Epic doesn’t have to be epic and if conditions are right (that is, wrong), a relatively mundane ride can embody all the spirit of adventure usually reserved for far more ambitious routes.
You have to really like bike riding (or at least beer) or just be unwilling to miss an opportunity to see Specialist Sean get shit-faced drunk one more time before his hush-hush military duties take him away to consider it a fun way of spending an evening to gather in the steady rain after dark for a sodden ride through flooded streets in the first real Pineapple Express of the season.
But about twenty hardy souls did and we set out from Westlake Center and then down the slippery cobblestones of Pike Market past the gum wall with nary a crash but gales of laughter at the brash stupidity of it all.
And pretty soon, we were approaching the West Seattle Bridge, soaked, but apparently not wet enough until standing around grumbling through what seemed like the longest flat fix in history but maybe it was just the feeling of feeling too stupid to come in out of the rain.
All was forgiven, though, by the time we had raced through Alki to the Celtic Swell (pronounced “Swill”) and were quaffing stout, stealing fries from Derrick’s plate, and regaling dry patrons with tales of our hard-core, let-no-weather-stop-us velocitude.
And best of all, just when you’d think that any sensible person would call it a night and head home to get out of his wet clothes and into a dry martini, the Pugsley Pod pelaton pedaled to the Boxcar in Magnolia where Specialist could end his riding for the evening curled around a pint glass and I could fulfill my fantasy of singing “Carry On My Wayward Sun” in public.
And if that weren’t epic enough, I even managed to be sufficiently distracted by the time I left to leave my debit card at the bar.
You have to really like bike riding (or at least beer) or just be unwilling to miss an opportunity to see Specialist Sean get shit-faced drunk one more time before his hush-hush military duties take him away to consider it a fun way of spending an evening to gather in the steady rain after dark for a sodden ride through flooded streets in the first real Pineapple Express of the season.
But about twenty hardy souls did and we set out from Westlake Center and then down the slippery cobblestones of Pike Market past the gum wall with nary a crash but gales of laughter at the brash stupidity of it all.
And pretty soon, we were approaching the West Seattle Bridge, soaked, but apparently not wet enough until standing around grumbling through what seemed like the longest flat fix in history but maybe it was just the feeling of feeling too stupid to come in out of the rain.
All was forgiven, though, by the time we had raced through Alki to the Celtic Swell (pronounced “Swill”) and were quaffing stout, stealing fries from Derrick’s plate, and regaling dry patrons with tales of our hard-core, let-no-weather-stop-us velocitude.
And best of all, just when you’d think that any sensible person would call it a night and head home to get out of his wet clothes and into a dry martini, the Pugsley Pod pelaton pedaled to the Boxcar in Magnolia where Specialist could end his riding for the evening curled around a pint glass and I could fulfill my fantasy of singing “Carry On My Wayward Sun” in public.
And if that weren’t epic enough, I even managed to be sufficiently distracted by the time I left to leave my debit card at the bar.