Tom's Riding Journal

RIDING FRONT

It’s been a pretty eventful week on the riding front. On Wednesday night Girl Ninja and her Black Ops dad invited me to their ultra secret subterranean dojo. They decided that I had all the right psychological markers to be the perfect candidate for membership into their cadre of fighters who are sworn to the protection of The United States from all its various enemies. Their goal is to train a group of citizen warriors to thwart another possible attack within our borders. They thought I’d fit in because I’ve always been a military wanta-be and also because they wanted to create a bicycle mounted squadron for urban mobility. I told them I could get that off the ground so they carefully blindfolded me, spun me around in circle till I was dizzy, threw me in the back of a non-descript panel van and drove a circuitous route to the dojo location. Once inside they removed the blindfold and we began to discuss training methods.

The next day I drove out to Rocky Hill Ranch and rode 18 or so miles there. I can’t say enough good stuff about that place. It’s my favorite place to ride within a 100-mile radius. The ranch is beautiful, it has plenty of hills to challenge you and the trail has fantastic flow. It’s got well over 20 miles of trail and all of it can be ridden fast. That Thursday was the most beautiful day of the week. The sky was a brilliant blue; the white cottony clouds lightly layered across the blue background looked more like a painting than reality. It was a little cool and the trails were wet but still totally rideable. All the seasonal creeks were flowing-it was perfect. The only problem was that every couple of miles there was a jack-o-lantern hanging from a tree and on top of that there were bones and broken bicycle parts laying everywhere. Evidence of carnage was all around so I surmised that there might have been some sort of evil cult that has taken over the property and is trying to scare off everyone else. I fled in fear after riding 18 miles, having lunch and taking a short nap.

Later in the day I drove out to 21 acres we own in Flatonia where I was trying to determine the feasibility of creating a combination motocross track and paramilitary training camp. I figured that I could pile up dirt to form bermed turns and use the backside of the turns as a backstop for firearms training.

Saturday 2-12-We all assembled in front of the store for the regular ride at 8am.There were about 16 of us ready for action. Lead Dog was biting his fingernails because The Hammer had new shoes. The Teacher led the pack for the first 10 miles. She obviously had some pent up aggression from trying to control 30 poorly parented sixth graders all week. She yelled at an errant motorist who cut her off and tore off his radio antennae threatening to beat him with it. I stepped in between them chilling the situation out with some words I learned from a book about hostage negotiation. I said,”Hey Teach, Don’t let this clown harsh your mellow.” That seemed to do the trick so we all jumped back onto our bikes and resumed the ride finishing up with about thirty miles. We were all pleased to see the two Johns and Laura who were all freshly released from the witness protection program. They were riding a little slow because they haven’t been able to ride while in protective custody.

Sunday 2-13-We met at Katy Mills Mall under dark and gloomy skies. Turnout was low due to a high probability of a torrential downpour. As we rode out of the parking lot a few drops were falling and we thought that maybe the good karma that we had accumulated over the previous 10 hours of sleep might result in nice weather for the ride. We got about 50 yards out of the parking lot before it began to dump buckets on us. There were many small groups of riders out in that area trying to put in some miles their heads tilted into the wind and, rain pushing on. The rooster tails arching off the back tires of the bikes ahead of us streamed into our eyes and mouths leaving them filled with grit from the road. Still we spun our cranks, our tires slicing through the water like shark fins. Trey (from now on known as El Motor) pulled most of the way in our little group, which included The Thin Man and The Loan Shark. We managed to do 38 miles despite our strong desire to be sleeping late. In another small group 20 minutes behind us, a young man, known to his classmates as “Mud Slide” rode his longest ride ever together with The Teacher who had achieved a Zen-like calm somehow since yesterdays altercation. Rocket was also in that group with Leigh –The Cross trainer who is back on the bike after taking some time off to focus on marathon running. Afterwards we went to the IHOP for Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruities