suffering.

Eric said it best, 'bike racing is suffering.'

Never more so apparent then last weekend.
Keeferkeefer's brainstorm CrankFestival in
backyard Meeshow. Was gonna run support,
then it turned into a local's match shakedown
with the Mouth calling everybody out.

Fine, double check with el Directour, pump
up and dust off the road bike for Saturday.
Great.

Friday prologue, fun loop up on Piney, niche
local knowledge played a role, especially tackling
it in the dark. Found total JabberJediFixyness
rolling up along the ridge, didn't mind missing
the turn at all, in the floooowwwwwwwww.

Campfire, celebrations, stories, catching up
with the family. Stumble into bed and sense the
skinny tired beast snearing at me from its spot
along the wall. Old girl hasn't been saddled
in 6 or so weeks, since before Teaberry, neat.

Saturday's route, finished at 75mile w/ 6800ish
of climbing, and a headwind that flipped as the rain
came later in the day, awesome. I slummed, it felt
like early March all over again. I had no legs for
the gear, for the continual head against a wall of
wind over those damn orchard rollers churning,
watching the group disappear over the next knoll,
solo, dropped.

Dropped over and over and over and over again,
I had nothing. Tinge of cramps on Mt Carmel,
climbing Staley to Snowy was lots of quiet time,
just churning it over, bonked on the verge of
locking up. Just get over this fucking thing, keep
it upright on the descent then settle into that
survival cadence...what month is this?

Then the breeze turned and a cold pissin' rain
started dropping out of the clouds at Caledonia,
making for a wonderful run back to the cabin.
The descending piece along Graves on the fix is
usually a swell time, made even better by the
50deg rain.

Of course, the sun came out just as we rolled
back into the cabin. Eat, drink, campfire and
9 o'clock feels like midnight, toasted. Passed
out log like sleep, don't reboot the clocks for
the time change, use that hour in the morning
to strip off the ALfine and do a quick once over
of the Salsa. Decided pretty early on on Saturday
that there was no way I'd be riding the Fixy on
Sunday. We rock a parade on up to the Piney
Ridgetop then over to the Cul de Sac, a decent
enough warming climb, then out to the upper
prologue parallel and link into the BrushExtension
to the first timed section across ShakenBake/Fender/
MoonRocks/MyFavorite. Break for a chilly lunch
stop. I was shelled, my back talked back to me
early. Core has gotten soft, the off season came
early this year. off. the. back.

Soon enough though, most everybody else hears the
slumlord callin'. Sohohhhh..plan is altered, 3 mile
abandoned, Last I heard was LittleCO to Jake's, so
that's where I went, everybody else went to the top
apparently. Well, hope they don't wait too long....
Scraped an arrow on Woodrow and pushed up the
road to the gate, yeah, I pushed. up. Woodrow. I
had nothing, best save what little's left for when it's
best used. Roll over and chill on a rock at the top of
R'snake v2.0, finish off my sandwich, listen to the
wind, trees....then hear riders coming.

Reunited! Everybody is on the same page now for sure,
direct route back. Meeshow cracked us once again, it's
not if, but when, I cracked early. The planned 40 turned
into 30ish, way easy to plan for a bigger bite then you
can chew out in those hills. Tight finish to the day,
maximize the flow down to the snowmobile bridge,
burn that last match before riding protected hinterland
on the way to more eat drink and be merry around a
revived fire. Got a stylin' memento, then home early
before it's too dark out, at 6....winter's coming.
good times.

So. That was a tough wknd, local's out kicking each
other's asses against the clock. Buck says to me,
'Keefer must think that climbing is just good clean fun.'
Yeah, something like that, those were some stout
parcours for sure, bit of tweaking, refining...I guess
you'd call it a trial run of sorts with the mostly local
peleton, a bit of beta testing route expectations,
logistics dialing. Venue at the cabin rocks, great
terrain out the door for two or three, four solid days with
minimal overlap. Apres' chatter was leaning towards
a flip to a spring time date, early mid-April, a little
early season sufferfest to see how the winter treated
ya? stay tuned.

beyond all that, thanks to Mike for putting it all
together and hosting and all that, well done. The
wknd was a wake up call for my slack ass for sure.
I need to get back in the saddle, less lazy wknd
warriorish, more steady gunning, harden the fuck
up and get back out in it. Rode the wave and I'm
now officially washed up on the beach. I'm sure
this Sunday will be a rightous Thorpe beatdown
with Elk. Just what I need, another slap to the
face reminder to keep the knees strong and tight
for a winter full of crankin' turns.

so I say bring it Ullr, bring it you fuckin' pussy!
I ain't skeered. Don't think you need to be nice cuz
we're gettin' soft down here. Fuckin' bring it and
remind everybody what it's like to have a real winter
'round here. Fuckin'g bring it you pussy, bury us
under all that terrible, awful, awful snow and turn
down the thermostat and keep a real chill in the air.
Fuckin' bring it, show us what you got. I dare you.






please.