Owl Ride 2013 and my Monkey Lights

Boy is it ever hard to find people on that ride. It was my first Owl Ride. Somehow, I had always managed to schedule my trips during previous rides. Well not this time. I was excited to do a night ride and see what all the hoopla was about!

Riders rolling out from Old Mattress Factory.

My sister had bought me these "Monkey lights" for my birthday because she had heard about our night pub crawls, taco rides, and night rides to the concerts. Well I haven't ridden too much at night this summer, so I didn't really have the need to put them on. Until now. Basically you have a control board that you attach to your spokes using zip ties. And then you have a battery pack (3 AAs) that you zip tie to your hub. Make sure they are opposite of each other in order to balance out the wheel. Turn it on and go! There are 20+ themes with different color combos. Having attached it during the daytime right before the ride, I had no clue what settings I had going. I was just gonna go with the flow.

Yup, thats an owl on her back

Imagine thousands of bikers on the street at night

So my plan was to meet up with Dave P for the ride. While waiting for him, I saw that the riders were taking off. So I crossed the street from Greenstreet to take some pics. Whoops, missed my phone ringing in my pannier. I continued taking pics until the riders were all gone. I went back to our meeting point, no Dave! Tried calling him, no answer. Then he called me. Found out that he was ahead, so I tried to catch up. He called, turns out he was waiting for me at Zestos. What a mess! haha. But it was all good. Because...about 40 minutes into the ride, I'm heading down one of the residential streets. I hear someone behind me that sounded like Dave talking. I yelled Dave! Yup, it was him right behind me. Crazy how that works like that.

The ride basically started the Old Mattress Factory, rolled up Farnam Street past Crescent Moon, and turned around at AkSarBen. Then it made its way back down Leavenworth to TD Ameritrade Park. The ride was a blast! I've never seen so many people on bikes at night before. Cops had blocked intersections and helped to direct traffic. That had helped alot with the safety of the riders. We stopped at 37th and Farnam where they had DJs and activities set up. Then took off for AkSarBen where we had a drink or two at Mojo. The only part that I disliked about the ride was coming back on Leavenworth. The bike lanes were a big help, but have you ever been down Leavenworth after midnight? In a car, yes. But on a bike? No. Having gone to Creighton, I remember all the stories and shootings that happened at this intersection or that liquor store. Yup, just rolled right by those locations, on my bike! Yikes. But there were still a couple of cops watching out for us. By the time I got back to the Jeep it was 1:30am. I had no clue that it was so late. But we had a great time and I can't wait to do it next year!

Heading down Farnam Street

Passing through Midtown

The first stop, if you chose to do so.

Second stop at 37th and Farnam

They were playing Rockband outside. Except it was a real rock band outside.

Stop #3 for us.

The steeds

It was like an obstacle course!

We made it!

The Monkey Lights!

Supposedly water proof

I totally forgot to check what pattern I had going until the return ride from Aksarben. I asked the crew what I had displayed. Red hearts they said. Oh jeez. 

Supposedly the pattern is only visible at 10mph or greater. I also took pictures of the Owl Ride using the GoPro, but they are still on the GoPro.

That sh*t be growing like mad!

Hibiscus in the back

Tomatoes galore

already picked some tomatoes and jalapenos

Pepper turning red

Fun video!

If you like dogs, check out this video. Was in my email from GoPro. I was half expecting the dog to raise its leg at the end, but it didn't.

Donate Life NE trail run and Heroes' Walk at Tranquility yesterday

Saturday morning was a nice day to go for a ride. I had a few goals during my ride. One was to see Red Delicious play at Tranquility during the Donate Life NE trail run and Heroes' Walk. Second was to get some miles in. Third was to help out with THOR at the run/walk. Well two of those things happened.

So somehow, THOR dropped the ball on this one. I had read early last week on a FB post that volunteers were needed on bike to help with this bike/run. Okay. Well I arrived towards the tail end of the run/walk and Mary was the only one there to represent THOR. And she was out on bike. She was with two other folk, but they weren't part of THOR. And I was half expecting THOR to have a booth set up, after all, it was a run/walk on a THOR maintained course. No representation. I'm not here to complain because I myself didn't volunteer, but there were over 400 people there and I just figured it would have been a great way to get the THOR awareness out there. Oh well. Learn from our mistakes. Maybe next year?

Red Delicious kept the crowd entertained while EMS was there with a fire truck, there was a bounce house, Children's hopsital and UNMC helped to sponsor, along with various other organizations and businesses. Food and goodies were given away throughout the event. There was a 1.2 mile heroes walk, or a 3+ mile run for those a little more adventurous. http://beta.active.com/omaha-ne/running/trail-run/donate-life-nebraska-trail-run-and-heroes-walk-2013

Anyway, got my 15 mile ride in from home. It was a great start to a great weekend!

The blue skies and beautiful weather almost made me want to do a gravel ride. I said almost...