September rides

[Crankin]

We barely made it to the meeting place to go to the ghost bike service... not like us at all, but about 12 of us left from a guys's house, about a mile from the spot. It was lovely and moving, and while sad, I didn't really cry. I felt like it a few times, but I come from a religious tradition which doesn't really have the hysterical crying at funerals, so not a problem. There were probably 200 people there! There were 3 ministers, 2 from the man's church, and one woman who is involved in cycling advocacy and rides, and is a minister. They changed some traditional prayers to a cycling theme, and gave examples that were relevant to the situation, from gospel, which was interesting to me, as I know nothing about the New Testament. At the end, they sang Amazing Grace and gave out white roses to leave by the ghost bike. I think i read it's only going to be up for awhile, but it was nice, and the police were friendly to us and did a good job blocking the road and redirecting traffic that was surprised, as this was on a main road.
The hardest thing for me was to see the man's son, a young marine, in full dress uniform, who reminded me of my son. He was in boot camp when it happened, and couldn't come home, so this is why the service was today. I hope i never go to one of these again.
We decided to ride home the long way, and actually got in a 17 mile ride, enough before the charity ride tomorrow, which has been changed, and is now closer in miles to a metric, than 50.