Sometimes you eat the PMBAR. Sometimes the PMBAR eats you.

I'll be starting my twentieth PMBAR this Saturday at 8:00AM.  This time, I will be showing up at the start line with my eighth partner, Nick Barlow.

To loosely quote Taylor Negron ("Whitey") from Whoopee Boys, "You can't just switch Dicks midstream... but you can swap Dick's partners."

"Whitey"- back left, in his performance of a lifetime, Oscars be damned

Watts has been my stable partner since 2016, so that makes seven PMBARs together (dammit, COVID).  The yin to my yang.  The pea to my carrot.  The brioche bun to my grass-fed, half pound, all beef patty.  Unfortunately for me (fortunate for him), he's been whisked away to Spain to cover (or not) some gravel affiliated things for Bike Rumor (look for future posts (or not) there).

He will be deeply missed, but we'll be riding a hundred and something miles all over Richmond, VA in a month, so I'll live. 

Nick will be a great partner.  Why?

1. He is strong like bull.  The kind of scary strong that makes you worried about partnering up and holding them back.  I mean, he rides a trainer... even sometimes when it's nice outside.

2. He's a good hang.  We have been on multiple adventures in this lifetime, and he's provided me many good member berries.

3. He's been riding his garvel bike a lot and his mountain bike very little.  This should help me keep him in sight on the descents, since I'm slightly more reserved nowadays since I exposed my kneecap to the world last September.

4. He also would rather do this on a single speed than a geared bike because he's done a few PMBARS and knows he'd rather not drag too much bike around for eight to ten hours.

5. He's grown into quite the adult, and I'm not worried in the least about his ability to get his shit together and be uber-dependable.

6. He has no expectations of glory, and neither do I.  Although Watts and I have never not been on the single speed podium at the end of the day (with an occasional top five overall), we usually land on a lower step because we fell into success ass-backwards despite all the mistakes we (me?) made.

7. He wears prescription glasses now, so it will be nice to share in the misery of mandatory eyewear if it moists from the sky.

I'm wary of letting myself get a little too excite about Saturday.  This past month has been lived very much day by day with very pensive expectations for joy.  

How day by day?  That bike lived in my work stand for over two weeks waiting for some much needed love... and that made my head hurt every time I looked at it.  A minor task, but one that I didn't wanna do with divided attention.  Brakes should work when you need them to.  

Sigh.

That said, once I wake up in my tent (I hate you, locals) my phone will be on airplane mode, and I'll be in full PMBAR mode.

I'm so looking forward to having my best day in the woods... again... for the twentieth time.

Bootlegger 100 '24

Don't wanna hear a "womp womp" from the gallery, but it seems silly to do a blow-by-blow race post that ends in a precise and mediocre mid-pack 16th place finish in the men's' 50-59 category.

Ooop.  Spoiled alert.

I wasn't looking forward to riding alone with my brain.  Fortunately, my pal Burke had signed up for the hundred mile option that's actually one hundred and seven miles, but who's counting?  I found him at the starting line many rows behind me in the field of 400 plus racers, so he waded through the crowd sans bike to converse.

"I'll slow roll until you catch up, then we ride together... yeth?  I don't want this ride to hurt until it has to."

Burke rolls up eventually, an we both agree it will be nice when the crowd thins out because why trust strangers.  

So that's the thing about garvel racing and why I don't think I'm a "garvel racer." I ride garvel.  The concept of being in a pace line with who knows who, not knowing if they are decent bike handlers (not saying I am) or paying attention or too tired to keep their shit tight.  To quote Cypress Hill, "I ain't going out like that."  My idea of a good garvel ride is three of four friends riding side by side headlong into the wind and never considering the concept of drafting unless someone is near death towards the end of the ride.  It's a combination of "why cheat myself outta fitness?" and "why ride with friends if you can't talk to each other?"

I tend to race garvel in the same manner.

