Happiness and Heckling

The weekend was packed full of fun and frivolity. I kicked off with Friday night spent enjoying the arts festival with Miranda and Corley before heading down to the longest yard to enjoy some food and beverage with the shop guys as a thanks for working the triathlon. Saturday found us up and at 'em for a quick stop at Gray's lake to enjoy story time with the family before heading off to my prescribed volunteerism at the tri. Fuller and I worked the wheel pit for the pro athletes races setting up on 35th and Grand at the far end turn around. After a bit of convincing the various police and volunteers that we really were supposed to be there, we finally got things set up and began the afternoon of waiting around. Luckily we had a few additional revelers stop by to keep things lively.

It was pretty awesome watching the various packs of pro men and women fly by us as we cheered them all on. Trading a few hours of easy work was well worth the front row access we had. About the only regret is that the single request for help we fielded (a woman needing a 4mm allen wrench) had to be left unanswered as we had only brought wheels and no tools. From then, it was time to pack up and hopefully get some relaxation in before the evening activities commenced.

Rumors about a gravel overnighter started flying around a week or two back. It seems the loose plan was to start around 10 in the evening, ride enough gravel to last through the night and then end up heckling the tri people somewhere on course. Sounds like a great plan to me.

Kyle Sedore, Oakley Rob, Kurt Benson, Fuller, Joe from BW West, and myself took off from Legends on 60th and Ashworth and the crack of dark Saturday night which equates to roughly 10:20 PM after some food and liquid fueling. Heading west on EP True we went baja style riding through the dead end past Jordan Creek and eventually worked our way down to Booneville road and over to Booneville proper by 11. We briefly debated the first beer stop of the evening, but eventually bypassed the Waveland in favor of heading to the Cumming Tap for our first round of the evening. We hit the tap somewhere need midnight and split a pitcher between us while Kurt also thought it was necessary to bolster our spirits with a round of Red Bulls as well. Most everyone chugged theirs down, but I wisely packed away that gem for a later pick me up.

From Cumming we decided to try for last call in Martensdale. A mile or so out of town we had our first flat of the evening on Joe’s trusty La Cruz. Now here’s how you can tell you’re in Iowa. Here we were at 1ish in the morning, a group of 6 guys standing around working on a bike and 2 separate cars happened to roll by, both checking to make sure we were good to go and offering to shine their headlights on the situation to help. We got the flat repaired in time to make last call.

After another pitcher split, we headed back from whence we came. Somewhere about halfway back to Cumming we decided to stop and break out some food. I think we were all feeling a bit punchy at the time as the stop also included a rousing game of duck-duck goose played in the midst of the gravel road in the wee hours of Sunday morning. We wound our way back through the Booneville loop and made our final break at the Waveland west where we enjoyed their great hospitality. Of course they weren’t actually open at 4 in the morning (who knew?), but we did find the patio furniture to be quite inviting. After a bit more snacking on processed meat sticks aka Slim Jim’s, we headed back towards town only to stop for the 2nd flat of the evening.

Rather than run through the bigger rollers on Booneville road, we opted to head back out to Grand and roll it double file paceline style clear down to Raccoon River Park to let the heckling and shenanigans begin for the Hy-Vee Tri. We actually started off with some varying congratulations to friends at the swim start where roughly 1 billion people were milling about.

From there we headed up to heckler's hill which ended up being just west of 35th street going up Grand. We scoped out our spot in time to head off to Kum and Go/McD's for food and supplies aka beer. Apparently there is some conspiracy going on to keep people from thoroughly enjoying themselves on Sunday mornings as beer sales don't start until 8 AM. Alas, we were relegated to various energy drinks which, at that point, probably wasn't a bad call. When we got back to our spot, Kyle showed us all how to properly get in the spirit of heckling.

All told, I showed 68 miles and change with 3000’ of climbing for our overnighter along with more laughing, fun, and folly than I can remember having for a long time. One punctuation to the evening was experiencing flying down the various hills at 25+ mph in the pitch of night which was thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I finally rolled back home and to bed around 10:30 after having eclipsed the 26th hour of awake time before dropping like a ton of bricks for a few hours nap.

Lights out

That just about sums up last night in multiple ways. I finished mounting my new light set around 4, loaded up and headed to the shop to meet up with Sammy and anyone else that might show for a 5 o'clock ride. Ends up, it was just the two of us which was fine by me. Conlon was supposed to meet up with us somewhere on the trail, but we never did find him.

The supposed warm weather from yesterday afternoon must've only last a couple hours as it was windy and getting chilly by the time we hit the trail. At least back in the woods, the wind wasn't too bad. I was hoping for dry conditions yesterday, but the first part of the trail was definitely greasy to say the least. I actually felt a little bad being out on it, but then realized, I wouldn't be the only track so all I can do is help ride it back in once it does dry out a bit more. Actually, once we got past the first big log pile, it wasn't bad at all.

The new lights were awesome. For the first pass through I ran the bar mount and headlight both on 50% settings and had an excess of light since it was just getting to be dusk. From there, we opted for a loop through Rollercoaster as Sammy was single speeding it and not geared down for Hillside. I'm still pretty new to night riding so slow and steady was mostly the name of the game, but I had a good timing running the ups and downs through coaster even though the creek crossing bit me again.

Actually, just as we were headed up the pave trail almost to Ashworth pool, I had switched my lights to 100% on both just to see how much light I could put out. We ran into Kim and a couple other guys on their way out to gravel goodness. I believe their comment was something along the lines of, "I don't know how to describe the amount of light you're putting out!" Along with some good natured ribbing about thinking there was a train coming up the bike path. Good, that means the lights are doing their job!

After coaster, we rolled back for a reverse loop in Denman's. Then tragedy struck. Doing a logover I hadn't done previously, I cleared it, but heard a snap when the back tire hit the ground. My headlight mount cracked off and was now dangling by the battery. Well, doesn't that just suck.





The mount snapped at the screw holding it onto the rotational plate. Not a big deal, but a bit disappointing for a first time out. On the plus side, a new part is on its way all ready from Dinotte. Hopefully this will hold up or I'll need to find a different mounting method.

Once the big light was out of commission, I had just my headlamp to use. On high, it was plenty of light to move right along even in complete darkness. Even at 50% I could probably ride pretty comfortably and have plenty of light. I am going to play with some different lens combos once they come in to see if I can get it setup to have a little broader diffusion as it's really a high powered spot right now. We finished up the ride and headed back to the shop for a quick beer with the boys before heading home. After a hot shower, it was definitely lights out!