Oh! The People You’ll Meet On Two Wheels

Boulder to Hygiene Brunch Ride

The weekend before last a friend of mine and I headed out from Boulder with the aim of stopping in Hygiene at the Crane cafe for a little brunch time feed. Hygiene is about 12 miles north of Boulder so it’s not an epic event but it’s a great first ride of the season to get the legs moving. The ride out was lovely and unique in that we met up with all sorts of people along the way.

We met up at Amante. I arrived a little early, disturbing a very professional looking group of mtn bikers. A couple of them  looked at me with concern as I rode up on my pink, DeRosa roadie. I assured them I was not joining them, which got a laugh from one out of the eight. Tough crowd.

We headed out towards Hwy36 on Broadway and were just about to make the turn out of town when we ran (or cycled) into Alan Lim of Skratch labs. He was handing out samples of his energy drink and rice cakes, especially designed for athletes. Check out his Web site where he describes the thought and care that has gone into the recipes for his energy foods. I know that I am eventually became grossed out by the sugary, sticky mess that I was eating on long rides and I have to say I really enjoyed the samples he handed out. I was pleasantly surprised by the flavor of the rice cakes as I was not expecting a savory flavor at all. Funnily enough as we pulled away, Alan said “don’t starve”; I shouted back “we are going for breakfast”, which was met with a bit of confusion. I guess I was already wolfing down samples and now was going to go eat more.

Heading out onto Hwy36, we eventually took a right onto Neva. You can actually ride further along 36 and take any number of rights (going south)and eventually run into a road going north that takes you into Hygiene, but we were eager to get off the busy highway. As it turned out, we may have been better off going a little further along because our northbound left turn onto 63 was cut short by road work. The whole road was closed. We noticed another cyclist trying to negotiate a route around but with little luck and not much conviction as he had described a sheriff handing out tickets to cyclist doing the exact same thing the day before.

So we headed back out and eventually turned left onto 75th, which worked out perfectly because we came across yet another cyclist looking for a little photography help, as you would.  She wanted a picture of herself standing in front of the Hygiene Feed sign that read “We have chicks”. Of course, as she was only a singular chick, my friend was co-opted into the pic to provide a plural presence.

Finally, we pulled into the Crane Cafe. I don’t think I had ever had such a social, chatty ride. Cycling can sometimes look quite lonely and singular so it was great to chat with other two-wheeled peeps on Boulder roads.