My soul is officially on fire.
You may not understand what just happend, unless you're aware of the goodness that lies deep within Landahl.
Rewind to the happenings of the weekend that led to the adventure today.
Saturday was a blast of heat and a few lessons learned that seem to always re-present themselves in the heat of Summer. I picked up the Epic from Bike Source Saturday, after Travis S worked magic on it during the week to get the creaks worked out. As always, Bike Source and their infinite wisdom solved my noisey problems and had the Epic rolling smooth and silent. After the pickup, it was off to Swope to rail the trail for a few hours.
Man, Swope is sweet. Trav caught me in the parking lot after putting in a lap before I arrived. My stoke factor was high riding the bike of my dreams, and I proceeded to shread a lap at break neck speed flossing the rocks like Bruce Lee whips ass. After stopping for a water break, and a short wait for Travis, we were back off at it. Stopping was a bad idea. The heat was so ridiculous that my body instantly rocketed up what seemed like 10 degrees. Note to selves, don't stop in the woods when it's crazy hot. I never could seem to get cool after that. Once the core heats up, it's like hell getting it cooled down again.
Sunday was a short road ride with a buddy who was in town from Colorado. I'm rolling on some Mavic R-Sys wheels from Trav which felt amazing. I had been rolling some extremely heavy Velocity B43 rims laced to Ultegra hubs. The B43's weigh 770g's for the rim only. But they'll make you strong like Arnold. The Mavic's felt like helium and I was enjoying making my manly gears do work.
So that lead to last nights shannagans. We had a little BBQ with some of the OG's of Ethos, along with our new lady friend racers of 0-11, Sara W and Karen B. Things started out harmless and laid back, and I had every intention of only drinking a few drinks and keeping sober for a good ride today. We'll after the few drinks were done, I realized it was only 7:30 and I was feeling frisky.
Luckily Sara was laying the Worthington hammer down on some margaritas, and she quickly became my personal bartender for the night. I love tequila. It doesn't love me.
Things went bonkers about the time we left to head up to another resident for some fireworks action via said resident's roof. The fireworks were pretty sweet, and I officially popped my KC 4th of July cherry. I was deep in converstation with a cutie, to which I'm sure was full of rambled slurred unfinished thoughts, but in between that I did happen to catch a glimpse of some bright and pretty booms.
There was a big ass block party going down just a block up the road, so the party quickly shifted that way. We then were treated to a very insane drum line presentation done by one of the local schools. They had everyone going crazy, and there was a little dude who had to be only 8 or 9 absolutely killing it on his drum. Many more beers were passed around and consumed as after the drum line finished we were treated to a second floor balconey concert by a local KC band. I forgot who they were, but they were good.
I stumbled back to Trav's with the group, had more drinks, and then sometime later found myself passed out on the coutch.
Today
It's 9am, July 4th and I just woke up... I never wake up hungover. I didn't today either. It was more than hungover, it was more like still under the influence.
1 hour later and I'm standing at the Argo trailhead looking over Jessie's SS Stumpy he let me borrow for the day, wondering what in the hell I was doing.
I shouldn't be here right now. I should be asleep. Or at least laid up on the sofa with a large chocolate milk watching the tour wishing I didn't feel so horrible.
We rode up the open field trail back to Family trail. Then we got to Gunbarrel. We stopped. Trav had the front of his Epic pointed down the chute. If you know the chute I'm talking about, you know that it's the portal to a land of real mans trails, where the weak get spat out and the strong are lucky to ride dab free.
Welcome to Gunbarrel at 10am hungover with a bike you've never ridden when the rocks are slick as snot.
10 and 11 soon followed.
Somewhere deep in that jungle of trail a little light inside my soul flickered. Then it flickered again, and before I knew it I was smiling ear to ear walking my bike up some ridicously steep slick rock hill. I was having fun. And alot of it.
3 hours later and we emerged victorious in an injury free symphony of destruction which included every inch of trail at Landahl. Every little bit it had to offer we tasted, even 10 and 11 in it's full glory.
It's been way to long since I've stepped away from the training routine, and took a good long ride in the woods hungover and looking for nothing more than an adventure. Usually it's go ride, ride hard, do intervals, ride harder.
Sometimes riding slow enough to actually smell the roses is exactly what the soul needs.
Even if all I could smell was the alcohol seeping from my pores.
But my demons were exorcised, and in the end I'm a better for it.
And then I looked at clouds poolside and snapped this picture. It felt fitting. I photoshoped it like I normally do. Phones can do crazy things.
Go have fun this week. Life's to short not to...
G
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