I was going to wait for Burke when we hit the Parkway, because I really don't wanna be alone.  That said, we were climbing and descending at different paces, so the idea of being out there any longer than necessary didn't sit too well with me.  I felt bad, but I knew he'd understand.

So I kinda ended up riding the last seventy or so miles alone... or in the company of strangers wishing I was alone.

photo cred: Icon Media Asheville

Me (center) riding between two chatty riders diving through a corner at some speed.  This is not my happy place, but I did put myself there, so...

Coming off the Parkway and on to the descent down Pineola that gave me hypothermia in 2019, I was being what I thought was overly cautious, but when I saw a squishy forked, fat-tired garvel man lying in the ditch covered in dust, I decided that was implementing just the right amount of caution.

I took a sorta unplanned eleven mile flyer at mile fifty five or so.  I was trying to stay in the dusty air behind a big white pickup going twenty something miles an hour because it felt so Paris Roubaix of me.  No real point to it, but some rather large man (most men seem large to a four apple me) decided to stick to my back wheel.  When we turned left onto Brown Mountain Beach Rd, I saw a group of six or so riders working together, and rather than jump in and save energy, I decided I wanted to blow by them... and the truck.

So, I did that for no particular reason.  In the end, they started working together, and along with the large man and a regular size woman (my size) that I passed after them, they came back and destroyed me.  Oh well.  I got them all back on the slog out of Maple Sally, but who's keeping score?

photo cred: Icon Media Asheville

The other reason I ride garvel other than frands... scenery.  That does not make me special.  We all like to look around, but if I'm bike cycle sport racing, I have a tendency to focus on all the other things.  I'm rarely ever in a hurry on my garvel bike, unless we've decided on a beer stop ahead or we're running outta daylight getting back home from the beer stop.

Washboard!

Braking bumps are one thing.  Either you can see the successive dips or all the bottles dislodged from their cages twenty feet ahead.  But washboards?  Coming down off of Maple Sally, I was not so pleasantly surprised by what I couldn't see but most certainly felt.  I'd considered panic-buying a eeSilk stem a couple weeks ago, but thought better of it.

1. I didn't know if I'd find the time to install, let alone ride it before the Bootlegger.
2. I don't think I'd need it for 99% of the riding I do.

3. It would cut into my tattoo budget.

Those multiple washboards on what by my observations of other Bootleggers are undersized tires were near death experiences.  

On my cycling data acquisition device (CDAD?), I never looked at the time.  I assumed time would not stop or go backwards.  I glanced at the calories, not so much to make informed decisions about fueling my efforts but just outta curiosity.  I occasionally glanced at the mileage, but since I never had a chance to take note of where any of the aid stations are, that information was pretty useless as well.  Most of the time, I was just looking at the map (with no preloaded course) and watching my black triangle move along the green/yellow/orange/climbing segments.  It was like playing a video game, except it hurt more than just my feels.

I also considered that once I was done with this ride, which I was pretty determined to finish, this would stand as my longest ride recorded on STRAVA (since I bought a CDAD in 2019)... probably forever.  It wiped the regretful worst experience ever at the Shenandoah Mountain 100 (actually 101, but who's counting?).  "Probably forever" because I don't know if I like riding my bike for more than six hours at a time any more.  PMBAR doesn't count, because I'm definitely not "riding" the whole time, so don't bother coming at me with that.  Sixty sounds fun, eighty sounds like an adventure, but a hundred seems like proving a thing that I don't know I need to prove anymore.

Well, that is until I do again.

That won't be any time soon.

I like my streak well-done

I'm doing my best to settle into the fact that my 2024 "season" might be the first one without a mountain bike stage race since I first did La Ruta de los Conquistadors in 2004.  I'm also dealing with the irony that I'm publishing this post on the very day the Pisgah Stage Race starts, which I did last year... and it just happened to be the end of the streak.  Who knew?

