Everybody Loves a Happy Ending

How does one recount a 50-mile ride with Boy Scouts? I think that the first thing is to realize that no Scouts died on the ride; and everyone who started the ride finished it. That alone qualifies as a happy ending. However, beyond that, there's a lot of random thoughts that can go through a leader's mind through the course of a day.

There is the beautiful scenery, the sun rising over the mountains, the wonderful views of the hills dropping into Bear Lake. There are the fun breaks that included geocaching. There's the retracing of the LOTOJA route - backward -- between Ovid and Montpelier, ID. There's the bananas, Newtons (in many flavors), Gatorade, muffins and other good food.

Then, there's encouraging Scouts to keep riding. There's figuring out novel ways to say that we're not even half way there yet. There's the fiftieth time you've told someone to keep pedaling. There's the incessant griping about the huge hills they have to climb.

There's the stretch where the pavement ends and the leader on the road bike pounds the dirt along with everyone else on their mountain bikes. There's hearing the turn-by-turn history and geography of Dingle, ID.

There's getting the boys to wake up at the crack of dawn to be on the road before the winds kick up. There's hoping that everyone remembered that they will need sunscreen before the day is out. There's realizing that not everyone did.

There's seeing the group of four cyclists fly past and wanting desperately to join them, if only for a few miles. There's more encouraging boys to keep riding. There's the thrill of charging from the back of the pack, past all the riders to film them and realizing that you are, indeed, the strong rider in the pack. There's realizing that no-one in the lead group has a bike computer, speedometer, or any idea where they're going, and that all the navigation aids are a good kilometer behind them.

There's the realization that the Boy Scout motto of, "Be Prepared" would be a wonderful thing for all Scouts to live by. There's the realization that "Do a Good Turn Daily" means helping others, but it could also mean keeping the pedals turning through the day.

There's the realization that, a few quick spikes excluded, your heart rate hovered close to 100 bpm the entire seven and one half hours. There's the realization that your average speed was not even on the same chart as most of your training rides.

Then, there's the final realization that for all the good and the bad, you really enjoyed the ride anyway, and you'd love to ride the same route again. But maybe this time with those four cyclists who flew by early in the ride. Ultimately, it was a happy ending. And everybody loves a happy ending.