A Warm December Day

I am going to interrupt my 2023 recap posts. Why? Well….It was 60 degrees in December in MN and that meant getting out in the country for a ramble. It was just too good not to share!

When you live in MN and you get a chance for a long ride on a warmish day with dryish roads you just have to take advantage of it. I got my chores done, errands run and emails sent. I chose my lovely Tumbleweed Stargazer for the day. I didn’t want to take my big camera today. Rather I wanted to just have fun and carry as little as possible on the bike to maximize both my presence in the spaces. For this ride, I choice a 15 year old Ricoh GX200 point and shoot camera.

For the photo geeks out there, this might be quite a surprise. It’s old. It’s slow. It doesn’t always focus on what you want it to focus on. But I don’t care. The old CCD sensor has such a natural, or built in, vintage vibe. It’s got a 24-72 zoom lens. It shoots RAW. It’s tiny and fits in a jersey pocket or frame bag easily. I tucked this little gem away and went out to ramble. For this special December day I chose one of my favorite old routs, the Rawland Route and modified it with some Heywood 55 and some of my own favorite roads. I also threw in about 5 or 6 mile of new gravel I had never ridden.

As I said, my focus or the day was simply to enjoy it, be completely present in the space and have some fun. This old cam captured both my mood as well as my experience perfectly. I know some of these shots aren’t perfectly in focus. Oh well, that’s what you get when you try to not stop and shoot from the moving bicycle. It is also a reminder that even when you are not fully seeing perfectly you can still experience the world through sight, smell and feel.

So take a gander. Hope you get the vibe I was going for on this ride an in today’s post. As alway, click on any image to move to slideshow mode.