Have you ever run into someone from your distant past on a ride?

[gkeep]

When we started working from home in March 2020 I began taking early morning bike rides since I was no longer doing my commute most days but I still woke up by 6. I met a group of cyclists who live on Bay Farm Island and meet every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the Bay Farm Bike Bridge. They ride around the island and then go for coffee and hang out to chat for an hour. Most are retired of course and the group has been going for 20 years. I kept seeing them but was still working and had to get home. A couple months ago I rode with them a few times and one of the riders and I would always be in the back of the 7-12 riders chatting. About a month ago on the 3rd or 4th ride with them as we pulled into the shopping center we were talking about our dads both working for Lockheed in aerospace and he mentioned he grew up in Cupertino. Said, so did I, what schools did you go to? John says, Regnart Elementary, Kennedy Jr. High and Monta Vista High. I say, I knew Herb Regnart and rode at his stables, I went to Kennedy and Monta Vista. Turns out he graduated the year after me but we knew a number of people in common. Fifty years later...anyone else have stories like this, I'd love to hear them.

They're amused by me coming out with my old bikes. I usually ride the 1916 Pierce but I mix it up. Friday I rode the 1947 Schwinn Girls bike, it was a long cold windy few miles up the south side of BayFarm as they slowly pulled away from me. But after about 8 miles we finished together despite John's modern bike having a serious issue when something broke in his bottom bracket the last half mile.

I had to hustle home as it started to drizzle but fortunately I gave the Pierce a nice cleaning and BLO rubdown a couple weeks ago. A constant battle with the salt air living a block from the bay.

 

[tripple3]

Turns out he graduated the year after me but we knew a number of people in common. Fifty years later...anyone else have stories like this, I'd love to hear them.

Random meeting of a child hood friend, on the river trail, 50 years later.
It was my silly honking of my horn, flying with the birds, and waving at everyone; a couple pulled me over to ask my name.
Not often, but in this case, gave my full name.
To which the lady exclaimed, "Of Impala Lane?"
She grew up on the same street, with a pool, early 1970's.
They moved away, but came back after getting married, Pat & Crystal and their 2 dogs.
I go that way, if the Brookhurst light changes to Green, 1 mile dirt ride.
Met in Fountain Vally, a block from where Sweetie grew up since 1967.

 

[cyclingday]

On one of my morning commutes, I went down in a corner, and broke two ribs and a collar bone.
When they took me in for the X-Ray’s, the technician turned out to be my old girlfriend from high school.
We had fun catching up, while she was zapping me with the gamma rays.

 

[COB]

If a motorcycle ride qualifies, I have a story. A few years ago, I rode my Harley from Indiana to Daytona Beach, Florida for Biketoberfest. When headed back home, I spent a night in a motel in southern Georgia. I was checking the TV weather report and saw that I pretty much everywhere north of me on my route home was under heavy rain and it was not clearing out anytime soon. Not being a fan of riding in the rain, I decided to stay put where I was for another day. So not knowing much about the area I was in, I decided to ride around and check it out. Found out that there are lots of pecan groves and cotton fields there. I then thought that I would kill some time by washing my bike but I could not find a car wash. I pulled into a local car dealership and ask someone there if they could tell me where a car wash was located. He ask if I was just wanting to wash my bike and he told me to pull around back to one of their bays and help myself. You can't beat southern hospitality! Anyway, I pulled in and was washing my Harley when one of the mechanics walked over and started talking to me about my bike. I was bent down cleaning the bike while speaking with the mechanic and was not really looking at him. As he spoke, I realized that he sounded strangely familiar to me. I looked up at him and thought that he also looked familiar. I looked at his first name tag on his dealership shirt and it hit me. I ask where he had gone to high school and sure enough, we had gone to high school together in Indiana 40+ years earlier. It's a small world...

 

[49autocycledeluxe]

kinda the same but completely different I just sold a bike to a guy that I had posted on his Cabe thread about his other bike the week before. he had a Schwinn Corvette he was doing and I posted my crusty Corvette that was currently on Craigslist. I did not mention it was for sale.

he saw the C-list ad and came to buy it then realized it was the bike posted in his thread the week before.

so now I get to watch my old Corvette get rejuvenated into something much better than what I sold.

 

[Jeff54]

As I grew-up in La Puente CA and moved day after HS grad. too Hunnington beach area. If I bump into people of my past from La Pew, Best Idea is to avoid em like a plague.

Just kidding as most of the kids were OK and a few outstanding yet, I have run across 4-5 in which I had hoped would have matured too better pastures, as it were. However, the phrase 'Misery loves company' rings quite true.

On a finer note, in my travels and adventures, including my grown 2 kids who've ventured even more, the Civilized world, even without the net, is a lot smaller than U 'may' think.

 

[Kickstand3]

I don’t know if this counts, but a few weeks ago I was walking out my warehouse and looks like they were having a parade on Main Street. So I jumped on my shop bike and cruised down to check it out . I saw the major so I cruised buy her on my ride. First time ever in a parade . Anyways she said Hi Rolando, I noticed that I was the only non black person . Then I realized the parade was to celebrate June teen . Oops I had no idea just having a little fun

 

[cyclingday]

This one could be posted either here or in the Most Memorable Ride thread.
My longest ride also included running into someone from the distant past.
On a Summer Solstice in the mid 80’s, I wanted to do something that was going to take all day.
So, I decided to ride my bike from home, to San Diego and back.
Roughly 160 miles.
I left first thing in the morning around 6:00 am, and arrived in San Diego at about 11:00 am.
Of course, I was starving, so I went in to a local sandwich shop in La Jolla, California.
I had never been to that shop before, and I have not been to that shop since.
So, the one and only time I’ve ever been there in my life, and I run into another customer, that was a woman who I had met on a river rafting trip on the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada Mountains a few years prior.
She remembered me from the river trip, and we had a nice time reminiscing.
I asked her, if she lived around there, and she said that she didn’t, and had never been to that sandwich shop before either.
Crazy case of the stars aligning I guess.
She thought I was crazy, when I told her what I was doing down there.
As I pedaled off for my return trip, we said goodbye, and have never seen eachother since.
The ride home was long and arduous, but made a little more possible, by the charge I got, from that chance meeting of an acquaintance from the good times gone by.

 

[Ingomary]

I used to be part of the gang who rode highwheels long distances back in the late 1970s early 1980s. One time I was at a bike show with a highwheel and a guy came up and told me all about his good friend who had a highwheel too. I asked him who she was and he said my name. I had no clue who he was and obviously he had no clue who I was ROFLOL. He asked me if I knew "her" and I relied that I knew her really well. I played along a while and he left. fortunately my ex who was with me was rendered speechless and did not say anything to blow it. Flabbergasted he asked me what had just happened and I could only reply that that was the price of being in the public eye. I also had a guy try to sell me "exclusive" copies of an article I wrote about Ingos which is why that article is free to all in the CABE archives.

 

[bobcycles]

only future friends...