About a month ago my wife Jen, and myself went on vacation to the Netherlands to visit my family. We had a fantastic time and one of the biggest surprises to come out of it was an incredibly generous gift from my Aunt and uncle Anke and Reinier.
They gave us money towards purchasing a tandem. As tandem riders themselves they thought that Jen and I could benefit from the "Marriage counseling" that is riding a tandem. With the conversion from Euros to dollars we were able to by one hell of a two-person bike.
Jen found a great deal on craigslist and we quickly got to work logging miles on the tandem almost every day. Usually we do a park loop or two and in the few Weeks that we have owned the tandem I have twice taken Jen out on the hill ride (amazingly we are still married), but we still didn't have any longer rides logged in yet. That was until one of our newest ladies team members, Michelle Lee, had the great idea to go camping. She wanted to go out to French creek state park which is close enough to the city that we could do it by bike. This idea was perfect We could leave right after work on Friday and ride the 50 miles out there and hopefully be at the campsite by sundown or a little after. This was the route we decided to take
Mostly out on the bike path up until Phoenixeville and then up to the park. Nice and simple.
Here we are about to head out from the trellis on West River drive.
Well we made it to the whole foods in Phoenixeville just as they closed at 8 and had to beg our way into their pantry so that we would have something to eat when we got to the campsite. After securing our dinner to the bikes we plotted the rest of our course and headed out as the sun was starting to disappear
After this we didn't get many more shots because it was too dark. We made it to the campsite at around 10 pm and Michelle and Mike made a delicious pasta dinner that had us all filling our bellies with plenty of carbs. We crashed soon after dinner and I hadn't slept that good at a campsite in a long time. Morning came and we were able to take some pictures of our site:
Gratuitous bike shot
Chef Michael after preparing a great breakfast of bacon and eggs
Hungry campers eating said breakfast
Afterwards we packed up and headed out for a scenic ride back.
Michelle had plotted a wonderful route that took us through some of the most beautiful country that Pennsylvania has on offer.
We stopped in Phoenixville for a great little lunch and some beer before heading back into Philly on the bike path.
It was a blast of a weekend and it was only half over at that point. I have to say I was incredibly impressed with my wife, who is not as crazy about bikes like the rest of us are but she still did really well in pushing me along up all the climbs. Thanks again to Anke and Reinier for the wonderful gift that is the tandem.
