconscious understanding of what your best can be and you do even better, which is great! And sometimes it just isn’t in you and you underperform. Which is, you know, just great.

Anyway, you do your best until you pass through two little communities and over the county line where you can enjoy a short and steep downhill. After that you turn left and run along a causeway over a lake for three miles or so. And it was somewhere in there that I set a New Personal Best Top Speed of 49.1 miles per hour.

And, boy, are my jokes tired.

Right after that, the road goes up and away from the lake and there’s one stiff hill you have to get over. Eventually, you take a few turns and you’re back on that first long road and headed back toward where you started. It let me breakaway from The Yankee for about 20 miles before she caught me in traffic.

And soon, at around mile 30, we caught up to these nice people:

I’ve read about people on bike tours using pool noodles. And now I have seen a family do it. That one guy is hauling two kids on a pull-along, and they all count as cyclists. After we did a big circle we saw them again from the other direction. They waved and said hello and we waved and said hello and I hope they were having a fine a time on their bikes as we were having.

Got to the house at precisely the right time:

And began to think I should start adding some serious miles back into my routine. Some how. Some when.

Well, we made it to the weekend. Treat yo’self for that.

It’s warm here now, and that’s nice. We’re in the 70s, and just 48 hours after jackets were required. So summertime acclimation has hardly begun. For now, it’s nice and it’s Friday and that’s more than enough.

We had a nice 32-mile ride around one of the lakes today. I only dropped my fuel and then my sunglasses. And then I got dropped on the back third of the route. The Yankee was cooking today.

You know who else was cooking was this guy, George Rabich, celebrated baker of Allentown, Pennsylvania.

We were doing a little casual genealogy research this evening and I ran across that New Year’s ad. It seems an odd bit of clip art, but, really, how many different pieces of New Years lead would a 1916 newspaper keep in their typesetting cabinets?

We followed along, and apparently 1916 was a good year for the baker. He’s in the local paper quite a bit. You could get some luxury bread in early May of that year. And needles! Needles were still like a currency in Allentown that spring, I guess.

Probably there’s a good reason. Hemming clothes or something, I’m sure.

Later in May, and it hasn’t yet occurred to anyone to specify that the needles were not in the bread.

The needles are not in the bread, people! You may eat and break and dip our bread without concern for your gums! The needles will be in a package on the side. We keep them entirely separate of the luxury bread here in the bakery.

Now, the blue collar bread? Needles for days.

By June, and no, I did not actually see this coming, they’ve realized the problem. Our bakery is one of the cleanest in town! Guaranteed! Healthful! Unless you’re the one guy in Allentown with a gluten problem, then you should probably stay away.

But everyone else! Clean! Healthful! Ask our customers! They’ll tell you Rabich bread is some of the cleanest bread in town. And they give you needles!

All of those were 1916, and before there were needles, there were prizes for kids!

Bring in your wrappers and get a bike, or a jump rope. Be the envy of all.

I bet all the neighborhood kids are sizing each other up over jump robes and strider bikes. He’s got that and bread? Maaaaa!