Monday, May 11, 2020

Anger, Happiness, Euphoria, Confusion and Rage




A planned 'gooder' as I like to call them. Whats a 'Gooder' you ask? A long ride.

Immediately I was annoyed as my one bike that is running with zero issues suddenly had an issue as I rolled down the paved trail ready to enter Go Trail close to Staff College. My freewheel was not disengaging as I coasted down the trail.

Every sort of anger emotion flowed through my body, Every bike in the quiver now has an issue. The Rocky rode fine for a couple rides and now it shit the bed. I do seriously contemplate just giving up on this passion sometimes but I can't. I used the word 'passion' in there so it's a pretty hard thing to give up.

The passion did come through strongly on Farmers Daughter but first I had to deal with a shitty running bike on trails I shouldn't be riding.

I chose Oliskew's singletrack trails to roll through which was probably a mistake. They were wet but not super bad but bad enough. You catch my drift? I wondered if I should be on them and was hoping to see another rider who takes things serious to help me feel better about riding these trails. 'Well if he or she is riding this it can't be that bad' I would think to myself.. Possibly giving the passing rider some relief as they might be thinking the same thing and seeing me. An accomplished stern professional mountain biker who takes his riding seriously.

All that were on the trail were young kids who bless their tiny kid hearts don't know any better. A rider approached and I got excited but it was just some dispshit wearing jeans and a hoodie riding a Costco bike.

Mind you, his bike was most likely running better than mine.

Aside from my worried nature about riding trails that are not really good to ride on yet but they are good to ride on (you get what I'm throwing down here?) my bike was fucking my shit up. The spinning freewheel was not there when I wanted to engage my pedals and hammer up a short steep climb which are very few and far between on the  Flat Pete's but there are enough to not have the power in my drivetrain resulting in an incredibly bad moment on the trail as I was beyond fed up with my bike. The Ibis I rode prior had hardly any issues.

Farmers Daughter saved that day. I was going to ride Selkirk Knights but the entrance looked greasy so I abandoned my plan and went towards the Savage centre.

I rarely ride these trails and every time I do ride they are euphoric. This is an area where throwing in the singlecrack term comes in handy. Farmers Daughter was in amazing shape and the exposed roots and cliffs that would mess your day up kept me on my toes. Aside from the bullshit from my bike this would be one of the best rides of the year so far. The bike bullshit will probably not let this in the annual top 5.

I rode out into suburbia bullshit wasteland and was lost. A quick stop at Kent's was the plan for him to have look at my freewheel so we could formulate a gameplan to fix this issue. Shortly after getting his address as I had no idea where to go as all the houses look the same I mis-jumped a curb hop and had a pinch flat.

Normal people carry a patch kit or spare tubes and a decent pump correct? I had everything but the handle for my co2 cartridges. Classic Lonebiker.

Enter Kent.

He picked me up in his pedo van (its short for pedal) and we repaired the bike and I was on my way. A borrowed back wheel from the boy as my hub had a huge crack in it. The world needs more Kent's.

From Kent's I rode home avoiding Go Trail for some dumb reason.

farmers daughter plauding me to keep going, i did
watching cool guys in their jacked up pick ups and sport bikes for a coffee break, alberta is cool 


poorly drawn phallic graffiti amuses me 

Beer Friday. Whiteclaw Brewing, Tomorrow We Ride Hefeweizen

Welcome back to Beer Friday properly done on an actual Friday but not a post work Friday as some sort of insane bout of insomnia hit and I w...