Weird

photo by ShowsUpJoe

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the weirdest one of all?”

Obviously, Fancy Fred comes to mind, and I have to admit that flute-playing yours truly is definitely a candidate, but in this case, I think we must give special consideration to the birthday boy himself for, if nothing else, being weird enough to not only schedule and attend each and every one, but also to ride in both directions for almost all fourteen of the eponymous countries that bear his angry hippie moniker and imprimatur.

No clever pun subtitle ever really stuck to year’s version of Ben Country* although that did nothing to undermine the annual weirdness associated with it and the joke that there would be more trucks driving to the site than cyclists pedaling there, while only slightly an exaggeration, was really spectacular since it meant that not only was there a full bar set up (featuring signature cocktails) for tired riders pulling in, but also enough wood to last throughout the evening, and plenty of cab space on Sunday to accommodate lazybones like me for whom one hilly fifty mile ride per weekend is sufficient.

I think the surest sign of human-induced global climate change I’ve observed is that it was dry and clear the whole country-time, but Ben said it’s only been four of the fourteen that have been wet; if that’s the case, it must not include the six I’d been on, each of which required rain gear in some form or another for at least some of the time.

The site, while not nearly as post-apocalyptic as some of the previous incarnations, was actually pre-apocalyptic, as it was formerly a place to disarm torpedoes and other exploding ordnance, which, come to think of it, probably prepared it well for our arrival and revelry.

It’s weird how things are connected like that and even weirder that they continue to be, weird year after year, weird mile after mile.

 *Until afterwards, when Fred dubbed it "Ben Country XIV: Gentle Ben"