BTW: I found these images in scrap books at my mom's house while packing her stuff for the big move.  She was printing out race reports from MTBR(?!?) years before the blerhg kicked off in January 2006.  Those pre-blerhg posts were my first dabblings in longer form writing, which started another streak... which is also destined to die at some point.  *sigh*

Twenty years is a very long streak, one that I will have a difficult time letting go.  Ever since that first one, I started in with a "what's next?" attitude.  2005 Trans Rockies?  People on the TR forum told me it would be impossible on a rigid single speed.  To put that into the "when I was a kid, we walked uphill both ways in five feet of deep snow" perspective, it was a seven day duo-only event, and we had plenty of seven hour plus days riding from one tent camping location to another living outta nothing more than we could stuff in a duffel bag... so yeth kids, stage racing was harder back then.

I did the last stage of the '05 Trans Rockies in Trish's skort, which let me tell you, descending steeps on a high posted 26" rigid bike while wearing a skort came with plenty of challenges.

Anyhoo, I was hooked on stage racing from then on.  All said and done, I finished twenty seven stage races in those twenty years (I'm not including and Tour de Burgs because it's not really real).  I only dropped outta two because of injuries that kept me from going on, and did half of the one week long '13 BC Bike Race with explosive diarrhea.  Good times.  I earned that belt buckle for sure.  

Obviously, I fell in love with Breck Epic and Trans-Sylvania Epic being that I did them eight and ten times respectively.  They're also the two that I tearfully dropped out of when I had my "you're not getting back on a bike tomorrow" injuries.  I've wrecked out of or quit plenty of races in my time, but those were surely the heaviest blows to my feels. 

I'm aware of the fact that eventually there's always gonna be a "last time" for everything, and I'm not always gonna be aware of that in the moment.  I can remember when I thought I'd do at least one hundie a year until I couldn't go the distance anymore, but I haven't saddled up for one since that shit show 2021 SM 100 when I showed up on a geared bike (for the first time ever) with two major nagging injuries and had my worst time ever... so I'd hate for that to be my "last" hundie in my life... but mebbe? Terrible way to leave off, I'd say more so the doing it on a geared bike than the being so slow or riding while injured and making my injuries worse tho.

This year has certainly been a reset for me... mebbe a realignment.  Being a good son has become a bigger priority.  The Pie and I have been working pretty hard on this, and when we work together, we're always better together.  

We celebrated our 29th anniversary this past Sunday by rummaging through our neighbor's garbage.

I used to be more consumed with, for lack of a better term, "cutting edge" bike stuff.  Refining my gear, staying in shape, having relative goals, considering what bike I'd want to be my next "last bike."  Now, I'm 99% content with all the things, and that's just not a feeling I'm used to after twenty five years of endurance mountain bike cycle sport racing.  That's going all the way back to when I was cutting the straps and hoses on my hydration packs to save weight for 24 hour races.

What a ding-a-ling.

Speaking of which, I can remember my last 24 hour race being the one I quit at 1:00AM while I was in second place overall (on my stupid rigid single speed) when I realized a little too late that I really didn't like doing this to myself anymore.  I definitely don't want my next stage race or any other stupid event to be my "last" in that same manner.  

All that said, this year will just be different for me.  My important adult stuff has to get handled, and then I'll get to think about what I'll do with my spare time.  My '24 "season" over there on the sidebar will be added to as soon as I can get back to steering my own ship.  I've got a big week coming up before the Bootlegger 100, but if I can make it happen, I'll be there.  I have no regrets dropping out of the race back in 2019 with "mild" hypothermia, but I've wanted to defeat that demon.  That said, I'm planning on riding my geared garvel bike... mostly because getting my doors blasted off riding outta Lenoir on a 32X18 mountain bike sucked all the balls.  That said, the last time I rode a hundred miles on a geared bike went how?

Oh yeah.

And also dammit.

I don't have the wherewithal to take the Epic EVO SS apart to nab the tensioner and then de-gear the Crux just for a one day thing, and I'm 99% sure I won't have the time to do all the swapping once I figure out at the last minute if I can actually go to the Bootlegger... so there's that.

