Go Utes!

May Day Night Ride

This Thursday is May Day, May 1, and it happens to be my birthday.  I'll somehow, through no talent of my own, have amassed 3 dozen years on this planet and survived.  Just goes to show that natural selection is really not even a thing anymore.  

On that subject, a big night ride is most certainly on for Thursday night as long as whatever this weather pattern we're about to observe in the next 3 days doesn't wash us out into The Atlantic Ocean. Which appears to be 50/50.  I like those odds.  

Shooting for some action on the mountain, weather and trail dependent.  Likely a 3,000 foot climb or so, beers and birthday cake at the top, and then a long descent back to reality.  Meeting somewhere near Blue Ridge School at 8 PM.  2.5 hours, I'm guessing, though if you lack the legs you could easily sneak out with less.   But, as Tesla professed, you gotta have the heart.

Let me know if you're in and I'll get you the coordinates.  

The clock only runs one way: up.  

Thunderstruck.

Thunderstorms today.  It's like Spring is holed up in a cheap hotel with his old mistress Winter, sweating out the details, but Summer is getting close and she wants in.


AC/DC.  It's starting to get a little sad.  

I saw AC/DC in concert exactly once, and that was in Paris in the very pivotal, shaky year of our lord, 2000.  At first, I was thrown off and a little unsettled that a greasy rock event like AC/DC might not be able to muster the right amounts of destruction in a city as chic as Paris.  But I was mistaken, and the greaser rock fans and hardmen of the generation immediately before mine came out and stood before me with a real sense of immediacy, and they shot cannons on stage, and swung around on Hell's Bells, and generally annihilated the very face off the place  At one point, right as they started into Thunderstruck, I actually was a little scared because the sheer pandemonium of it all had reached such a level that it seemed like the venue itself was going to come apart.

The morning after the Paranormal last year, I was milling about cleaning some things up, and I looked up and I saw a zombie lurching across the yard, falling apart, shuffling and crippled but still obviously bent on violence in the normal way that undead things are, and I was frightened into paralysis for a moment.  A second later, I realized it was only Ian, and he was egregiously hungover, and he needed help pushing the bike-lab van out of the muck that had formed.  Relief.  Sort of the same as the relief I felt when that AC/DC show didn't destroy the universe.  I'm glad to have been there, in both cases, but I'm still shaken.

I mention those two things in parallel because of the resemblance I see in them today: it's actually kind of nice to not be dead yet (or undead) but to no longer have to worry about maintaining a semblance of ferocity either.
I guess what I'm saying is that I want to retire.  The eventuality of no longer having to give a shit is, quite honestly, something I was born to do.  It has not been a good week.

shoulda' been a cobbler

Now then, since it's the day before Foxfield, I feel I need to remind you, the masses (all 31 of you), not to ride on Garth Road tomorrow.  Or Millington.  Or Reas Ford or Woodlands or pretty much anything out that way.  If you do, you're making a bet, and it's a disconcerting one.

I've been wrong about so many things.  Zombies, careers, and aging rock bands to name just a few.  But I'm right about this:  Ride East tomorrow.

Or, I reckon, go ride in Tennessee with the rest of the 100 miler crew.  Still risky.  Still a big effort.  Probably about the same amount of puke in the road as Foxfield.  Similar on so many levels.

Or do what I do these days, and just ride after everyone else in the universe has gone to sleep.  It occurred to me, last week, that I had been for four really solid rides.  3 of them were after 9 PM, and one was on the trainer at the gym.  I'd actually gone 9 days without riding in the daylight.  C-ham mentioned that he thought he might have a moonburn on the back of his neck.  In a way, I find a lot of joy in that.

One thing I love about night riding: bike repairs while night riding.  You're still mountain biking, after all, but you can't see as well.  Something about those nighttime fixes always makes me smile.  Maybe it's the dexterity required to fix a chain via headlamp.  Maybe it's the budweiser.   In the spirit of darkness, I'll drop a few photos here and get off the air.

It is never too late.

Up, up, up.

Ride Your Bike.

A month away from the blog tends to go pretty fast when you ride as slowly as I do these days.  It's true that the clock only runs one way.  It's especially true that the longer you're out there, the faster it gets away from you.  But I'm punching back in here for a brief moment with some wisdom from the youth of today, and it goes like this:  

You ever go riding with one of those guys that just won't shut up and pedal?  Wants to talk gear.  Mess with his tire pressure.  Tell you all about his job.  Infuriating.  

RIDE YOUR BIKE.  

Brevity.  It's the secret to so many things.  Shut up and ride for a change.  

Up, up, up.