Waiting is not the hardest part, Tom

Getting the Meatplow back from Durango proved almost as hard as it was for Matt McFee to pry it outta the hands of the FedEx Ground personnel the night before I showed up in Colorado. I shipped it on a Monday evening, and by last Friday it was in Charlotte. It showed up at the FedEx Ground facility around 5:00pm that evening, and even though it was just 15 miles from my house I couldn't have it back till Monday. That forced me to ride the yet to be named Zion with its (as some of you pointed out yesterday) "lowly" Thomson post as opposed to the high zoot MOOTSpost that my ass is used to.

Not having the Meatplow readily available I was forced to ride the yet to be named Zion all weekend. The Pie and the rest of the family were outta town, so I planned on getting some quality riding in while I had the opportunity. It's not like the Zion is a bad ride, but once you've ridden a custom frame that was custom made for your custom needs it's a little hard to go backwards. Anyways... any ride is better than no ride.

So on Saturday I drove past the FedEx Ground facility by a couple of miles on my way to the mountains with Bill Nye to meet up with Eric "PMBAR Honcho" Wever. We were going to go for a soggy ride in the mountains that went from an epic plan to an almost equally epic fail. None of us wanted to spend the whole day wet, so we chose a shorter 2.5 hour ride in Bent Creek as opposed to an all day soaking in the Pisgah Proper.

Long live long rides, but short rides have their place... I guess.

Sunday I had plans to go explore some trails I've never seen before in the Uwharrie National Forest. That area was plowed by rain, so I ended up going to the Anne Springs Close Greenway trails with Stabby and Eric Van Driver. I love going there, although it's a bit of a drive and it costs $3, but the powers that be have removed even more trail from the "bike friendly" list. It's almost not worth the drive anymore...

What was I talking about... oh yeah, getting my bike back.

So I shipped my bike back from Durango "no signature required", and of course at 8:30am Monday morning the tracking number showed that the driver came to my house, but nobody was available, so he didn't leave the package. Meh... what's the point? I really wanted the bike back on Monday since the family was still outta the house for a few more hours for a quiet rebuild, so I had to call FedEx, go home after work and kill 1.5 hours, and then drive out to pick it up myself. That's service.

Shipping my bike in a cardboard box always give me such a sense of security.

Now I've got the Meatplow back, and I have no races on the horizon till next year (that I know of). Since I got some time to goof around I figured I'd do something a little different...

Why?
In the words of Bluto Blutarsky, "Brrrpppp, why not?"

I had my MOOTO X designed so I could put a fork on it if my wrists never healed back up in a happy way. Since they were doing much better this summer (long story) I never bothered to mount up the 100mm Fox Fjork to the Meatplow, but now that I don't have any racing going on I figured why not see how it works with the squish mounted up. There won't be any riding this weekend (an even longer story than the wrist story), but I plan on squirting out to the trails Thursday evening to see how it feels. Driveway testing suggests that it will be pleasant, but then again driveway testing had me thinking that the brakes on the yet to be named Zion were in proper working order before I went riding last weekend (they were not).

Doh...

Almost forgot, today is probably the last day you can click to vote. You know what to do.