I think that's plenty of yammering for now.  More later, I guess.

Triple Dip v20.24

For the uninitiated, the Triple Dip v20.24 was twenty five or so miles of party paced riding interspersed with six racing stages that were promised to be harder and longer than in previous years.  Anticipated saddle and titty-dicking time of about nine hours.  Yeth, nine hours.

The Pie was kind enough to drop me off at the start, so I'd finally be able to enjoy more than one beer at the awards ceremony.  Bless her heart.  In the parking lot, I loaded my fanny pack with one of Jordan's breakfast burritos, which I was fortunate to have, being that my planned preparations the night before were mangled by two hours of unexpected paperwork for my mom's new residence. 

It's a quick (for the Triple Dip) thirty five minute ride over to Riverwalk for the first stage.  I try to listen closely to RJabroni's race directions, but it's a muddled mess in my head.

"Go right but stay left and left again but up a hill that you'll see two times I mean three times and come through the creek three times I mean two times and finish?"

Hmmm.

"Racers ready..."

Keith takes off.

I look at Seth.  He goes.  I follow.

"Go."

Everyone else takes off... I guess.

I follow Seth's wheel through the first turn where there's a couple paper plates stapled to a tree with arrows on them.  One is encouraging, one less so.  Seth went left.  I go left.  The riders behind me, for the most part, go right.

"You're going the wrong way!" I hear someone shout way down the hill.  Guessing that I'm going the less popular way, and that someone would be yelling at the larger group... dunno.

I stay hard left, and Bonnie decides to join me.

In the end, supposedly we went the correct way but ended up missing a turn whilst the people behind us went the wrong way but ended up back on course whilst Bonnie and I went on a much longer but pleasant bike ride waaaaaaaaaaaaay off course.

At least I no longer need to worry about "performance" any longer, and since I'm hacking up a lung and spitting out oysters every time I stop riding, mebbe I won't try anymore?

Anticipating a long ride to the next stop, I pull out my breakfast burrito and consume the whole thing... not knowing we were less then a mile from the next stage of intense racing action.  I at least understand the directions a little better, since we were doing portions of the Winter Shart Tarck course (albeit backwards).  I don't particularly remember any official start of the race, but I hear people yelling at me from behind to go, so I do.  I get the hole shot, give up the trail to a much faster than me Seth, ride two laps of what I'm pretty sure is about 90% of the correct course, and finish second.  Kinda.

I'd done the third course in previous years' Dips.  I know to line up towards the front, as the trail is mostly super narrow.  Still, I somehow end up behind the guy on a cyclocross bike, and I'm very aware that there's a super chunky rock garden climb that ain't gonna work out so well for him.  I manage to get around him with only Seth and an e-bike in front of me, but Keith took the bridge shortcut on the last lap avoiding the gnarly climb, thus snagging second.  Cheating isn't against the rules, since there are no rules to begin with (except pick up your trash), so there really is no "cheating"... so I make sure I grab the card for second place anyways.

All images from Mary Kaye Zugelder 

Fast guy Seth being better at bikes than me.

Fast guy Keith also being better at bikes than me.

Just me being the best me I can be.  Both Seth and Keith have moto backgrounds, so I'm going to tell myself I don't suck.

I forgot to mention that there were blow-up pirate cutlasses randomly strewn about the woods.  They would be worth something.  Race points?  Prizes?  The honor of carrying blow-up toys around in the woods all day for no reason?  Figuring if they were worth anything in terms of race points, I made it my sole purpose to find as many as I could.  I'd found two before we even left the third stage.

Details get a little fuzzy after that.

Seth had to leave because he had no idea this was a nine hour thing.  He normally doesn't take that long to cover 35-40 miles.  He hands me his playing cards (points) and heads out.  I don't plan on using his earned points but mebbe?

