The weekend, according to Jason

I had a most excellent, though rather hectic weekend. Most of it is a blur of bike riding, bike crashing, bike fixing, and all the beer in between. Friday night consisted of me missing the (from what I heard) incredibly well attended Chris Riley for City Council campaign launch party. The cyclist turnout was great, and everyone I've talked to left with a good impression of Chris Riley both as a cyclist and as a viable city council candidate. Good job Chris!

While all that was going on I was up at Yellow Bike Project, working off community service hours (I hope you're happy community!) and repaying my debt to society. Boone and company showed up part-way through the evening to pick up some parts for the latest in their ever-growing stable of tall bikes (up to 4 now). They finished their bike, so later that evening three of us (with the aid of 2 others on short bikes) took off in search of adventure and excitement, or at least a decent looking west campus party to crash. After tooling around for an hour we returned to the party that had been raided by the largest number of cops, and sure enough our suspicions were correct, that party was BANGING! We hung out, drank beer and people watched until their security realized how out of place a bunch of sweaty, stinky, scumbag bikers looked at a frat party and tossed Boone out. The rest of us didn't want to accrue the wrath of the rather large, angry looking fellow with the flashlight so we snuck out the back and continued our tall bike adventure until the wee hours of the morning.

Saturday was an excellent clown party. The biking portion consisted of Ollie and Boone charging tall bikes towards each other while wielding flaming lances. One of the lances malfunctioned after a short while so they were replaced with stuffed animal lances. Logic notwithstanding, the stuffed animal jousting was actually MORE exciting than the flame round, and racked up a considerable amount of increased carnage. Besides that there were great musical acts, a bunch of clowning around, a bonfire, and nearly all my favorite people in town all hanging out and having a great time.

Sunday morning I was up early and working on my 1x1, so I decided to put it through its' paces at Walnut Creek. I did a quick loop of the blue trail, then tore around the pump track a couple times, taking breaks in between loops to watch the pros do it. I'm getting better, but I still can't carry through the track without pedalling, and I managed to overshoot two of the jumps and end up off the track. My ankle did not like that. Whoops.

Of all the calendar events that happened over the weekend, due to schedule conflicts, my bum ankle and/or general laziness I only ended up making it out to the Deathrace 2000 Alleycat on Sunday. I had a great time even though I managed to biff it on the final stretch pulling into the Drungo Ice House parking lot. Gravel is treacherous! The winner was once again Ernie the cyclocross man-machine, followed up by everyone's favorite toothless biker, Cloyd! This Alleycat was a little different in that there was only one checkpoint, so we had to race there and then back to the starting line. At the checkpoint there were a bunch of scattered objectives, like people cut-outs, baby dolls, and a big boxy cock and one-ball Lance Armstrong idol. Each item was worth a number of points, but due to the limited number of items only the people who showed up in the first wave of bikes got any of the good stuff. I was too slow so I just hoofed it back to the finish line, hoping to encounter someone on the way and jack their shit. The someone was gonna be Andrew, but I gave up after some evasive maneuvering on his part and realizing that his bag strap was clipped INSIDE his objective, not around it. You're a crafty one, dancakes!

After the race it was back over to the Airport house for a final round of drunken quarters before the doors are shuttered for good. Thankfully not all is lost, as Logan, Andy and the surviving members of the house are going to be relocating a short way down Airport to a new-and-improved Airport house. Cut-throat quarters tournaments and wild and wacky bike-in movie nights will live on! I was fully planning on making it down to the fundraiser but by that point the Lonestar and Tecate had caught up with me, and a car ride home with my wife sounded a lot nicer than a cold bike ride downtown and an even colder ride back. Sorry I missed it y'all! I guess I did buy two tickets so I shouldn't feel too bad, but still, events like this are the biggest thing I love about the local cycling community. Ah well, next time.

...and now it's Monday, and I'm back at work skipping my lunch break to type this entry and go for a walk in the woods. It's so foggy on this hill that I can barely see across the street, so the walk should be dope. Hope y'alls weekend was as awesomely unproductive as mine!