Community Building Events

This past week three major bicycling events and resulting lessons occurred.

1) The last (of three) Snake Creek Gap race. I put on an easier gear (thanks to an 18t cog hook-up from Shanna, who now owns Endless and is on the path toward general awesomeness), bigger tires (2.2's) and ran lower pressue. This, plus rediculously nice weather, helped me take a good amount of time of my, uh, time. I never really look at results, so I don't know how much better I did, but the point anyway is that I learned that just because I ride a crappy set-up during the week, doesn't mean I shouldn't put forth the effort to put together an appropriate set-up for racing. See, I'm trying to be more professional this year. And I think that mainly means less retarded.

2) Alex's birthday party! Which was a Whiskey Crit, and post-crit havoc. The Crit went great, with such stand-by racers as Jut-Rut, Winston, Marshall, Brucey, Beth, Philly Cheese Steak, Thomas, and, of course, the Birthday Boy. I gave them the option of taking a shot of whiskey each lap or chugging a solo cup full of Kool-Aid. I accidentally told them that I made the latter with hose water, which I think detered some folks. I mean, everyone. They all went for the whiskey. But despite the relatively high alcohol consumption and the slick roads (due to a light, yet persistant, Northwest-esque rain), nobody got hurt and everyone had fun. Until a couple hours later, of course, when everyone thought it'd be a good idea to go for another, more casual ride. And of course, casual rides at this point during a party means everyone is going to sprint like hell and act rediculous. Which, of course, everyone did. Marshall busted his teeth and Alex broke his collar bone. But both boys are fine, I think, more "haha, that was dumb" that "waaah!" which is good. From this event I learned that boys are uncontrollable and so be it and I also learned that there is an "e" in whiskey. I think I always thought it was "whisky". But the bottle told me otherwise.

3)Asheville on Bikes had their little St. Patrick's Day group ride, where they showed off future greenways, and the result of all their hard-work advocacy. They also showed us a good time at a couple keystone bars in Ashevill. AOB is run my two people, I think, named Mike and Rachel, and these two people are great and I really like what they do. I told Mike this very thing, that is, that I like what he does, and he said, "Well, I like what you do, too." And I told him, "I don't really do very much." And Mike said, "Yeah, but you're intolerant." I don't really know what caused him to say this. It may have been because I took off in the middle of the ride to go do my own ride because I couldn't stand the group-lingering that much. I had spent all morning in the ER which Broken-Bone-Birthday-Boy, and couldn't handle not riding all over the place all afternoon. So that's what I did until I came back to rejoin the group and get called intolerant. I kind of liked it, though. From this event, I relearned that Asheville on Bikes is going great things and everyone should support Bike Advocacy and I also learned that as I say this, I hate the idea of being part of an advocating group, and I'd rather just tell other people to go support them, while I just ride pointlessly around town.

That's all for now. Enough lessons for one week. I kind of need the rain to stop so I can't plant my little beets and carrots and stuff and go for a clean mountain bike ride and have dry socks for the first time in a week. But whatever. It's good for holing up in the library and blahging, and for kicking it at home with my dear invalid.

Keep riding. Keep yelling at cars.