Lick The Glove

As I've stated here, here, and here - I ride bikes in the winter now.  Particularly the Saturday morning ride that gets posted to Group Ride Omaha.

Last year, there was always a pretty good group.  This year - not so much.  Not that the group is bad or anything. It is just smaller.  Fewer people.

But I will always go as long as I can figure out where the mystery meeting place is.  Oh and also as long as there isn't some sort of scheduling conflict.  Like my son has built  some sort of baseball playing robot for some competition or something.  Then I'd probably have to go watch as this evil robot cyborg ball player thing destroys the competition or whatever it is they do.

Last year - it seemed like it was not less than 11 people each week.  This year, it's more like 4 or 5.  There's always Rafal.  There's usually Paul Webb.  Brady often appears.  Savery's been showing up the last couple of weeks.  Then me.  But I'm only there because of this:




That was Lou Gossett Jr. playing Rafal and Richard Gere as me.

Haven't seen Shim, Spence, or Leah lately.  Lucas Marshall has shown up once or twice.  

Obviously, there's a perfectly good reason for the sparse winter crew.  My knee jerk intuition guess is that since just about everything else is a better thing to do, they've got better things to do.

Please disregard that last explanation.  We all know it's because those guys are all a bunch of pussies.

Oh sorry.  Please disregard that last explanation.  It's because sometimes the meeting place directions are vague.  Then if you ask for clarification, a smartass answer is coming your way.

For example:

january 18th 2014

meet at Blue Line NODO
I've got bunch of  stuff to do in afternoon and so do other people.
I't's going to be breezy
coffee 8:30  (if you inclined)
rollout 9:00 am
the route is gravel pavement mix .
see you there

~~

SeanJanuary 17, 2014 at 12:28 PM

For the uneducated what is NODO? Thx.

RDJanuary 17, 2014 at 1:29 PM

is north of SOMA

Last week, it was this:

2-15-2014

Meet at culprit 9:30 am
Rollout 10 am
Going south to glenwood
Road bikes 
Bring money for the toll
No freeloaders
That is all folks

I had never heard of "culprit" before.  I didn't want to ask where culprit was, because I was thinking the answer would be something like "where we meet."

Also - No freeloaders.  So bring your own money for the toll.  More on this later.

So I googled culprit and sure enough, an address came up of 16th and Farnam.  Then I took a break from all that investigative work.

Sneakiest Coffee Shop In the World

As you can see, even the cook guy logo is wearing a mask!  Ooh!  Culprity!

 Anyway - Before last Saturday's ride, I took a gander at the hourly weather forecast.  It looked to be about 50F by the end of the ride.  There was a 30% chance of light snow early in the ride.  It was 28F when I went out the front door, dressed for weather later in the day of about 45F.  There were a few flurries coming down.

By the time I got to the meeting place, it was snowing.  Hard.  Also, it was pretty windy.  I was getting a little chilly.  I took the optimist point of view that maybe there's something to that whole brown fat thing, and cheerily shivered on down to this mysterious "culprit," place.

Because there is so much salt on the roads right now, you could [do something that takes a lot of salt to something really big], 28F was warm enough to keep the snow from accumulating on the street.  

The bonus there is when the water splashed you, it was colder than ice!

When I got there, Rafal, Paul, and Savery were already there.  It was about 5 minutes until rollout, but Savery had received a text that Brady was on his way but running late.

So we waited for a few minutes.  At roughly 12 after the hour we rolled on without Brady.  The plan was to ride south to Glenwood.  Initially, we would have taken roads, but the shitty weather precipitated a plan to use bike paths in Iowa for a while via the Bob Kerry Ordinary Bridge.  I guess - less splashy than the streets since the bike path is not covered in enough brine to marinate a [something really huge that needs marinating].

As we approached the bridge, I received a text.  This required me to remove my glove and reply.  Brady was asking if I was on the ride.  I figured he must've bailed, so I just replied, "yes."

Then I tried to ride and put my phone away and put my glove back on.  My hand was getting cold.  While this was happening, I was falling behind the other 3.  I figured I'd catch up.  They were sort of waiting.  Taking it nice and easy.

Just as I got my glove back on I got another text from Brady letting me know that he was at "culprit."  Obviously he knew where culprit was.

So I took my glove off again, told Brady I was at the bridge and gave up on Rafal, Savery and Paul who were now out of sight.

I also gave up on the use of my hand.  It was really cold by then.  

When Brady got to the Bob Kerry Average Bridge, The weather was snowing and blowing harder than ever from the direction we were heading.

The other guys were long gone.

Brady said, "What are you thinking?"  

I said, "I could go home right now.  Hot Chocolate.  I believe in Miracles.  etc."  But I figured we should just see how it went for a while.  After a few minutes, and with no provocation that I could discern, Brady mysteriously decided, "Let's just go in to Glenwood."

"Yeah," I said.

I think this might have been to put the test to something I had said to him a few minutes before.

I didn't believe anyone should be out riding around on road bikes in this weather.  It seemed pretty stupid.  The problem was the forecast.  It was supposed to be nice later on.  But I had mentioned to Brady that I thought the ride happened because nobody (myself included) had the guts to be the first to chicken out of it.

Somehow, Brady spent a few minutes in whatever hell he lives in and returned with "Let's just go to Glenwood."

Before I said "yeah," I heard from inside my head, the sound of my tongue clicking.  My tongue did not actually click, but the sound was there (in my head).  Also, I think I sighed internally.  Then I geared myself up for the long miserable ride ahead.

The ride to Glenwood as we generally take it has 2 routes.  The longer one is hillier and Brady and I were both willing to take the shorter route.  We hadn't really hurried or anything, but there was still a chance we'd catch the three guys in town if they took the longer route.

They did  take the long way, so we got there about 10 minutes to an hour ahead of them.  I figure they were about 5 minutes in front of us all the way to Glenwood, so that was pretty good.

Everything I've said up to this point was to talk about one thing in particular.

Savery was first of all surprised that we (Brady and I) hadn't bailed.  They all assumed we must have.

Secondly, he was surprised that, even though we went the short route, we got into town before them.

Luckily, he quickly realized the only possible explanation.  Still reeling from the shock that we got there before them, he said, "Wow.  Brady.  You must have motorpaced Fred all the way here!"

Thanks Mark. 'preciate it.

Then we all did the rest of the ride.  By that time, it was warm and sunny and everybody was happy.

We got to the toll bridge and I paid Brady's (because I had told him I would) otherwise, I think he'd have gone the non-toll way.  Also - the guy who posted the ride and the mystery start place and the no freeloaders admonition.  He couldn't locate his coin purse so I paid his too.  Then I paid for the car behind me.  An idea I got from Ryan Feagan.  As I got going again, I had to put my glove back on.   The rest of the group was already rolling up the hill.  Then I dropped my glove and had to go back for it.

"Not again," I thought.  But I was able to catch back up to them eventually.

Stupid glove.

In conclusion,  I've just learned that my son has finished work on an evil baseball playing robot.  I am saddened that I will be unable to attend this weekend's ride even if I can figure out where it starts.

Have fun fellers.  Try not to miss me too much.