They Will Be Getting a Bike This Christmas!

Just got back from a work day for the Knoxville area Angel Tree, and had a great time for a great cause.

Spent 4.5 hours adjusting derailleurs, making sure brakes work and tightening every nut and bolt… and making sure underprivileged kids are able to get a shiny new bike (and other toys) this Christmas. As some of us bike enthusiasts in my son's Boy Scout troop helped assemble the 120 bikes (my estimate), I kept remembering my own childhood and the indescribable excitement of my first bike, starting a lifetime of bike-passion.

Don't get me wrong. The point of this is not to "toot my own horn" but to publicly thank the hundreds of people sorting, bagging, and assembling the thousands of toys. And if there is anything like this in you town, please share your bike passion by donating your time assembling a few. You won't regret it!

Cades Cove Bike Ride

The alarm clock rang very early Saturday morning: 5:30. The goal was to be at the Cades Cove parking lot before 8am, and we were. You see, they open the loop early to bikes and runners. We wanted to be finishing up our ride of 15+ miles before they open it up to cars at 10:00.

Roughly twenty scouts and parents headed out into the mist. A few need requirements of finding evidence of ten different animals. Some evidence was easier to find than others.

We noticed there were places where leaves covered the road under berry trees. Rangers explained that these were made by bears high in the trees. They would camp out eating the berries dropping whatever they did not eat to the road. One area proved the Rangers correct. A momma bear with two cubs were perched in a high tree having an early breakfast. We admired from a safe distance.

A bear ignored the many riders as she fed her two babies berries.

Seventeen miles later we pulled back into the parking lot comparing stories of what we had seen and laughing at the lady who chastised us for our noise hampering her "petting a bear."

The ride was great practice for the Silver Comet that the Troop will be taking soon for our 50 mile ride.