A day, ahhh... the life

So as it turns out, everyone visits me. I have friends from out of town, out of the country, from the Valley, from SLO, from the Bay Area, Reno, Tahoe, Seattle, and places I can’t even locate on the map that come for visits, bike rides, food, wine, illicit drugs and other activities I can’t readily admit to. And all this, just lately. Why does everyone come just to see little ole me?

Sense of humor, wit, intelligence, humility? All unlikely… But one of the sure fire reasons anyone ever comes to my house or agrees to spend any amount of time with me is on a bike ride, for a bike ride, to get to a bike race, cycling event or just for maintenance and mechanical needs on their two wheeled machine. Of this, I am certain. And unlike many riders, who only do this ride or that ride, or only train alone, or who like these riders or that club but definitely not the others, the Bobas or Norcal or Nexus or Art’s or whatever the fuck, I’m a cycling HO! I’ll ride with anyone.

And because I have such low standards (as does apparently she), last night Trac-Trac, blogger and heavyweight extraordinaire came to town for a mt. bike ride. Now I am all for clowning and riding with hot chicks, but to ride with the hottest clown in town was a lifelong dream come true. I was expecting some cupcakes from the cupcake but I bet she was all out of baking soda, or is it powder? Some people take for granted the company of others, especially once they start to get annoying, but not me. I was, am, all about living in the moment. The fact that I have asked her on about 4 rides over the past 4 years, actually been on about 5 rides where she happened to be there, but never one with the sole intent of her coming to ride with me, made this indeed a special occasion, one worth writing about.

As is often the case, I scrambled home after a hard day of making the city a better place to live and got ready for the ride. I tried to ignore my immense lower back pain, my recent decline in immune system stability, prominent outbreaks of unidentified communicable diseases and promptly climbed into my used chammy for a sundowner ride in one of the most spectacular mt. biking parks on the west coast. After agreeing to show up early so as to be able to see all the best trails the park has to offer before the sun sets, I get a text from Trac saying, “running a bit late, traffic.”

Whodathunk it? Traffic, northbound on US 101 on a weekday around quitting time? Startling revelation for all parties, but I was already chammied up, so what is a fella to do? I mounted my road bike and did about a two hour spin. I hear this is good for “opening up the legs.” When I returned, sure enough, the ladies had arrived. While I was all set for a romantic raping in the woods with just a fat chick that I figured I could handily out muscle (she lives near the Ridge trail, in a house surrounded by oaks), instead I got Trac and her “teammate.” I guess teammate wanted to explore the trails in my backyard as well, apparently she is quite the mt biker, structural engineer, architect, man slayer, and party killer, with two thumbs. Somehow she thinks having two thumbs in a distinguishing characteristic? I didn't ask any questions and besides, as most of you know (what, like two of you?), you have to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on Pedro.

Clearly, as clear as the day is long, Trac brought her wingwoman (no, NOT a D.U.F.F., by any means!) to advance her chances of slaying yet another stallion. Or, could it be that she was genuinely afraid of being alone with me? Not so much for physical harm, but more for what if I was totally annoying, or sarcastic, or incessantly coming on to her all night. Well, either way, and for whatever motivation, the dynamic changed, we were now like Jack, Chrissy and the brunette. 3 was company indeed. And just for good measure, just so she knew she was safe and if she was entertaining any ideas of attempting to jump me (sexually) that I wanted to thwart, I said something like, "gee, have you put on some weight since I last saw you?" Women, even waify ones it turns out, don't take kindly to this. And if I decreased my already non-existent chances of my bones being jumped, I certainly upped my chances of being pepper sprayed, not out of self-defense, but out of joy at bringing me pain.

The ride was actually noteworthy as well. We rode over to the park and entered at the dirt crits at Howarth Park, looped through the single track around Spring Lake and climbed up to Cobblestone to get the game started. Orchard and Live Oak took us to the top of Rough Go and a rest at the lake. I asked an innocent fella if he’d mind taking a picture of me and my two girlfriends together, since I finally convinced them to come out on a ride with me instead of making me work so hard in the bedroom. He was all over that shit. And as one of the gals pointed out, it’s a good thing I have such small penis because otherwise those red shorts would be way too revealing!

After seeing the wingwoman's skills, I realized that sweet and funny though she was, and great to have along, we wouldn’t be doing the prize trails in the park and still making it back by darkness. So, easy enough, a rerouting kept us closer to sunset grub yet still with plenty of just plain perfect trails to explore. The crash tally, for those that are keeping track (Emily!) was Pedro 2, Trac 1, and Teammate O (that I know of). The most spectacular superman spill of the night was a superman effort by the Ms. red crotch herself. I got to see all of that. Oh yes, back to the park and the trails; it's technical enough to keep you sharp, steep enough to make you work, and fun enough to ask yourself why you ever ride on the road at all.

It was time for dinner and we finished up a lap around Ledson Marsh, the Ridge and down Marsh to Canyon and spilled out of 3 hours of doing it, “dirty style,” to quote Trac herself. Yes, she did say that. Ask her.

I was ravished, Trac was full of female luna gu's and strawberry clif blocks that she’d been pounding all evening but the more refined of us, Teammate and Pedro, were starvin marvins. Our anti-yeast change of clothes backpack awaited us at East-West and grub we did. Soooo good, if you haven’t mixed the beat puree with the hummus, you must. Of course, with a chance to look at each other's faces rather than asses, this where the conversation got interesting.

Trac would not stop talking about how she didn’t want to be talking about what were we talking about (her “va-jay-jay”). Teammate wanted to know if “the carpet matched the rug” and I said, “of course, it has to, I can totally verify that!” And I can, not because I have dreamed about it or have photos or because Trac would even consider sending me any in a veiled email message, but rather my father was Irish, and his father was Irish, and I have known a few redheads. I mean truly redheads, the few that I have known in my day, (even dated one - so sweet she is, Hi Amy! Love you, can’t wait to meet your new beau!) and those people have red pubes. It’s just a fact, jack. Whether they trim, shave, maintain or otherwise fertilize and grow them, that is an individual choice, but the color, now that is part of god’s divine plan.

We froze our asses about off pedaling home as the fog and cool temperatures rolled in. A hasty collection of boom boxes, skirts, thongs, and text messages was followed by a packing of the car and a nearly 10 pm departure for the wingwomen. I managed to shower and throw myself in bed for an extremely pleasant night’s sleep, surrounded by my ever present bed-time partners… a male and female, and of the 3 of us, only the males are recently shaven, in case you were wondering.