Not quite useless

Friday as I rode to work, I knew I had three choices on the table for the weekend.

1.  Drive by myself to Paris Mountain, volunteer at the race Saturday, attend the Dirt Jam that night, wake up feeling like ass on Jay Koehn's floor, try to "race" enduros all morning, head home alone to a pile of neglected responsibilities.

2. Ride to a ride, ride, ride home, ride to another ride, ride, ride to a party, imbibe, ride home.

3. Choose not to decide, yet still have made a choice.  Just do nothing and regret it on Monday.

By 10:00AM on Friday, I pulled the plug on the Paris Mountain plan.  Although I had The Pie's blessing, I believe she was waiting to see if I could make a sound decision on my own.  Sometimes I'm actually capable of that.

I was all but committed to Plan 2, which was going to be an all-encompassing "where the day takes you" kind of adventure with a huge cast of characters...

but then I got a group text.

Kurt, ringleader of Faster Mustache: Queen City Division (AKA: Charlotte Youth Cycling League) wanted to know if anyone was headed down to the Paris Mountain race.  It wasn't long before he surmised that the race was sold-out long ago, so a day trip to the mountains was in order.  A last minute scramble ensued, and in the end it was to be a ride with the newlywed Ramptons and one third wheel... me.
Two interesting things.  My last ride in the mountains was on the same seasonal side of the woods.  I was the only riders on a full squish, shifty bit equipped, 26" bike in a gaggle of 29" single speeds.  Saturday, Kurt and Gwyn were on the squished little bikes, and I was on the 29" SS.  Balance restored to the universe.

The other interesting thing?  Back in March when I got my Fjox fjork, I never touched the air pressure straight out of the box.  I just ran it with no idea how much air pressure was in there.  A few weeks ago, I noticed I was finally bottoming it out (getting 112mm out of my 100mm fjork).  I needed to solve that problem, but Terralogic fjorks don't sag during set-up so nice like regular fjorks.  I ended up jacking the pressure to 100 PSI because that was a nice round number.

Too round.

That would be all the travel I got over the course of the day on a ride that included the chunder of Lower Daniel's Ridge.  Meh.

Even still, I was a very happy non-camper aboard the fjorked Dickstickel Meatplow V.6.  It is my favorite bike to ride in this part of the country, EVEN with an improperly adjusted squishy fjork.  There really is no other bike I want to ride in Pisgah.  Hands down, everything it does, awesome.

After the ride, I enjoyed my first beer at The Hub (AKA: Pisgah Tavern) and then a loaf of banana bread sized burrito at Tapas.

I feel like I made a good choice for my weekend's recreation and my riding outfit.

My new BKB kit and a pair of gloves hastily purchased from the Pasty White Bearded Hill People's Headquarters that morning in a panic. When the ride calls for tight fitting clothing, this will be my ensemble of choice until I get swallowed up by some major corporate conglomerate racing team.