As Joe, JMac and I neared the launching point, I turned to them and said, "if nobody shows up, I think we should just go to the bar" to which they enthusiastically agreed. Unfortunately for the bartender who's tips remained unpaid, there were alot of folks sitting tight, awaiting our departure. I opted to wait 30 minutes for stragglers, but when you are soaked to the bone and the actual ride has not even yet begun, stragglers be damned, and we were off.

I kept claiming that once within the trees, we would stay dry, which most definitely was not the case. I was persistent on this point to which Torin eventually exclaimed "so where are these umbrella trees you keep talking about?"

Touché Torin... Touché.

As the organizer, (I use the term very loosely) I opted to attempt at keeping folks in relatively close proximity to one another, the plan for which immediately unraveled.
Eventually opting to simply let go of the reins, we all made our way into the forest, and up the seemingly endless climb to our first meeting spot;

A couple of local honches blasted off the front, so I figured instead of keeping any sort of line tethered to them, I'd attempt to at least try and maintain some semblance of unity within the second group, which proved to be fruitless, as all but two of them turned back. Once at the summit, Zach and I not only waited for the others to join us, but for the rain to stop, the former eventually occurring, the latter absolutely not;

Making the assumption that we were the last to be passing through these parts, (which was eventually proven to be incorrect) we continued on to the trail, which at this stage in the game was little more than a rocky creek, but undetered, we pressed on;

For a brief moment the rain turned to a heavy drizzle and we could actually see a sliver of coastline as we stopped on the ridge to take in the scenery;

Except for Juan, who in the above shot anyway, looks as if he's questioning why exactly he was here.

Thankfully, at the end of many more miles of being towed (dragged) along by the Rotstein wonder twins, and ingesting gallons of water being thrown up off of the various rear tires in front of me, (fenders were a rare commodity on this ride) we rounded the bend to see the beacon of hope that was the Swobo E-Z Up over the back of my truck, the tail gate piled high with donuts, coffee, and libations, it's orange cheeriness covering Tina B's fetching footwear, and welcoming faces;

As the shivers set in for the remaining few, the last of our compatriots disbanded to the dry confines of their homes, or heated chariots.
Joe and I looked at each other for a brief moment, contemplating how easy it would be to simply throw our bikes in the back of the truck and make our way home, but out of respect for the effort that all who attended put fourth, we immediately dashed the thought and headed back out into the rain for the final push.

It was late in the evening when I finally heard that The Reverend and The Jewford were in fact behind us, fighting for their lives, and holding true to our cause. By the time they rolled through, the whisky stop had pulled up stakes and split. If I had any regrets about our adventure, it is that we didn't offer support to these two unfeigned soldiers working so hard to keep the bummer life's attacks stemmed from the rear.

I now declare from atop my soap box, that this event will be taking place again when the days are longer and the skies are dryer and for those two, I will wait on bended knee to offer the services that they missed out on during this trip.

I have made this loop regularly in recent days, and can say without hesitation that completing it in the mud and rain was ten times harder then it is when it's dry. So aside from reiterating my congratulations to Joe, I want to offer my most humble thanks to everyone who came out, and I look forward to doing it all over again in far more forgiving conditions.

Now that all of that is out of the way, let's get to the mail bag.

Jesse wrote in with some motivation in the form of grown men in underpants and tap shoes;

"Stevil,

Last Thursdays Tour of California stage ending in Paso Robles where Cavendish won the sprint inspired this motivational poster.

Based on his hand gesture after winning I think he was showing off to the ladies in the crowd: "Hey, check out my package and then tell ya sistas I beat Tom Bonen." If only we all could achieve such extraordinary levels of humblness.

Enjoy,
Jesse"

It takes an individual of great strength and fortitude to emerge victorious from such a grueling event, and still have the wherewithal to point out his junk.

Sometimes I'll be skating casually through life under the impression that my existence is relatively complete, and then Aaron from Seattle will email me with a clip that punches a hole right the hell through that theory, because it makes me realize that I don't have a cabinet door that sounds like Chewbacca.

Though Chewbacca and The Bigfoot aren't exactly in the same ballpark, they are big, brown and furry, and since the following email from Dave in Boulder (where they take cyclocross seriously) mentions Bigfoot, it's appropriate that it should follow Aaron's clip;

"I know it's blurry (like photos of sasquatch), but all the delicious-looking stuff in this photo is bacon!

Ya gotta get up pretty early in the morning to see this much bacon in Boulder...

Dave"

My heart just stopped.
..And not in the good way.

685 sent us a scan of a correspondence from back when he ran the mean streets;

Sometimes it takes tough love to get your point across.

I've been sitting on the following clip for a while, and today seems as good a time as any to present it here if for no other reason than because it just makes sense;

Toby from Toronto sent us this flyer and an email that began "What's up Freight Baggage?..."
Assuming he misspelled 'Swobo', I'll go ahead and throw it up here for the edification of any and all in that neck of the woods;

Concerning an occasional bugaboo that's been relayed to me about having to click back through links here on How To Avoid The Bummer Life to get back to our site, George mailed me with some technological mumbo jumbo that might do away with the aforementioned bugaboo;

"yo dude,
I was messing around with hyperlinks on my blog and found that if you add the words- target="_blank" -just after the URL (with the quotes), that the link will open in a new window. That is my only occasional complaint with HTABL, because there are so many links and to check them out you always have to go back and forth reloading the page.

All problems are solved here.

word bro - hope the weekend is going killer
g"

Seeing as getting the water to become hot in my shower is about as far as my mind can travel in terms of problem solving, that doesn't make a hill of beans worth of sense to me, but hopefully it will make somebody's life easier.

Evan, Yo! emailed me with a clip that begs a question;

"Stevil-

Thought you'd enjoy this.

evan, yo!"

That question of course being when the hell is the UCI going to enforce wider TT starting ramps?

And of course this doesn't have anything to do with that, but Eric emailed us with a link to help us keep our blacks the blackest;

Here's something worthwhile- Heavy metal laundry tips.

How to keep those sleeveless concert tees looking their "grandma best"

-Eric"

You wouldn't believe how much I needed to read that. Soon enough, I'm gonna be the sharpest, and most well pressed individual in the pit.

There's nowhere to go from here but down, so with that, I will go ahead and pull the plug on this installment and wish you all well until next time.

And remember- like the USPS, not rain, sleet or snow will keep us from doing our jobs, which in our case is going out and avoiding a bummer life.

..That is unless it does.

In which case, there are always cartoons to watch-

Or bartenders to tip.