Thursday Night Ride report

Cloudy, windy, and a bit of rain.  Deterrents? Hardly.  A plethora of ABES showed up to partake of our weekly ritual of riding and rabble-rousing. The camp was divided into two groups: able-bodied and gimps.  Gavin, Steven W., PK, Curt, Franklin, Bruce, Shaun, Tom, Albert and James rode able-bodied. Steve B. (ankle/foot), Dan (multiple hand/finger injuries), El Duque (knee) and myself (knee/psychological) formed the gimp group.

We started off at a brisk pace and then.....they ditched me.  Which was fine.  I knew I'd be slow.  The fixie isn't the fastest at the best of times and definitely not with me at the helm.  So I popped in the earbuds and rode around town with Metric to keep me company, a grin painted across my face.  Di you know it feels really, really good to ride your bike?  Don't take it for granted.  Ever.

I did run into a few stragglers (Duker, Bruce and and Steve B.) as they admired the new Bridge Skatepark construction site.  Seeing that made me grin too.  Can't wait for that thing to open.

Eventually we all ended up back at Grumpy's where Boris greeted us heartily.  Maybe it was the festive pre-Sunflower Festival atmosphere, maybe it was just good vibes.  Everyone seemed eager to be there.  Beer does that sometimes.  Topics thrown about included the upcoming Knacksot Gravel Grinder (Shaun will bear our banner), Dan's undying love of Wing Night (only reason he came out apparently), Steve B. had a private suite at the Goldeyes game (and then it got rained out), really big chain rings = really fast bikes (with video evidence from Steve W. and PinkBike), all participating ABES loved the 24 Hours of Falcon Ridge (next year's teams are already in the making), Albert is Altona's newest superhero (The Mumbler...wait...what did you say?), our brothers to the West (Jason and Peter) were much better prepared for 24 hours of riding (oranges and Gatorade vs. Doritos and beer), and our fearless leader was sorely missed (yeah, trying to make you feel good Jonny). 

Still BFF's, even after the MUERTO Summer Challenge.

As the evening grew late PB decided to swing by.  And EVEN later our guest of honour Lorne showed too!  We'd written him off actually but at 11:34pm he dragged his sorry ass to the bar.  Good times. 

Lorne shows his affinity for MB made beverages.

The happy couple.

Eventually the premises emptied and after cajoling our lovely server Lin into one more round we headed off into the night, 15 pack in hand, to set up residence in Duker's garage.  A fitting end to a great night.

DS