The number of people still racing starts to dwindle on the final three stages.  Racers turn into party pacers as the day drags on.  It's the nature of the beast.  Keith and I are going toe-to-toe'ish at the pointy end, him taking stage four, and with both of us missing the final turn on stage five, I get a lucky off-trail line straight through the woods to finish ahead of him by a smidge. 

I also find two more cutlasses.

At the final shirts-off stage, I almost miss the start because I'm not paying attention.  I mean, this year many of the spectators decided to join the shirts-off party, so I had no idea the racers were lining up without me. 

Keith gets the early lead, and the course winds up and down the edges of a few random gullies.

Only including this pic since it looks like Keith is riding around with me in a toddler carrier behind him.

I get around him on a climb when I see a spot, hoping to take one legit "W."

"I can see where we can cheat."

There's an up-down and another up-down right next to each other where one could avoid a trip back down and up the hillside.

"Nah, I want all of it."

Keith takes the option on the last lap, so I end up in second place but feeling much better about playing Seth's cards for points.  Mebbe with that and my found plastic swordery, I could still be the fastest man-person?

Back at Hobo's for the awards.  Points tallied.  I get fastest man-person award, Jason second fastest man-person.

Keith takes home the coveted Triple Dip cup for the year. 

He'll have some big clown shoes to fill, because as I started accessorizing the cup in its first year (that would be my hoppy pen__ on the middle tier), last year's winner Ryan did the same and took the game to a whole new level by bringing a portable rear rack mounted bar.
.

I'm expecting Keith to bring a bounce house and a five gallon jug of baby oil.

Anyhoo, nothing really matters other than yet another year of riding along with the rolling dad joke that is the Triple Dip. 

Thanks everyone and everybody.

Happy, Doc, Grumpy, Dopey, Bashful, Sleepy, and Sneezy

I've been all them dwarves and then some over the past two weeks.  Also Coughy, Bloaty, and Smelly.  Also also Whiney, Bitchy, and Moany.

Things were going right as rain following the Watts Fappening a couple weeks ago.  I followed up a solid garvel ride Sunday with two post work Backyard Trail excursions, a big monster loop in the mountains, and a decent romp at the Whitewater Center on a day that I really shoulda been recovering from those previous days.  The weather was just too nice to not get at it and give 'er.  I've only got so many days left on the planet, so I try to use them up like Chuckie Cheese tokens when my parents tell me that we're leaving in fifteen minutes.

Idiot.

I knew the pollens were higher than Snoop at Lollapalooza '09, but the conditions were too primo to ignore.  I'd suspected that running would fall to the wayside once Daylight Savings kicked in and trail riding would be too tempting in whatever spare time I had available.  Sunshine and 70° is my crack cocaine with slightly fewer downsides.  That was the most saddle time I'd seen in a given span of time without there being some stupid race tossed into the mix.

Backyard do take a bite, don't she?

Early last week, I was having the usual Monday morning elevator conversation.  I mentioned that I could feel my allergies kicking in.

"You start taking your meds yet?"

My what?

So much new-to-me trail up in Old Fort these days.  I shoulda YOLO'ed but didn't tho.

I'm a bit more reactionary than proactive when it comes to my health.  I'd never considered pre-medicating for an expected issue.  Regret.

The was enough leftover pizza from work to share with frands on our big day in the mountain woodsen.

I let it sneak up on me.  Slight sinus pressure.  Some sneezing.  Sore joints?  What sorcery is this?

Home is where you hang you tiny hat.

I could really see the pollen in the glow of my Niterider on the way home from trivia Tuesday night.  It looked like snow, but yellow, angry snow.  Putting two and two together and getting five, I realized I've been choking this down into my lungs pretty hard for perhaps too long.

I was also celebrating bare knees after six months of regular knee pad use post-Horny Cat 69 incident.  My old man tissues are as good as they're gonna get, and riding in pads up a climb sucks all the balls.

Despite the fact that my allergies were creeping in, AND that I'd been watching the high pollen count pretty closely in Charlotte, AND against the wise advice of The Pie RN, I still went out for a post-work ride last Thursday.

