this space for rent

..is what fell on the city yesterday about two hours before our Thurs night Urban ride was to start.  I should start by saying that the term Urban ride doesn't descrive our Thurs night ride very well, you see there really isnt any hucking off of huge jumps or gaps or anything else that is normally perceived as "urban" riding.  No, our ride starts out in Piedmont Park and then winds its way through the city towards Decatur and Emory University before make the sprint back to Willy's for pitchers of Dos Equis Amber and well deserved burritos. 

  Well the rain prompted most folks to bail or at least have serious second thoughts about riding and seemed to put a funk over everyones mood.  I was desperate to ride as it was going to be my only chance to get on a bike this whole week since I had worked both jobs on a couple days and then celebrated Tweety's b-day by stuffing myself silly on sushi, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm sushi.  Anyway the plan was to do a modified route and start by going through Little 5 Points so I could grab tix to tonights Drive by Truckers show, and then ride the usual route backwards.  We immidiately got off on the wrong pedal by dropping Mango somwhere on North Highland, after a quick search and no Mango we pressed on.  We got over towards Emory and Clifford decided he'd had enough and needed to get back home to prepare for his trip to the Redneck Riviera (Panama City for those not in the know)

  So we pressed on again now as a five piece band and low and behold here comes the prodigal mtn biker Mango!  He got stuck at a light and didn't want to run it so instead he doubled back and rode the route forward thinking that he'd run into us eventually.  So we were again a six man, not nearly as lucky as seven but hey, six aint bad. 

The rest of the ride was good, nice pace and cool to ride it backwards to switch things up a bit.  Not nearly the flow that it usually has but we made it back a half hour earlier than we usually do.  Of course there wasn't any games of foot down and we cut out some single track and other acts of dipshittery, but the beer was cold and burritos good just like they always are.  Not the best of rides by far, but I think everyone had a decent time overall.  Hey a bad ride is still better than no ride right?

  Anyway like I mentioned earlier Drive by Truckers are in town tonight for a show at Variety Playhouse, and tomorow is the charity ride to benefit Lisa Lee http://mtbcast.com/afriendleeride/wordpress/  if you're in the Chicoppee area tomorrow, stop by and help out a fellow cyclist and friend.  Rumor has it that the Tour de Dump may see some riders on their way to visit the fair that wraps up this weekend.  Check back on Monday for a report of the show and this weekends rides

P.O.A.S.

Matt-

 I was waiting to see what the weather was going to do before making my decision as to whether on not I would race at the Dausett 12 hour.  But after spending a week feeling overworked, underpaid and overly exhausted, I decided that I probably would not be in any kind of form for racing and I'd rather not pay money for poor results. 

  So Sat morning Tweety, Shortbus and I loaded up the car and headed up to Bear Creek for a ride.  Actually by the time we got done trying to bleed my Hope brakes and making several stops, including one for "breakfast" at burger king in the form of a hamburger (it was either that or nothing at the time and I desperately needed some ride fuel) and one to the coolest bike shop in Ellijay www.cartecaybikes.com to see Kevin, we made our way over to Gates Chapel Rd for the ride.  As soon as we got started up the gravel service road to Bear Creek I knew that I was in for a lackluster day.  That burger was not doing me any favors and my legs just felt dead, but I set out a pretty good pace and pointed the bike skyward and settled in for the 8 mile climb to the overlook.  Halfway up we ran into some of the Yazoo guys who were getting in a ride before heading down to the Queens of the Stone Age show that night.  After reaching the overlook I felt sick and just all around done so I decided now was a good time to head back down to the upper creek to try to cool off before I gave back my breakfast.  Tweety and Shorty joined me and we decided that we'd all had about enough but we wanted to explore the Bear Creek Loop that we've always skipped over in favor of just bombing down Bear Creek.  Once back down to where Pinhoti 1 picks up, both Tweety and Shorty were feeling better and decided to make the right turn and climb, while I opted for the car and an early end to a less that mediocre ride.

  Sat night was also the festival of speed at the velodrome and I was able to make it there just in time for the last couple of races and to see some more of my www.BODbikegroup.com  family and some old and newer friends.  Those races are intense!  One of these days I've got to get back down there and out on the track.  A trip over to OZ pizza for  dinner and beer made for a good end to the day.

