Back home from our most-awesome road trip for the Horsey Hundred, my wife and I chose the tandem for our Monday morning ride. We had the Deer Loop on tap with a little add-on heading north up to Durand with a nice SSW pushing us.

The first six miles were a little challenging with the cross-headwind but once that was out of the way, the headwind section was actually quite nice. My wife and I have been working excellently well together on the tandem and, believe it or not, I’ve actually come to prefer that over single bikes. Perhaps this isn’t all that surprising considering we’ve put so many miles on the bike. The thing is dialed in perfectly.

We rolled around the route, sometimes struggling, sometimes flying, till we got the the tailwind section of the ride. Durand Road heading north on a tandem. This is the best stretch of road I know of on a tandem. It’s downhill for four miles with a sprint finish at the Durand City Limits sign and we rock it out every time.

We knocked out a nice 25-mph average on that section before I noticed a wobble in the back wheel. We ended up stopping to take a look because it was a little disconcerting… and I found we’d worn the tire to the Kevlar in a patch about six inches long. We ended up deciding on riding it home gingerly, hoping for the best.

We pulled into the driveway just fine, happy about the time we spent on the bike. We ended up with 36-1/2 miles at an 18.1-mph pace.

The rest of the day was a blur of activity, once we cleaned up and took our older daughter to lunch. Once home, we took a quick nap and I headed out to cut the grass… which needed it desperately. I knocked out the front and back, leaving the back 40 for my daughter. I knocked out the trimming next, got the AC unit ready for the summer.

Then, for the evening capper, my wife and I took our kids to see “Top Gun Maverick”. It’s a rarity that a sequel can measure up to an original, especially after 36 years, so I was expecting “close enough for government work”. I won’t spoil anything except to say this is one of the rarest cases where the sequel exceeds the original. There were cheers when the movie ended. My daughter was in tears, my wife misty, and the two of us clutching our hands so tight we were a couple of psi from cutting off circulation. If you even liked the original, you’ll love the sequel.

Once home, we called it a night… after counting alphabetical animals to fall asleep. What a fantastic weekend.