If you ride in the Pisgah without a water filter, either your rides are pretty short or you carry too much water on your back all day... or you rely on your friends who carry filters.

So Thursday was definitely the tipping point.  I've been self-banished to the couch for the pleasure of enjoying short bursts of sleep interspersed with sitting straight up to cough my lung butter out and occasional fumbling around in the kitchen looking for some good drubs to take.

Dammit.

Certain house guests were not amused with all my night time activity in the next room, coughing, stumbling around in the dark, putting random movies on at 3:30AM hoping to bore/distract myself back to sleep, sighing and moaning in a loud manner...

Over this past weekend, I thought mebbe I'd be good enough to get out for a Sad Dad™ greenway ride on Saturday after the rain cleared out.  Nope.  Mebbe a Sunday trip to DuPont?  Not even.  Perhaps settle for the saddest of daddests just to pedal a bike in some sort of manner?  Not close.

Unless pushing my electric mower around wearing an N95 mask counts as a wheeled recreational activity?

I spent most of the entire weekend working on packing my mom's stuff for her move and knocking out whatever low hanging odd jobs needed done around the house.  Ten minute light fixture replacement I've been postponing for months.  Five outta six dirty bikes now clean.  Lost ball in my front tarck bike hub replaced.  Three attic dwelling tubs of holiday decorations sorted and mostly pitched.  Stationary trainer tossed back into the closet (although indoor riding coulda been back on the menu but nah).

All the while, happy people on bikes and feets riding and running past my domicile towards the greenway and trails, mocking me as I stare out the front window from my hermit-like but marginally productive seclusion.

Here's hoping I can get this ship turned around in time for the Triple Dip-v20.24 this weekend.  I don't think I'll be showing up with my A game, but I at least want to be able to enjoy a day of woods play on bikes with frands if I can.

Watts Fappening '24

I admittedly do a piss poor job of photo documenting the Fappening.  Not like it needs to be recorded for historical purposes or anything  It's bad behavior and nothing to aspire to in ones life, but we do it anyways. 

Most of these images are not mine.  After a couple beers, I prefer to keep my valuables in my pocket when possible.  I'm capable of making (some) good decisions.

3:07 PM and two bikes out front of Lower Left for a 3:00 PM start.  This checks out.

We started under similarly inauspicious conditions as we did last year.  Drizzle.  Zero sun.  Wet outdoor seating.  Poorly quaffed hair stuffs.

Beer one.  Yeth, I do cut my own and have zero professional training.

Eventually, our some of our fellow travelers showed up and the Fappening truly began.

I would say we kept things more "in control" this year.  A sign of our advanced age or increasing wisdom associated with life experience.  Those things can not be associated with each other, because I know a lot of ignorant old people do in fact exist.  I've seen them on TV, dodged them in the streets, and probably work alongside my fair share.

Through the heart of the city, AKA The Big Buildings.  Essentially, it's like going to work on my day off.  So.  Many.  People.  About.  Yuck.

North to greener pastures.

I'd forgotten how much I like OG NoDa Brewing.  It's like it doesn't exist... which was a nice change of pace from stop #3 that probably had two hundred people crowding it all up at 5:00PM.

The evening was almost incident free, aside from Christian hitting one of those strange white dome traffic control things, which as far as I know only serve the purpose of injuring cyclists.

OG Common Market and a stroll down member berry lane.  Pretty much the invention of the "a convenience store but you can drink in it" in Charlotte.  Now we live in a world where if a place of business has a checkout register, it more than likely also had a bar... in Charlotte.

It was probably a great accidental idea to have the Fa--- on the night we turned the clocks ahead in order to keep the night well in check.  We were in bed at what I'll call a reasonable hour, enough so that we once again kept our promise to do this the next day:

It may have not been the most spirited garvel ride ever, but we never considered bailing on the entire 56 mile route, so win?

