Swap, Sunset, Stupid, Second

I started my Memorial Day weekend off with a trip to the office to get some equipment swapped out. I brought Elsa and Mia along for the ride. Elsa loves going to the office, Mia seemed to enjoy it as well. The work took a little while but went without major complications

Saturday night my girlfriend and I headed to the beach to watch a sunset while enjoying a Cayman Jack or two. It was very pleasant at the beach especially since most of the afternoon had been rain filled. It was quite a contrast from the last time we visited the beach for a sunset where we freezing from temps around 70 with strong wind. There were a bunch of people in the water. We waded into it ourselves and were pleasantly surprised just how warm the water has become already.

On Sunday morning we went to the gym but took our PEV transportation, me on a wheel and her on the e-bike.

On the ride we hit the nearby greenway, a normal riding spot for me since I have moved. I was not happy to see this portable sign along the path warning people that Stage 1 enforcement has begun restricting PEV’s. All over the country there are governments cracking down on PEV’s, most notably E-motos like the Surron. Surron riders have become infamous for riding like maniacs on public streets doing crazy wheelies and other gymnastics in the middle of traffic.

The new laws make e-motos basically illegal to operate on public roadways and pathways such as this. E-bikes as in devices with pedals are allowed but they are speed capped at 28MPH along with other restrictions when riding on sidewalks. I have seen a ton of e-bikes rolling with traffic going damn close to 40MPH. So in an area like this path we were riding I don’t think an e-bike is illegal but you may be required to be pedaling to use it.

So that leaves my EUC in a weird spot. I have often described it as a one wheel E-bike but it obviously can not be pedaled. It is in a weird niche that is not actually defined in the new rules so I am not sure what would happen if law enforcement tried to crack down on my riding. Hopefully I won’t find out. Unfortunately this push to limit PEVs is caused by a few people doing stupid things and in many cases publishing these stupid things to social media to get clicks and likes, a common template nowadays.

My Memorial Day included my second ever pickleball tournament. This had a much bigger field than the mini-tournament I played before and much higher competitionlevel as well. We went 5-1 in our pool play, won our semifinal match but then lost in the finals to the same team that beat us in pool play. However the highlight of our day was winning that semifinal match.

The team we played consisted of two 14 year old girls wearing matching outfits. They were both obviously highly skilled, coached, and trained. They were undefeated in their pool play and had a large cheering section. They very quickly got up on us 4-0 as both my partner and I were surprised by just how good they were. They were aggressive, fast and loud.

However as the match went on we slowed down their scoring while scoring some points of our own. As we brought the score back to 6-6 the girls started to get frustrated and made more unforced errors. We continued to grind away and wound up winning the game 11-7. Although the girls were highly skilled in pickleball they were not highly trained by their parents to be good at losing. It was clear they expected to win it all.

They followed up by losing the bronze medal match as well which I heard had some more bad behavior by the girls including some clear miscalls on out balls. Of course nobody is ever happy to lose but good sportsmanship is an important trait that seems to be harder to come by nowadays.

I was pretty wiped out after playing 8 games in the hot and humid conditions. After enjoying a Memorial Day style lunch of hot dogs I wound up taking a nap for a couple hours in the afternoon. Today I have some soreness and aches in my lower body but not all that terrible based on 4 hours of playing. I enjoyed getting out there and competing on a semi-serious level. It was throwback to all of those volleyball tournaments I played in for a decade.