Le Burrito Ride in Tampa

Besides commuting to work, every now and then I get a chance to ride recreationally. Today was a perfect day for such a ride: vintage bikes, burritos and good friends all combined to make a memorable experience!

The local Chipotle Restaurant invited the Seminole Heights Bicycle Club over to partake of free burritos and drinks, as long as we showed up on bikes and in our cycling gear. So, we gathered a group of over 50 folks and headed off for a 18-mile loop ride. Chipotle is running a promotion to help spread interest in their ProTour team (Garmin-Chipotle)…which is doing quite well in this years Tour de France.

I was FINALLY able to ride my beloved Bianchi road bike…purchased new in 1983 and ridden for thousands of miles (about 25,000 at last count). For the past six years, it has been languishing in my shed due to a damaged axle and bearing cones, and replacements are scarce. The rear wheel on this bike is laced to a Maillard Helicomatic hub, which just happens to have a rare and unique threading pattern, making replacement parts really hard to come by. Luckily, some quick and dirty work with valve-grinding compound and a new axle from some dude in Austria (thanks, Ebay! It only took 2 years of regular searching there to find one!), and my beauty was back on the road.

There were a lot of other old-school bikes on the road today…my buddy Rick was rockin’ a gorgeous Italian “Liotta” with Campagnolo components and chromed fork and chainstays, and we met a new guy, Doug, who had a sweet old Cannondale (and a really badass wool jersey).

Anyhow, full coverage of the event is over on our friend Alan Snel’s blog — Bicycle Stories and Other Misadventures on the Road of Life. You should check it out!