I was at my Dad’s house, but it wasn’t my Dad’s house (you know how it is in dreams). It was a Monday night, and I’d passed up going on the ride with the Old Scratch Posse group (which I did last night, passed up on the ride, that is). Instead, I was hanging with Cynthia, my Dad, my ex-GF’s mom (WTF?), and someone else. Then my brother, Tim, showed up for some reason. He convinced me to go on a bike ride. Before we left, he was adjusting the drivetrain on his Rig, because something wasn’t right. The chain kept binding up, then going really slack. I noticed that the rubber O-ring that was holding the bearings in on the Bottom Bracket had popped off, allowing the bearing retainer to come loose, which allowed the spindle to move around, thus causing the chain issue. He put everything back in place, but it still didn’t work 100% correct. He still wanted to ride, so we figured he’d just deal with it when it caused an issue.

We were both on Single Speed MTBs: him on his Gary Fisher Rig, me on the bike I’ve dubbed El Chupacabra. Eventually we met up with Levi Leipheimer and Bob Roll. (I’m not entirely sure if we met up with them during the ride or before it, because they were on bikes they’d borrowed from us. This is important later.) Levi & Bob were feuding, because Bob had recently caused Levi to injure himself. For some reason, Bob was still terrorizing Levi, as if he was trying to make him crash.

At one point, we were off the bikes & jumping/climbing a concrete wall, as if we were participating in Parkour (no, I wasn’t high or drunk when I went to bed last night). During this, Levi fell & hurt his knee, which is how I found out about the feud with Bob. I told him I’d help fend off Bob for the rest of the ride.

We left the concrete area & headed to Cafe Brazil for food & drinks. We were going to meed up with the OSP group there. Along the way, Bob kept trying to mess with Levi, so I was attempting to block him, and hopefully cause him to crash, instead. We both kept rolling over, but kept riding, battling away at each other. I ended up on Bob’s right side, and was having trouble causing him to crash without me crashing, too. I then noticed that he was on Tim’s 1988 Mongoose MTB. So I reached over and squeezed the brake lever on the right handlebar. Bob saw me reaching, & got a smug look on his face as he stood up to power through the application of the rear brake. Except it wasn’t the rear brake, it was the front, as Tim runs his breaks opposite from most people. Bob ended up flipping over the handlebars & crashing.

Levi & I raced away, trying to catch Tim. Bob got up & chased us. He came up on my right side, and reached over to do the same thing to me, expecting my brakes to be set up like Tim’s. Except they aren’t, and he only slowed me down.

We arrived at Cafe Brazil where Kyle was starting to lock up everyone’s bikes.

And then my alarm went off, waking me up.

I rode from home to Cristy’s in Oak Lawn. Hung out with Cristy, Matt, Autumn, Darin? & Julie. All of us except Cristy then rode through Downtown to Bishop Arts, where we had tacos at a taco window, then over to Barabara’s Pavillion. Cristy was waiting for us at Barbara’s. We drank & sang karaoke, then headed home. I ended up getting in 14.29 miles.

It was a good ride. Not too hot, but a bit humid. I really need to lose some weight. I should probably cut out the drinking.

The ride over to Matt’s is a little challenging for me right now. There are a few hills, and a good stretch where there’s a bit of traffic, but I made it ok. I’m glad I filled my Camelbak, ’cause I ended up drinking all 70 ounces of it on the 9 mile ride. Once there, Matt gave me a PowerAde & I chatted with Paul, Dre, Autumn, Chuck & Matt. Finally another couple arrived on their trike, and we headed on out.

We did a clock-wise partial lap around the lake. The goal was to make it to a crappy sports bar to eat. As an appetizer, we rode with our mouths open while circumnavigating White Rock Lake. The gnats were so thick that it looked like we were driving through a snowstorm.

After eating & watching a bit of the All-Star festivities, we headed back to Matt’s. Once there, Chuck agreed to load my bike in the back of his 4Runner & give me a ride home. Had he not done so, I’d still be on the road some where, slowly grinding away towards home.

I am so out of shape right now it isn’t funny. The total ride was 18.25 miles. That’s nothing. I take that back. It’s motivation to get back into shape & lose some weight.

On the bright side, I didn’t drink the way I used to. Normally I’d have had 2-3 beers at Matt’s, then 2-3 more at the bar/restaurant, plus a few sips off the in-flight refueling. All I had tonight was one sip off the in-flight. I drank water or Dr Pepper or PowerAde the rest of the time.

Time to hit the shower & head to bed.

Drinking that much beer was not a good idea. I didn’t get much sleep last night because of it, and it really has affected me today. I think I’m going to switch to liquor drinks in the future. I won’t drink them as fast, and the times I have had them, I didn’t get hung over. The only problem is that I prefer Crown Royal, and it’s rather pricey. I guess there’s trade-offs in everything.

So I’ll be finishing the beer I currently have at home, and then no more.

Good bye, beer, you’ve been a good friend.

I live in Downtown Dallas, so I have to get out of Downtown to a safe area to ride. For the past few years, I’ve been riding East of Downtown to Fair Park, where I found a 1-mile loop that I can do laps on. Since it’s in Fair Park, the only traffic is Parks department and Police. Except that there’s some sort of construction going on in the middle of the loop, so I couldn’t ride there today. So I ended up riding on side streets back through East Dallas and into Downtown. I got in just under 8.5 miles at an average of just over 12mph.

I’ll have to do some map research and find another good route. I could always ride down to the Katy Trail, except that with the joggers and walkers I can’t get a good pace going. I think there’s a good route to get to White Rock Lake. I could then do a lap or two around it, depending on when I need to get back to get to work.