I've spent the hours since the arrival of the original route map that Mr. Noer sent out along with a cheap shot at me an my buddy Calvin thinking, you might even say working. Now I understand the fact I continue as the green jersey points leader and winner of the never before known sprint just outside Stillwater at the beginning of the ride that put the now very coveted Park Tool* BO 2 (BO = Bottle Opener, Get it?) into use at my house and the bitterness (not good bitterness as in Beer but bad bitterness as in resentment, hatred, envy, etc).
So... why have you not heard from me until now? Why have I not spoken my peace about the 'Bone Lake' route planned for Saturday? You're just dieing to know aren't you? Really. Ok, even though you're not, I'm going to tell you anyway.
We all know that when Mike sends out a route to the north and you start your mental preparations around the (mostly) flat land of the North of Stillwater land masses that this route takes us through that shortly (and by shortly, I mean shortly before departure time) Mr. Noer will pull the latter half of the bait and switch. Meaning, even though 35 of us have our heads into the work that awaits, IE: we're all focused on getting our heads around the subtle but significant differences in the flat land route presented by Mr. Noer's route versus the south land routes that we run through when we cross into the South of 94 Mountains of eastern - central and not quite southern MN. We call it Afton. And you just know... it's coming. The adjustment (change) to use the route he's had up his sleeve all week - the real route he's cooked up that will climb everything that does not climb him first (yuck!). It won't be the coveted flatness of the north half of Washington County, but instead it'll be thousands of meters of 45 degree gradients in the big ring to the south. That's right, no one every said: "Go SOUTH young man!" And let's face it, not many of us are young, but I digress...
Oh sure, he'll hack into someone's email account and send himself an email in their name with a complaint like "Hey, stupid, did you look at the weather at all? The wind is gonna be gusting from the south at like 8mph! we can't ride NORTH! Stupid! I'll never by Thule** again unless you change the route to go SOUTH! I DEMAND we go south!!!!'
And Mike, always pretending to be quite and nice (just ask UPS), will reply "Ok, in order to accommodate the wishes of the club, we'll ride south up the Afton Mountain Range instead of north across the plains of not quite Northern but certainly Central and eastern MN.
And we fall for it... every Saturday, at 9am.
Well, we don't ALL fall for it. My buddy Calvin is smart enough to refuse. He instead sends out nice emails. Emails that help drive ad revenue for Goggle when his readers have to search for the meaning of whatever it was he just said. Yeah - Pumpkin Ride! 8am!
Oh yeah... but like chickens being lead to my breakfast table, many of us will choose not to show up for the 8am departure of the Calvin turns into a Pumpkin so leaves at 8am instead of the Noer lies to us 9am extravaganza but the Gruppetto/Autobus gets time to ride and chat ride. If you know what I mean.
Sigh. What a club.
* Park Took - official tools of HTC Columbia and John's beer collection.
**Thule - it ain't just racks for your car! You should get you some!
PS - remember how Mike said: 'wind direction of NNE at 8 mph' Yeah, it's gonna be SSE at 4. Great. here we go again.
The note that set all this off (it just sounds nice, read it with an angry tone in mind!)
At risk of receiving “input”, here is a proposed route for this Sat. 9 AM ride for those that aren’t doing the St. Peter TT or something else…
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/
Pretty familiar ~50 mile Bone Lake loop North and then back through Scandia and Marine with a predicted wind direction of NNE at 8 mph. Looks like 50/50 chance for rain.
OK, feel free to commence “input.” Except for Calvin and Sully…no need to comment. Really, it isn’t necessary. No seriously, we’re good. Ah, hell, go ahead. ; )
Disclaimer - we're not really serious.
The ultimate irony... overslept and missed the ride today (June 5).
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