   Sunday saw Bam Bam and I headed up to Athens to meet up w/ some of the Hash people from Atlanta.  This was to be my first hash ride and I had no idea what to expect going into it, being the FNG and all.  Let me just say that Athens has some great urban riding, stairs everywhere and tons of stuff to just and launch off of.  I'm not one who is much for air time, but even I was getting in on the fun and enjoying the jumps.  The route lasted a couple hours and had some decent hills to it, fortune smiled down on me in the form of a $10 bill found on the side of the road, BEER and GAS MONEY!  WOOO-HOOO!  Loads of stuff to see and several points of historical interest on the ride, like the double barrelled cannon that was built for the civil war, and the Tree that owns itself (the man who owned the land it sits on left it to the tree in his will)  My apologies for the lack of pics in this post, I promise to do better next time :(

Music on my mind:

This time last time - Shawn Mullins

It takes two - Ryan Adams

The night we burned the trailer park down - Paul Thorn

Eyes - North Mississippi Allstars

Apparently I do.  I've never been much of what you would call a sound sleeper, not really sure why but I've always been one who was able to get by on very little sleep for extended periods of time.  On the average I sleep for about 4- 6 hours a night and usually I'm ok with that, being able to function like most normal people do at least.  One of the added drawbacks to my sleep habits is that I don't get very much deep sleep that is known as REM sleep (yes it's more than just a band).  So because of this I don't dream very much or at all, however when I do dream they tend to be very vivid and real and usually affect my emotions upon waking up.

  So the last 3 nights have been dream filled, albeit it with the usual amount of sleep hours and up until last night they've been some pretty kick ass dreams.  Night before last I was slaying zombies and saving the world with a samuri sword, the back drop looked earily like something that you might see in a movie like Dawn of the Dead or Resident Evil.  Now another weird thing about my dreams is that in the past I've dreamt of something and later something very similar ended up happening in my real/ awake life.  Now I'm not claiming to be Nostradaumus, or even that crazy guy who predicts the world is going to end every six weeks, however there have been times that have left me wondering about things in the universe outside of our control.  So this dream spoke to me that there will be a zombie uprising someday, and it will come from the West.  The first to be infected with the zombie curse will be hybrid car driving California liberals, and their plague will sweep towards the East.  However I will be there to defend the last of human kind in the war against the zombies, so you had best make friends with me now or suffer the conscequences later when the zombies come for your bbbbbrrrrraaaaaaiiiiiinnnnnsssssss!

   Ok so that's not the actual dream I wanted to talk about, and really I'm not going into details about the one I do from this morning for personal reasons.  However this morning I awoke mid panic attack gasping for air like a fish pulled from the ocean up onto the deck of a boat.  A quick glance to the clock revealed the numbers 5:25, about an hour and a half from when my alarm is set to go off.  Now it's not out of the ordinary for me to get up in the middle of the night and then immediately fall back asleep, however this was not ordinary dream and with the response that it caused there was no question that I wasn't going back to sleep.  So I got up, checked some emails, made some coffee, visited a few cycling websites and a few other blogs, got ready and headed into work about 6:30.  Bottom line is that I really hope that one doesn't come true, not because the events of the dream were all together bad, they were actually very happy for the other people in the dream.  Just that I don't know if I could be there to see it. 

  So now that I've totally alienated you with that let me tell you why I started this whole blog thing.  You see I've always kind of found blogging to be a very odd thing, with the writer sharing their inner most thoughts while publishing them on the worlds most public form of media.  However I've always been a fan of journaling, though I haven't always done it very much.  However lately I've found myself more and more drawn to the idea of them, especially after reading the blogs of my friend Hodge    http://velomech.livejournal.com  and that of rich dillen http://teamdicky.blog.com/  check em out they're both very good.

  So what to expect from this?  Well you can probably count on most of what I talk about here being cycling and music related, as they are both things that I'm very passionate about.  I can't promise daily or even weekly updates the way others might do, however if the muse takes a hold of me you better believe that I'm going to expound upon it.  Anyway feel free to post any coments in that section of the page, I've got to finish up a few things before heading downtown tonight for the Urban ride.  First good sized group we've had since last winter is supposed to show up tonight, looking forward to hitting some urban single track and a few games of footdown and some other general dipshitery.

P.O.A.S

Matt- 

currently listening to:

Austin Collins : Reckless and Lovely

Drive by Truckers: Decoration day

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals: Lifeline