When I pulled up to the parking area at China Camp, Scott was sitting on his tailgate suited up ready to go. It was 5:47. Okay, methinks people are getting a *wee bit* worked up about this late fee thing, but whatever. A good and mostly timely turnout included Scott, Dr. Mike, Jackie, Jon, Karen, Aja, Pete, Ron, and Eric (aka “Fuzzy”). Amy joined us, but was not warned (or at least not appropriately warned) about the late fee, so she gets this one free. We hoofed it up to the Nike site where hucking ensued, led by the fearless Pete Verdone inspiring all to attempt the neck-breaking feats. What the hell, we had a doctor with us, no? (come to find out he’s a “vein guy”—great, that’ll help with your broken neck…). Amy was bravely Hamana’d and showed some of the pansies in the group how you rock that drop off in a skirt—stand back boys!!!

Oy, the dreaded decision time. Okay, so here’s where the splitting of the MoRon duties comes in. I am the route Nazi, Ron is “Bruno The (time/late fee) Enforcer”. With little to no public and vocal acknowledgement of support from my (worse) ride leader half, I was thrown into the breach—the breach of calling a front-side loop amongst this crowd of self-aggrandizing hard core singletrack downhill wannabe’s. Jon literally groaned and curled his bratty British lip, and may have even muttered something pissy under his breath about “not arguing with the route nazi”—shit, with all those marbles in his mouth maybe he said “ Paris is lovely in the spring, don’t you think Mo?”—who the hell knows? Fuzzy (now “Fussy”) also gave me the stink eye and I think he stamped his wee little foot. Pete opened his mouth, looked at me, promptly snapped it shut.

Down we went (YES< “BACK THE SAME WAY WE CAME” YOU FUCKING WHINERS!!), turned back onto the single track and proceeded to haul ass around that boring, stupid, slow, ugly, good-for-nothing-bike-path of a front side loop. I caught each and every one of you grinning—don’t deny it. We got to a cool stump and Pete led the crew in another “watch-me, follow-me, it’s easy, like this” exersize with surprisingly non-911 results. Though, I have to say, my fingers had dialed 9-1- when Fussy was riding the front wheel (ONLY) off the back side of that thing, eyes the size of saucers, the fuzzy duds on his ass just about to be awkwardly located directly over his head. God knows how he pulled it off, but he did. Jackie tried it too-talk about eyes the size of saucers—as we watched her charge at that stump in the big ring doing about 39 mph we all came to understand “The Jackie Problem”. We never knew how such a nice, shy retiring cutie-pie could have broken so many limbs and things. Now we do. Fortunately, something stopped her from stumping that stump—maybe she chanced to see the look of horror on our faces just before she committed. Pete’s comment: “Um, yeah, maybe not THAT much speed…??” Phew! Jackie lives to rail another day!

We sped around the rest of the loop, pedaling our asses off, so much so that we could hardly look up at the beautiful sunset right in front of us. I discovered something on this ride—I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why, all of the sudden, I couldn’t keep up with Fussy to save my life. Then it occurred to me—he rides at the speed of the cutest (single) girl! Of course, with so many to choose from, you could really find him anywhere, but last night “cutest” was a speeding silvery mirage…

To the Drum, to the Drum we did go, all them crusties in tow (except Aja—WTF? Can only be seen with us out in the woods, eh?). Noah was there and treated us well, as usual. Hope we didn’t drive your customers away….Danny stopped by to say hi—HI DANNY!!

Next week is 4 th o’ July, and many of us are going Tahoe/D-ville ward, so someone else will have to step up to lead this sucker if it’s gonna happen. The July 11 th ride WILL be Inverness, maybe July 18 th will be THE SUMMER BLOWOUT where everyone who has ever ridden a bike is invited to a party on the trail. Could be later than that, but look for it soon—gonna be a hoot!