Sunday, January 3, 2016

The Force Awakens

With CX Nats out of the picture I took two and a half weeks off the bike after the last cross race. I could have gone for more rest but some good rides were shaping up for New Years Day and beyond. Nice chill rides. Well, not all chill. On Friday I jumped on the Amnesty/Memorial ride that Wiser posted up. My body was still totally shut down in full rest mode so I had to really force myself to get up and get out the door. I'm really glad I made it - lots of good people on the ride. I told Chappy this was the first social pace ride I had been on in almost a year. Chap said, "It feels good, right?" Yep. It sure did.
Amnesty/Dan Ryan Memorial Ride on New Years Day. 57 strong! Thanks to Mark Wise for posting up the invite on this one!
Dave and Chappy on the Memorial Ride. Always good to ride with these guys.
Glenn Turner posted up a mountain bike ride for Saturday. I was planning to resume my intensive resting program but the ride the day before had stirred something in me...I sensed a disturbance in the lazy. I added a few others to Glenn's invite and it was on. We kind of high jacked Glenn's ride and the pace was a lot tougher than I was thinking about when I loaded up the single speed that morning. I won't name any names but the initials for the instigators were Buddy, Jay and Ryan. I'm kidding of course...it was one of those really memorable super fun rides.

Awesome crew! Contrary to popular reports the trails were fine. A little slick here and there but mostly great and mild temps. Left to right: Buddy, Paul, Matt, Ryan, Mark, Jay, Rebecca, Glenn, Bob and Dennis. Thanks to Glenn for throwing out the invite!
Jay let me know about a mid-day Fair Hill ride with the Chuckster on Sunday. The disturbance in the lazy dark side was getting stronger...the force was awakening. I was totally stoked for this ride. Chuck was tinkering with a tripod-foot-down rear-wheel-power-slide-through-fast-corners thing. The leafy trails made it pretty sketchy.
Chuck said, "You know like Sagan does."
"Wait, on a road bike?" Jay said skeptically.
I was just enjoying the show. It was like the Evel Knievel documentary I watched the night before. Like something bad was about to happen sooner or later. Except Chuck is a really nice guy. Evel is a douche.
Jay didn't get the memo about the sexy gray beard stubble look.
At one point we ran up on a couple guys with a mechanical. One of them had broken his derailleur hanger. They were about as far from their parking lot as you could get and had no tools. Jay, Chuck and I took over and converted the bike to a single speed in about 5 minutes. There was something really amusing yet really efficient about the three of us working together. I hope our handy work got them back. I have a feeling it did.

Glove in my teeth. Wrong gear. Steep hill. One hand. Yeah...that picture.
I posted up on Facebook earlier in the week about Tyler and I going to see The Force Awakens. We had watched all six of the Prologue and original movies in story-chronology order during the Christmas break.  I'm not a serious Star Wars fan but the original 1977 Star Wars is a great movie and The Empire Strikes Back almost as good and Return of the Jedi pretty good except for that Ewok thing. But I was not a fan of the Prologue Trilogy. Anyway, no spoilers here...the Force Awakens is a really great movie. Well done in almost every way. It's the movie the last three should have been.

Finally, after a week of watching all the Star Wars movies...the main attraction!
If you ever get sick of your bike, take a break. Rest up. Leave the bike hanging in the garage all disheveled and dirty with a flat tire from the last cross race of the year. When you're rested and ready...the force will awaken and you will love your bike again. Peace all!

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