Meritan's Midnight Tour of Memphis

[A post in which I blog about actually riding my bike.]

The last few months have seen my saddle time drop to almost nothing, as I've been relocating from the cold, rainy northeast to the more tropical climes of the mid-south. My transition is now largely over, and I've been hard at work establishing a BCC beachhead on the banks of the Mississippi. While the skinny tires are still resting, and the fatties have yet to shed their upstate mud, the commuter has already made a few happy cruises through town.

I did have a little setback Saturday afternoon, as some routine maintenance led to a Slime-filled tube exploding in my face. In my living room. I'm not sure what happened -- my Specialized Boroughs fit a little loosely, so the tube might have squirmed out -- but I've got to say that I never in a million years thought I'd be scrubbing Slime off my ceiling with a mop. The tube is an experiment in keeping the commuter flat-free (the next one went in fine), and I'll let you know how it turns out.

With everything squared away and the bike back in fine rolling condition, Saturday night brought a new pleasure: Meritan's Midnight Classic Bike Tour of Memphis. It wasn't exactly extreme, but damn it was nice to spin through the cool summer streets with a few hundred of my newfound friends.

The normally humid nights have taken a little break, and we were treated to 60 degrees of crisp air and perfectly clear skies. I'm not sure how many people were there, but I would guess that more than 500 and less than 1000. There were bikes (and bikers) of all shapes and sizes, from a tallbike, to your usual department store cruisers, to the obligatory fixie-hipsters doing battle with the racerbois. Everyone was happy, polite, and outgoingly friendly in was that put a smile on my normally sourpuss face.

My photographic skills are notoriously bad, but I did capture a few snaps of all the cool kids.

All and all a great introduction to the area. Kudos to the event organizers and to all of the friendly, helpful riders. I'm looking forward to doing it again next year!