To Tour or not to Tour

FWIW, I need to really figure out if I'm doing the Tour de Burg in a few weeks.

The schedule, printed off to make it slightly more tangible for an old person:

Plusses:

* I've already got the time off
* Chris M has wrangled me a tiny cross bike for the two "road" centuries

* I could use a challenge
* I get to see my little friends
* The Only Race That Matters™
* I might get to ride new, incredible trails
* I need a reason to stay in shape between now and the Shenandoah Mountain 100
* It's the twentieth anniversary, so...
* I will be on the receiving end of a world of shit if I don't go
* Cheaper Than Living™
* Burritos
* Mr J's Bagels
* Free t-shirt?

Minuses:

* It's going to be super hard
* Seven days is a long time
* It eats into a few child-free days with The Pie (summer camp)
* I could do something else (being planned) that involves Pisgah and other little friends
* I'll probably destroy another pair of shoes hike-a-biking
* I hate road riding... more than anyone could imagine... granted, TdB road riding > your road riding
* I might be crippled by riding any noodle bar bike for 200+ miles
* Driving up and back all by my loathsome lonesome (that five hour drive home... ungh)
* Getting home on July 6th way late and going to work the next day
* I could bank the days off and go do something molar bigger ($1,700 flight tho)?

My FOMO is huge. I think about it before I go to bed and first thing when I wake up in the morning.   My indecision is painfully sleep-cramping.  My desire to be at the 20th Tour de Burg is only equal to the lack of desire to do anything that requires more than a mediocre effort at this point in time.

This is all just me thinking out loud.

I'll be 47 years old tomorrow.  Not sure what to do about that.  I started riding mountain bikes back in the late '80s.

How long ago was that?

This was one of the most popular movies at the time:

And I would have been underage drinking straight from a pitcher of Long Island Ice Tea on a Thursday night in Pogo's Pub dancing to this:


I didn't start the whole endurance racing thing until the year 2000.  That means I'm in my 17th year of racing long distance mountain bike events, more than half the time that I've been riding a mountain bike.  I'm not sure how all that weighs into my decision to do TdB, but I feel like it does.

I used my fingers to figure out the math BTW.

Gonna head to The Spoke Easy tomorrow evening after work to "celebrate" putting another year behind me.  Big plans... I know.  About as much of a celebration as I'm gonna do.  Saturday is prolly the last day of non-oven temps in NC until fall, so I don't want to waste in on a couch with a hangover.