What Was I Thinking?

It was 3:55. I was in a neighboring office when I heard my cell phone ring. I thought I'd heard my office phone ring a few times, but all the phones sound the same. Expecting a crisis, I hurried to answer the phone. It was a riding buddy of mine that I hadn't ridden with in months. We had ridden thousands of miles over the years, and raced together a few times. I've been in my hum-drum anti-social commuting mode lately. I am on a quest to bike 9 out of 10 days per two work weeks- saving my car day for when I work late at the County. Anyway, he and a riding buddy were heading out for a fixed gear ride and they wanted to hook up with me. I suggested that we meet on Summit. He suggested that neither of us ride past Snelling without calling the other, so we didn't miss each other after the boulevard split up.

I left at 4ish on my frankenbike. My ride was into the wind, leading me to wonder where we might actually meet. I cut up Grand to Dale to Summit. As I approached Snelling, I saw him pulled over, digging out his cell phone. I did a U-turn and met up with them. Snelling was a good call. I had never met his friend before. He was riding an odd fixie with track drop outs, cable guides, and bottle braze-ons. It turned out it was an old Schwinn roadie that had track ends welded on by Bob Brown from St. Paul. It was a cool bike with wishbone stays and a rattle can finish. I lamented that I was a fish out of water on my geared bike. Randall, my friend, suggested we ride to my house and I could switch to my fixed gear. It was a plan.

We took the parkway home. I quickly swapped bikes. Having just ridden twenty-plus miles, in addition to the morning commute, it was freaky riding fixed again. We took off around Harriet to Calhoun to the Cedar Lake trail toward downtown. I was without lights on this bike, and dinner was waiting, so I headed back solo as they continued along the river. My legs were thoroughly cooked after this hammerhead postscript to an otherwise typical day of commuting. I was lamenting the fact that I had no motivation to clean all the sand off my bike from this morning's wet commute. I am not looking forward to tomorrow, and I am thankful that I have gears. I am beginning to wonder if I was a complete masochist for all the fixed gear commuting that I've managed over the past two years. From a general perspective, riding fixed tears up the body much more than riding geared. It really is less about the gears and more about being able to coast. Fixed riding really chews up my ass. There is almost constant motion and pressure. I am in heaven of the frankenbike. It is nice to have options.

I returned home to a wonderful dinner- homemade chicken soup. I rehydrated with a few Blue Moons and a Carlsberg. I've been on a real beer kick lately. I'll need to switch over to hard liquor soon, as we have more than we can import to Norway. I'm all about that, these days, except for the rum. What to do with the rum? I don't even like rum. How did we end up with so much? And the Courvoisier? VSOP- no less- for all the foreign relatives. I guess we could take that back with us, sort of as a tribute. I don't drink that stuff. We should probably host a party. And I should probably stick with the beer. Actually, we won't be able to afford any of this stuff after the move! I'll take it while I can.