I was the editor/publisher of the newsletter for the Aiken (South Carolina) Bicycle Club for most of the 90’s. The best part about it was creating the ride schedule because I kept the format my predecessor created, giving the rides names that referenced something that happened on that particular date. The club did a ride on both Saturday and Sunday. Ride leaders volunteered for the day and the the length of the ride at the monthly meeting of the previous month but I made up the ride title. Here is the ride schedule for February 1994…
Sat. Feb 5 – 8:00 AM
Track Kitchen Ride. The Cold Weather Rule is suspended for this 8:00 am ride. Don your warm woollies and cycle with Woody Huffines <642-7257> on this 1.5 miler to the Track Kitchen, a horsy Aiken institution, to put on the breakfast feedbag. (3 miles/E)
Sun Feb 6 – 1:00 PM
Longest Drive Ride. Donna Bogardus <642-0767> will lead this edition of the Sunday Fun Ride, 23 years after Alan Shepard hit the longest golf drive ever. It was also the longest drive to get to the course, 239,000 miles. (10-15 miles/E)
Sat Feb 12 – 1:00 PM
The Vanishing Red M&M’s Ride. Doug Walker <649-5929> will lead today’s ride on the 18th anniversary of the FDA’s banning of red dye #2 in food, drugs & cosmetics. (30-40 miles/M)
Sun Feb – 1:00 PM
Disavow Your Copernican Beliefs Ride. Ride along with Doug Felix <649-1780> as he retraces Galileo’s route into Rome to stand trial before the Inquisition in 1633 for his belief in the heliocentric theory of planetary movement. (10-15 miles/E)
Sat Feb 19 – 1:00 PM
Diathermy Machine Ride. Come ride with Bill Young <648-3898>, as he offers up his idea for a new loop 4 today. Hopefully, when finished, no one will need the services of this device first used 70 years ago on this date. (25 miles/M)
Sun Feb 20 – 10:00 AM
Bankruptcy Ride. Clint Johnson <649-4972> will lead a careful off-road ride so as not to duplicate Austria’s trick of going belly up back in 1811. Put your MTB on the car rack for the ride to a local trail. (10-12 miles/E-M)
Sun Feb 20 – 1:00 PM
First American in Orbit Ride. Join John Glenn lookalike ABC V.P. Ed Leibfarth <279-9161> on a fun ride that promises to be shorter than Friendship 7’s 4-hour & 56-minute flight in 1962, but no less exciting. (10-15 miles/E)
Fri Feb 25 – 6:15 PM
Moonlight Levee Ride. Brian Bogardus <642-0767> will lead this night trip along the Augusta Canal. Meet at Weeks @ 6:15 for the caravan-o’-cars over to, or meet at the Confederate Powder Works Chimney @ 7:00. (12 miles/E)
Sat Feb 26 – 12:00 Noon
National Currency Act Ride. Jaye Pearce <642-3856> leads her second ABC ride, 131 years after President Abraham Lincoln assured his place on the $5 note by signing this bill into law. (40 miles/M)
Sun Feb 27 -1:00 PM
Double Golden Ride. Come out and help Leslie Romano <649-6204> celebrate what she says, is her and husband Joe’s 100th wedding anniversary, by riding approximately 1/10 of a mile for every year of what, up until now, Joe thought was matrimonial bliss. (10-15 miles/E)