There was some brief discussion about a '25 Fappening and whether or not it should happen or mebbe emphasize the day-after ride with a later start of the consumption portion of the weekend... which makes sense, because we used to start at noon and keep bumping it back in scope and magnitude almost every year.

Now on to serious business from here on out.

Reasons are just well supported excuses

Details about Watts Fappening '24 this Saturday at the very bottom.

Details about other stuff and things right chere. 

I had to buy a new Wahoo data acquisition device.  It does things I'm not used to.  I'm old.  I don't like new.  When the Summit Climb Feature (whatever it's called) kicks in, it makes the sound from Colors by Ice-T.  I do like that.  It does actually work compared to my old one which was failing, and thus it will serve me in the continuation of killing the spirit of single speeding with screens and screens full of useless data.  

Who knew one would need to maintain an EDC tool? Mine was getting sticky a few weeks ago, being all reluctant and whatnot to come out of its hidey hole in my steer pipe. Thought the problem was solved.  Nope.  That nice blood blister is all about trying harder and not smarter.  Meh.  This issue has now been addressed.  DM me for recipes.

I'm still not back up to riding this eroded chute on Cove Creek.  It was in my whale house.  Now it is not.  It has gotten significantly worse since the last time I nailed it almost a year ago.  It's a race to the bottom between my skills/bravery and the power of flowing water shifting rocks the size of loaves of bread.

I hate that I love QT for my "needs."  Garbage food with plenty of calories that never tastes (that) bad.  It's easier than thinking ahead, buying a frozen pizza, heating an oven, keeping my hands off freshly'ish baked pizza outta said oven...

Got into a serious conversation with a hiker at the top of the Butter Gap descent.  I feel bad that I left her with some incorrect information, as I'd forgotten exactly what the whole Butter/Cat reroute was gonna look like.

But as she stood there and basically blamed all the mountain bikers for the damage done to the trails in Pisgah, I had a chance to inform her... a little bit.  With the fine example of how a sustainable trail can be built by looking right there past the fence blocking "new" Butter, I explained how a lot of trails in Pisgah were built without an understanding of how to make a trail that can stand up to the amount of rain that falls in a temperate rain forest.  Old school "water bars" VS grade reversals were both right there on display to contrast and compare.  I pointed out the huge hillside that has to do something with all the water, and that H20 will take the path of least resistance, the fall line trail right in front of it... thus, ditch.  That and about a billionty other things to include all the volunteer work, grants, and fundraising that mountain bikers do to benefit the area (and obvs themselves), and she seemed to take it all very well. 

Dare I say it was a cordial interaction?  Nary a once was I swattened with her hiking poles in my face.

Did I mention I really do love my Vassago Radimus?  I'm in a great place where every bike I own serves a purpose, but this is probably the most smiles per mile machine I have.  Granted, I'm normally "racing" on my now ten year old Vertigo, which means my smile is displayed as "pain face" in moments of heated battlings.

Sure, if I could do this frame in a custom manner, I'd make a few tweaks, but geometry-wise, I wouldn't change a thing.  I have an unparalleled confidence on this bike, and although the first technical trail slapped me in the face this Saturday, we hit it again for shits and giggle at the end of the ride, and we were all peas and carrots again.

Enough of that.  Here's this:

Join us for the billionth sorta-annual Watts Fappening '24. On this journey, we will celebrate Watts's slide into his mid-life/existential crisis, Bill Nye's approximate 50th birth-a-versary, and the exact six month anniversary of me introducing my knee cap to the world (I'll bring my photo album). 

We'll start at Lower Left at 3:00PM and then... 

Triple C 

Monday Night (or if the vibe is bad, nearby Hi Wire) 

Common Market Southend (for beers and grubbage) 

Urban Market District (or OG NoDa is that's a bust) Birdsong (for beer and nuttage) 

Spoke Easy... 

From there... well, then we shall see. If you're trying to catch up to us, expect 45-60 minutes between stops allowing for travel time.

It might be moist.  I doubt that will change things.  Mebbe an update on the FB page if we delay.  Mebbe.