This year’s covered bridge ride began with weather much the same as last year with a light drizzle warming up to 70 degrees. We had several returning riders and many new faces, 22 cyclist in all. The most interesting group was a family of four riding a brand new quad tandem bike. Those were a couple of lucky children to have parents who are willing to spend the time and money to take them riding on that beautiful machine. The kids would ask, “Permission to board” before climbing on. They all got hooked to the pedals, including Mom, and off they went. They had no trouble climbing with 8 engines pushing them up the hills.

The great thing about this ride is that it can be anything you want. The options are limitless. We had folks do all kinds of combinations of the route. We stayed with the 21-mile riders until they headed back to Scio and then sprinted off to find the group. We passed one of our folks going the other way. This year’s hit was an emu standing by a fence watching the bikes wiz past.

Traffic was very light for most of the ride. As we wound our way back to Scio, Louie got to practice his acorn smashing skills, popping about 90 percent of those he saw. Arriving back at the park, we visited with some children who were enchanted by the tandem before the last 5 riders lazed on in.

We had several requests to make this ride an annual affair. We have no problem with that. It has always been a hit with us. More photos of the covered bridges CLICK HERE.

Louie and I have this problem. One of us says, "Let’s do this!" The other one of us says, "Sure. That sounds like fun!" We seem to lack the checks and balances most "normal" couples have. So when Louie came up with the idea of a ride packet to give folks at the start of a ride it only got bigger from there. By the time we were done, we had a mini blueberry bagel, raison box, blueberry treat, and a ride map book in a baggie ready for each rider! The ride map book took some effort, but between the two of us we hammered it out in one day. We truly enjoyed seeing the riders faces light up when they got their treat bag. The map book was a big hit. Each rider was able to know that he/she could do however much of the ride time, ability, and weather permitted.

We left Scio with fog swirling around us. The sun kept trying to push it aside but was only successful at the tops of some of the hills. After soaking up some warmth we would dip back down into the cool fog of the valleys.

Having done this ride several times before, the people on the ride became more to us than the ride. We enjoyed the company of Bob and Shirley for a while. Shirley was the biker in the family, but Bob came along to keep her company. Shirley chatted quite happily with us while Bob would ride on ahead a bit. We would catch up and then do it all over again.

We came across a group of folks who decided to head back to Scio at the 20-mile mark. One of them was having knee problems probably caused by the couple of steep climbs early in the ride. A couple of the riders in the group wanted to go on but like good buddies, they went on back with their friend. We would have liked to have ridden with them a bit to get to know them.

Much to our surprise we saw Sheila coming towards us. She had made a wrong turn and had come through Larwood Bridge the opposite way. We all talked for a while about which way we wanted to do the ride. Bob and Shirley decided to head on back to Scio making it about a 35-mile ride for them. Sheila decided to ride with us for a while. We took her back to Larwood Bridge, had a nice snack by the river and then took off again.

We all thought we might do the 90-mile loop but Louie and I were feeling rather mellow so we turned back to make it 45 miles while Shirley went on to try for 90. We told her that we would go back for the Van and then sweep the route backwards to be there for her if she felt like she could not do the complete 90.

On the drive around the route we met up with Cynthia, Ryan and Bruce who were doing the route in record time. They were already at Hungry Hill Road and doing great! We found Al, Pat, and Liz not too far behind them fixing a flat on the tandem. Of course we had to stop and kibitz. We just started back down the road and there was Sheila! She must have been flying! She was fighting a bit of a cold so decided that 60 miles was enough fun for one day for her!

Al, Pat, and Liz ended the day with about 70 miles. Cynthia, Ryan, and Bruce ended with about 80 miles. What a great ride! Everyone did exactly the amount of miles that felt good for them. As an added bonus the sun finally rid itself of the fog giving everyone sun for the second half of the ride.

Those that had time stopped at Dairy Queen on the way back to exchange bike stories. We hope to see more of our new found friends out on more Blueberry Rides in the future. A heartfelt thanks to all those who turned out.