CeeBee said:
Does Yoot's church know he stole the bus?
That's the thing... they suggested I drive it! haha
kingfish254 said:
I definitely want to hear more about the late night Critical Mass ride!
So, what time did you go inside, about 8:30pm?
I had already put Sand Rover and Higgins back in the church van, so I rode the tall bike over to the van and grabbed my blinky lights off of Higgins and put them on the tall bike. I figured the night was young, the weather was beautiful, so I was going to show off the tall bike a little to all the thousands of tourists still on the streets, and if I wasn't riding I would have just been driving back to my hotel to call it a night.
I went riding only a couple blocks and ran into a big group of people on bikes, they saw me coming and starting yelling "AWESOME BIKE!" and "YOU'RE AWESOME!" (no, really) So I pulled in and stepped off, they were beside a hotel or something.
One guy asked if I would let people ride and I let him, he got right up on it and rode around and dismounted. I talked there for a while and they asked if I was going to ride with them. I was skeptical since my tall bike is geared 32:18... and it's a tall bike... and it's dark outside... and I have NO idea where I am. They were mostly on fixed gear bikes.
I finally said I would ride until I ran out of steam, and we set off, over 30 bikes. Earlier in the night they had about 60. Only a few minutes into the ride a guy got a flat and we all stopped to help him put in a new tube in, we lost some people at this point. We went down a road that had a bike path painted on it for a long time, and they were riding pretty fast, it was the fastest I'd ever ridden on the tall bike for an extended period of time, my legs were SPINNING!
At every turn I had NO idea where I was going and kept wondering how I would get back. They were saying something about going to "the tree." Many of them had beer can holsters on their belt and those without had bottles of liquor in their bags. We kept going. I remember bombing up a road, I was dropping back and I told the guy beside me I was going to peel off and go back, he responded by yelling to the front to slow down. They all did and we were soon back in a group.
At one intersection I dismounted and was waiting for the light and CRASH! 2 fixies tangled up in a pile, the sort of leader guy got him from behind by another guy in the group. Everyone was fine. We kept riding.
We were out of the downtown part of the city and in more residential areas, we were moving pretty fast and I was trying to see as much of the dark road as possible so I wasn't paying attention to just how rough the neighborhoods were. A guy looked up and said "We're almost there." About a mile later he said the same thing.
We went through a round about and an impatient driver came up beside me yelling and cussing me out for being in the road... well, I was tall bike, he was yelling at my feet. My new friends saw this and rushed the car, riding on both sides of him in close proximity yelling and cussing him out and telling him to actually do something about it, basically calling him out. It was tense for me, but seemed completely routine to the rest of the group, the driver left quickly... my honor intact.
One guy came beside me and said when we "get there" we have to go down a dirt road and it's very sandy, they didn't want me trying to ride it, so he would walk with me. Cool, though it did cross my mind that they may be leading me into the woods to murder me, but I kept going.
We arrived at the dirt road and walked in, sure enough, a few hundred yards in was a HUGE tree. We set up all our bikes in front of it (about 25 by now) and one guy who was a photography student was taking some long exposure photos of the group. Some of the guys and gals climbed the big tree, some drank, some pulled out some little baggies and papers and got out lighters... :? I just hung out and talked with whoever was around.
One good story was how as they arrived at the dirt road they didn't realize that there was a girl just riding a bike that wasn't with the group, a guy trying to get on the dirt road thought she was about to turn and hit her from behind. Everyone was alright, be she was a little freaked out.
All of us were swatting sand gnats continuously. We decided it might be better back on the road. We headed that way. Some stayed up the tree (it was huge, did I mention that?), when we got tot he road some kept going, and the crowd shrunk more. The ride leader gave me a spoke card he had made for the night, I was actually very honored by this.
Back on the road right where the dirt trail started we just hung out and talked. There was still some drinking and smoking going on, and the group would get smaller. I was offered some Wild Turkey, I explained I was "straight edge" and that was cool with them.
A guy on my behalf went to another guy who leads up a group of the cyclists, they call their group the Wolf Pack, he asked if he would give me a Wolf Pack spoke card and that also was presented to me, again, honored, because these are normally either sold, traded, or earned.
Once that card came out, another guy wanted one, and the games were on. They started off playing "foot down" until a card was earned. Then they did a track stand contest till a card was earned. They a trick track stand contest gave away the final card.
At this point some guys wanted to try the tall bike and I obliged. One guy took a couple falls getting on and that kind of jacked up my rear wheel. Another guy was bigger than me at 250lbs and the added weight flexed the frame enough to lose the chain. Both of these thing cause me some issues on the return trip, but I can fix the wheel and chain easy. 3-4 guys ended up riding the bike with no real issues, all were soon talking about building their own.
Things were really dying down and I asked how to get back downtown, they assured me they would get me there, so we all set off, only down to about 8 riders at this point. I noticed the rear wheel was wonky and I had a skip (tight link) in my chain, when we go onto a main road my chain jumped and one of the guys blocked the road for me as I fixed it. We continued on slowly.
As we approached an intersection we saw a mess, 2 of our riders bikes tangled together in front of a car, the guys riding beside me took off, they had run into each other, no cars involved, but traffic was stopped. I dismounted and helped get the girl's bike pedal out of the guy's front wheel. 4 spokes with nipples attached had ripped out of the front rim, the rim would not be salvageable. I spun the nipples off and removed the spokes so that he could get it home. He was pretty bummed since it was not his bike.
People kept peeling off until I had just one guy riding with me and he got me to the park. We exchanged pleasantries and a fist bump and peeled off in different directions... I was back... nearly.
Seems I hadn't paid enough attention to Kingfish while riding earlier, so I even though I had familiar surroundings, I had no idea where the van was. I rode beside a bicycle taxi rider for a while and we talked, he didn't know the road I was looking for, so I turned back to try again looking myself. I ran into some others that wanted to see my bike and showed some my mount/dismount procedure. I pulled out my phone and put directions into my Map App, and followed the blue line back to the van.
It was 11:20pm. I got loaded and onto the road at 11:30pm and back to my hotel in Pooler, GA before midnight. Watched some TV and slept a few hours, getting up, dressed, packed, checked out, and on the road at 6:00am.
I'm careful not to throw this word around, but for me, this was an epic bike night.
