You say it's your Birfday?

Well, happy to you. Any birfday worth having involves a loooong bike ride. I decided several years ago that I would have a 100miler as my birfday goal. I ain't gettin any younger, and a century is not something I do so often that it can be looked at as anything other than kickass. Really. When was the last time you rode one? Ezzackly. It's a good goal.

So on my last ill fated birfday ride, the goal was considerably less (~75 or so), and there ended up being cheating (friends like these...) and at one point there was an hour or so long beer stop (unplanned, as the SC crew was supposed to be ready and waiting- when really they were only waiting for 9 minutes and ready only to give us a lot of shi_ about being "late" and then they lollygagged around for some time before kitting up) during which this goal was related to one famously grumpy bike industry type who then said how it was a lame goal, and unrealistic, and how his goal was 8 hours on the bike, as that's so much more attainable,etc. Yeah yeah yeah.

So Happy Birfday Senior Sr. Mr. D____ G___! 43 and sleazy as the day was short.

Poor planning was the word of the day. I awoke to the ringing of my phone. It was the birfday boy calling to set up ride times. This after drunkenly claiming the prior Sunday that this ride would be going on and would be "fun" but refusing to give details and then remaining incommunicado throughout the week. I was sleeping in, because I figured it was not going to happen.

Up at 8, out the door at 9. Errands along the way included picking up my still-broken framed tandem (T___, do you read this?) and talking shi_. Rumor has it that there will be some epic mistake of a countywide circumnavigation for this year's County Line, but sources are notoriously unreliable. Liable to lie. I just hope they skip the beach.

So. Meet in Santa Cruz at S___'s house. I arrived. Then G____ S_____, whom I had only met once previously- and then he was shirtless and wearing a large gold "SEX" medallion. He is not shy, conversation was not a problem. Then the birfday manchild showed up with some very special soy milk. Finally, B______ met us as we rolled out. I have a vague memory of meeting him several years ago roadside in Big Sur during the Tour of California- he was holding a fork (to eat with) and the kids and I were spray painting slogans of encouragement for Ekimov onto HWY 1.

The ride started promisingly, heading immediately uphill and onto trails. Rainslick roots are my most-feared obstacle in biking. I have effed myself so badly on rainslick roots so many times that they have grown large in my imagination, terrifying me all out of proportion to their individual circumstance. The redwood forest is pretty dank this time of year, and the roots are slick. I was scared alot of times as we climbed. The dirt was nice and tacky, though. It made for inneresting contrast. To the boys (and Ladies) of Santa Cruz, I say:


in the hopes that they will NEVER take for granted the World Class awesomeness of their trail system. Those narrow and swooping ribbons of Goodness make me laugh out loud with Joy. Even the connector trails are kickass.

And so on singletrack (mostly) up through University, with a beer stop at the water tanks under a 3speed nailed high in a tree I had not known was there, and then onto Empire Grade. We then hopped onto another trail (Poison Oak Trail?) and wound down to some more lonely asphalt climbing out to a secret compound in the redwoods where, contrary to rumor, there was not a fridge full of beer. No small oversight. Things could be better with that addition, _ick. So up and back to Empire and up some more to a different secret compound, where there was a fridge full of cold beer. Out came the now infamous globe of scotch, and sandwiches all around.

That place is a tarbaby.

We pried the birfday-ite out of his cabin, and clad in a new and ghastly Coors Lite thermal jersey (circa 1990?) he led us down to the secret entrance of a trail whose name I've forgotten. This descent was the very same we'd ridden on my own birfday ride. Only this time, we did not spend 2 hours at the tarbaby shack and crack open every bottle in the joint to start Suntory Time and the trail in the dark. It was still light and there were no crashes.

Apparently this trail goes nowhere except to Monty's Log Cabin Bar, and some dark railroad tracks. Thanks D___, it was a Good Time.