A ride followed by a real ride

I could talk about yesterday's ride or I could talk about the other ride. The training ride went well, after 30 seconds of debating I grabbed the Anthem and headed to Copeland for a little bit of trail action. It was an interval filled ride and because of the terrain I mixed things up a bit. Some hammering up the hills, some what seemed like forever long double track intervals and some race pace single track sessions. Enough that my legs were feeling pretty trashed and I was spinning up a couple hills using every easy gear I had.

Ok enough of that, now comes the important ride. Scan to the right and there should be posts from a few others in that US list. The most talked about ride after the pancake ride came sooner than later. The Fixie pub ride was going to become epic not by any of our influences. There were rules, of course a few were broken but they seemed to have consequences. Fixed, cruisers, single speeds were the only bikes allowed. Avoiding being clipped in was preferred.

Didn't take long for those rules to be broken, they were bent for people who didn't own one of those bikes listed above but what we allowed and what Karma allows are two different things. 10 of us rolled out from my place with a destination of the Quarter Deck restaurant roughly 30 minutes away. There may or may not have been beer in a cage of one or two of those bikes. It didn't take long though for Karma to get made at one of the non fixie riders. 5 minutes in a flat tire appeared on one of the full suspension geared bikes. Take that for not playing along.

Some altered plans were made and we were off again. Two geared bikes gone, one left. As we came closer to our destination some additional challenges, things like barriers and road crossings added some challenge. Karma continued to through up an attack as she teamed up with Mother Nature. The wind picked up a little, then a little more. We can see our destination through the now sand storm that has come up.

Mr. Watson had the challenge of a sail of a front wheel. There was a little sideways leaning as we approached the restaurant but we were short a couple riders. Karma took on the last geared bike and caused the chain to drop. My poor coach was the last on the list of the geared bike take down.

With everyone accounted for the final attack from Mother Nature happened with a tornado/hurricane/typhoon rolling in. 12 foot waves were crashing over the restaurants deck. Slight exaggeration but there was a bit of a challenge getting bikes to stay on the deck. The rain set in moments later



Beers, were ordered. Food was eaten, stories were told and a toast to global warming and Al Gore were made. It was April 3 and most of us were riding in shorts and sandals.

Some took the eating part a little to serious.

Now this is when the fun began. Our start time turned out to be a little later than planned which meant our return time to my house was later. Later equals dark. Dark equals sure death. Of course all of use being extremely experienced racers with lots of attention to detail during prep for a race didn't even consider bringing a light for this ride. The bike path is not well lite, actually it's not lite at all. Those barriers are not glow in the dark. There were continuous games of Marco Polo played and lots of random screams in pure fear as a barrier appeared only feet away. I've ridden that trail so many times that I knew where they should be but that really didn't help.

There were no crashes, the rain and wind had stopped just before we started our return home, no old people were run down, talks of another one of these rides have already started. It may be a little difficult to beat the epicness of this ride. It will be fun trying.