This was a Springbike Club sponsored ride this past Saturday. We had a choice of two ride distances, 100 or 50 both metric. Only 8 of us showed up and 6 decided to do the shorter distance leaving 2 of us to ride the longer one and spend more time in the rain. Tony (my riding partner for the day) and I started out and made about 24 kilometers when the heavens opened up for the first time. We stopped at a convenience store and had some hot chocolate. Tony discovered that his bike computer was out of battery life so the store clerk charged it for us. It was raining hard enough so we didn’t mind losing an hour and a half waiting for his computer to charge. We needed it because he had the route stored on it. After we finished our drinks and there was some charge on the computer we started out again. Most of the route was flat but we found some hills about 45 kilometers in with some good inclines. We also saw some beautiful farmland and some farm houses.

This is Tony and I thank him for riding with me and towing me when necessary.

3 rides down and 17 to go.

Thanks for perusing,

Gary

Gary’s Century Rides

I’m writing this on Tuesday morning before I go out to the wood shop at the ranch. In four days I will be riding another century ride to raise financial support for some projects that I am personally involved in at the ranch. This will be the third ride with fifteen to go over the next 18 months that we are in Missouri.

As I am writing this and preparing to go out to the wood shop for the day I thought that I should share where we are in the dreaming and development of the wood shop.

This is the current barn that houses the wood shop

This is our current space with one bench.

The barn is about 120 yards from the house so each Saturday I will take three boys at a time for about a 1&1/2 hours time to learn joinery and hand skills. I would love to have a separate dedicated shop but it is not even on the horizon yet of anyone else’s dream just mine. Let’s just say it would be nice to have it closer to the house and to be more airtight.

The space is 9’x 16′ and fortunately it is a raised platform. This provides an easier floor to stand on and protection for dropped tools. I have plans for two additional benches with wall hung tool cabinets for each. I have donated the bench above to the ranch and also some of mine hand tools that I have been gathering over the years. The wood in the back ground is some 4″ boards that I cut out of some fallen trees from the tornado in 2015. These will become the bench tops and the 4″x 4″ boards on the left will become the legs and stretchers. I need to buy some vice screws and some hold fasts for the benches. Inside each wall cabinets will be: 3 handplanes, 3 saws, 3 chisels, a mallet, various marking tools for laying out joints and some other as needed tools. Inside another cabinet will be some specialty tools that will be shared by all three bench stations.

I’m looking into having a heater for the winter months and a fan for the summer( it reached 114 degrees inside the barn this August).

So there is my dream and so far you have helped raise $795.00 of the $1500.00 for the wood shop. Thank you so much. In addition to riding for Whetstone and raising money, Kristin and I fund these rides out of our pocket, so everything you give goes to Whetstone. Again, I thank you so much. The link to contribute is:Gary’s Century Rides.

I’ll report this weekend about the ride in Springfield. Have a great week.

Thanks for perusing,

Gary