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 There are club members who will go out in anything and they've been continuing to circulate cycling stories even while the fall settles angrily into winter. But those of us without nerve damage got the drift of things two months ago. Here's a bit of a reminder I found among old papers -- from the October 15th ride:

 We had an exhillarating ride last Sunday , though on Saturday it had looked as though all hope was lost til spring. I went to Judd Falls Plaza ready to slink back home alone, but a gang of six faithful assembled for the ride. The clouds were swarming threateningly, blueblack and white. The flag over DunkinDonuts was straining at the horizontal. I could certainly have invokd the Weather Channel's mossy crawlies over the northeast as reason to cut things short. But in midoctober it has to be more palpable than radar to call off a ride. So off we went, Ellis Hollow to Thomas to Brooktondale.

 The talk tended to focus not on derailleurs and cranks so much as on gloves and toes. It was definitely nippy. But once we got to the steady climb of Old Seventysix, everyone warmed up pretty good. A few toes remained on the cusp of sentience, but on the whole it was a terrific day to be out. For some reason the wind that had pointed that flag as directly against us as could have been imagined, once we were under way subsided or found other things to obstruct.

 At Caroline Center we turned south toward Candor. The map shows a tangle of roads of various names, but just keeping straight ahead without worrying about what things were called seemed to work very well. The threatened mile of unpaved road turned out to have just been paved - with a special washboard formula of tarmac, I think. But soon we were on the long downhill into Candor. No use describing the hills and trees (the "foilage"). You had to be there.

 In Candor we assembled for tiffin at the gas-food. Kira and her husband - who proved to actually exist, riding a Steve Bauer giant bike - opted to keep the tour to original specs by continuing on to Spencer. The rest of us, having secured consent of our leader Matt, turned toward Wilseyville, White Church Rd, and home.

 On parts of the homeward leg, especially 96B to Wilseyville, the wind was playing with us. We'd skim along on a tailwind at 22 to 25 mph without any work; then in an instant we'd have a headwind to lean into for a quarter of a mile, only to have it flip back to a tailwind again. Back on Ellis Hollow Rd, with only the last bit of descent to Judd Falls Plaza, it finally started to rain - not very hard, but a steady light rain that the extra speed of the downhill made into a definite nuissance. Wind, rain, earth. Fire in the leaves. Life really is good.

 We'll expect a detailed excuse from Dan, who wasn't present. What's up with everyone? Robert may have crashed on some rollers he was going to try out. Phil, I'm sure, fell prey to something carnivorous in the Adirondacks. I'm toying with buying a mtb to ride in these transitional seasons - they leave them sitting around where bystanders can catch the fever.

 Who's up for the GreekPeak-area ride with Sherrie this Sun?

 Andrejs

 (And then it happened:

 Andrejs has a new mountain bike, and yesterday on one of his first rides we discovered a good deal of mud out in Shindagin Hollow. His new bike was pretty grimy in just a few minutes of riding, and I wasn't certain how this was sitting alongside his general fastidiousness about his machinery. As he put his besmirched bicycle into his van after the ride, he said, "Well. . . . I'm hooked."

 Robert

 I think Andrejs has been repressing the slovenly side of his personality for too long. That Bridgestone road bike is much too clean, and I think that rather than let it get a little bit dirty, something in his subconscious snapped and made him buy a bike that he can completely trash. It's good that he has friends as understanding as you to help him through this.

 Mike

 Hypocrisy in the FLCC

 Earlier, I wrote, about esteemed newsletter editor Andrejs and his newfound love of mountain biking:

>something in his >subconscious snapped and made him buy a bike >that he can completely trash.

I'd like to publicly apologize for thinking that there were deeper, darker reasons that Andrejs enjoyed mountain biking and confess that I am a hypocrite. I myself had the opportunity to try mountain biking (many thanks to Glenn for the trails and the bike) yesterday and loved it. Not having completely purged myself of Canadianisms I won't say, "well... I'm hooked"; rather, "neat, eh".

 Mike