Bucky's Birthday

This guy can ride a bike and makes a hella good pot of chili.

Bucky on Rattlesnake v2.0

Wow, my first bloggity blog ride report!

Today dawned foggy in town, not really rain, but a really dense warm cloud. Loaded up efficiently for a change, threw some ball with the Huxster, then a liesurely drive out to Big Flat, the Luv Shack venue. Today was Bucky's birthday ride. The Cupcake Squadree was in da house, along with special visitors representin' from Philly, we were a dirty dozen at 13 strong. Names? Buck, Travis, Pete, Rich, Churtle, Lee, Duffy, Larry, Harlan, Elk (testing out his hand the proper way), Topher, Keith, me & Mocha the dog.

Started at Big Flat, 10sih sharp in a warm barely spitting sprinkle. Where were those southern chumps?? Skipped 3 mile and rolled out RattleSnake via Lewis Rocks to the Camp Michaux blue blaze and then along whoziwhatsit Baldwin Trail before skipping over to Weitzel's for an inventory check at Cold Spring. Fortunately for us, Mocha the dog sort of bonked at this point, sparing us of my brainstorm to loop up thru Vista before beginning the trek back to Big Flat, you know, it's only like another 30 minutes of trail.....

Basically, we'd been going downhill/downstream for just a smidge over two hours. The direct route to spinning along the biker hiker path between the lakes was a smooth distraction until we saw the 'improvements' being made around Fuller Lake, looks like they're prepping to put in an amusement park of sorts, crazy wrecking of the joint.

We dropped into Community Service trail and I found that fixy zen love pace, no brake, doing it all with my legs shwoopity whoop flow that makes all those terrifyingly sketchy spun out decents worth it. Played around in the Nowhere loop, taking the scenic route over to Woodrow Rd for a slumfest climb back to the top. I cracked, lights went off, buzzers rang & it got a bit quiet as I brought the tailend of the line back up to Lewis Rocks Ridge. We boogied back across to Lewis Rocks, backtracking our path of 3.5 hours ago. Finished by slumming back up to Ridge Rd for a cool headwind spin back to that end of the rainbow pot of hot (thanks Holly!) chili. Chili, beer, chili, bread, cheese, beer & post ride shelled vibe = Worth it.

Ride finished up at about 4.5 hours, we're guessing we covered maybe, mayyyyyyybe 30 miles, probably only 27ish, (100 miles of Michaux w/out filler? hah! people will cry.) I lost count of pedal revolutions, so I can't extrapolate that back out to a distance covered and none of our lame asses run computers. We miss you Jake! It was a sweet 50ish degree warm January day, riding thru a dense cloud, not really quite raining on us. A beautiful inversion morning that I couldn't get a clean picture of, we were on top of the clouds in Michaux! The loam was sticky sweet dark love and the rocks were at times unpredictable. Working on my ninja pedaling skills early, I found myself on the rivet for that superfun stretch across to Rattlesnake proper. It took about ten minutes to come unglued. Luckily my flailing bike didn't take out any of Pete's teeth, that'll teach him to shadow my wheel, then I pulled out the press pass for RattleSnake v2.0, couple quick snap shots:

Churtle showing that Yellow Focus.

He's ALIIIVVVVVE!!!!!, Elk.

Cruisin' the supersecret unknown Biker Hiker Path.

Keith serving his Community Service.

Thanks to everybody for the steady gunnin' ride, just one qwik flat, a broken chain and everybody seemed to tolerate my fixed hoopty ass for another day, get used to it, my bitches. Special thanks to Elk for the BKB schwag, various team sponsers and Buck for the chili along with hosting a great ride.

Happy birthday mang! peace.