Angela's Ride: Best Friend Adventure

Best Friend Bike Ride

I know it sounds silly, but my best friend and I call our hangouts, “Adventures”; but, to us, every time we’re together is an adventure. Almost every Tuesday we get together as our “day”. Thankfully, we in Michigan have been pretty blessed with some fantastic weather - mid 70s, clear skies. Considering my best friend had only been on a electric bike once before and that we had such amazing conditions, I decided it was time to ride (which isn’t a huge deal for me, but she doesn’t even own a bike...so, yeah, big deal).

Meeting at the shop, I told her it was time. Reluctant, she agreed, and now it was the question, “well, what bikes do we take?” Hmm...well, I had my step-thru Pedego City Commuter (my tried and true bike), so I decided to stick with something similar but better for her height (she’s shorter than me). So, the step-thru Pedego Interceptor it was.

The reason I chose the Interceptor was because the step-thru seems to be slightly lower than that on the City Commuter. Also, since she did not have a ton of experience with electric bikes, I thought it would be the best way to sum up an electric bike experience. By “electric bike experience”, I mean that the Pedego Interceptor has both throttle and pedal assist. Also, it has a really cushy saddle and suspension seatpost. And, since the sun was about an hour to setting, head and taillights we a necessity.

After our helmets were donned, we were off. Well, sort of. We kind of needed my best friend to know how an electric bike rides before we just took off. Since it had been a while since she had last ridden a bike, I think she also needed the confidence boost. I had her fiddle around with the pedal assist and the feeling of being “assisted”. Then we played around with the throttle and talked about why I use a throttle (intersections and hills). Once I started seeing her feel more comfortable, we were finally off. It only took about 5 minutes for her to feel comfortable, but I felt it was necessary to try the bikes out in our parking lot before deciding to commit to a long bike ride.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure how long we’d be biking. But, I was sure that she would love the experience.

We decided to ride down the street to visit her brother, who happened to work at a local brewery’s production facility. We were able to park our bikes near their empty kegs and tour the facility. We were paraded through dozens of shiny, silver 30-gallon fermenting tanks, through the canning area, and around the tower of oak barrels. Overall, a pretty fantastic experience. (Don't worry, we didn't drink.) We even had the production crew riding our bikes, which was a sight to see since they were wearing galoshes.

After a farewell, we were off again. We rode on a winding, hilly path, across the highway, and down some residential areas. It was sunset by the time we were riding over the Pottawatomie Bayou bridge, which was absolutely gorgeous. Our ride concluded back to the shop. We clocked in an hour of biking time and about 12 miles.

The conditions for the ride were awesome. Warm, but not enough so to make you sweat; windy, but not awful. The only thing that was less than pleasant about the trip was the amount of bugs. Oh-my-word. The nice, warm weather brought all of the little gnats and biking by the water just had them surrounding us. Blegh. Beyond that, it was a great ride.

Will we go on another e-venture? Possibly. Perhaps I should write, "Best Friend Adventures pt.1" and end this blog with one of the quintessential cliff hangers. 

"Best Friend Adventures...The End?"