Mountain Cat 100 '24: The Pre-Dumble

Is the dumbling worth the dumble?  Dunno.  I mean, almost everything sent smoothly, except when it didn't.  I got to Greensboro in time to hear Watts answer a few phone calls at Revolution Cycles.

"Yeah... consignment.  Here's the thing..."

"Consignment... sigh."

"Sir, this is not a Wendy's."

And take some questions from live customers.

"I'm building up a bike and need parts.  Do you have parts?"

"What kinda parts?"

"Bike parts."

He offered me a beer, which I turned down. 

I chose heat with a side of humdity.

This was going to be "our year" at the Mountain Cat 100, and the earlier the beer, the worse the "our year" chances are.  Watts took the wheel getting us up to Richmond, as the Honda Fit of Rage has shit for AC.  Like you will be stuck to the seat and your nuts might get dragged under the brake pedal if you drive for three hours in 80°+ temps and direct sun.  We managed to squeeze his van into one of the spots that had rules that would allow us to leave the vehicle in place for the duration of our visit, which is no easy task.  You can go down any street in the area we were staying, and the rules changed what seemed like every five or so car lengths.

I can read that sign two ways, and one gets us towed, the other shot.

The very first thing we do is pull out our Wahoo data acquisition devices to confirm our routes are properly loaded for tomorrow.  I had some struggles earlier in the week when the route was slightly updated, and I discarded the original and tried to replace it.

And of course when I tried to pull it up, my screen flashed "YOU'RE FUCKED" or something just like that.  After some poking at buttons on Ride with GPS and on the device and Bluetooth and WiFi settings, something I did worked, and I felt confident that we could go out into that good night.  Don't know what I did wrong or right, but I have another year to figure it out.

Headed to the 821 Cafe, and just like last time, what looked like a straight shot somehow kept routing us in the most indirect manner.  I can't explain why Google maps has such a hard time navigating in Richmond.  I assume it's all the Mountain Catters choosing bad routes and messing up the data algorithm.

At least we didn't ignorantly go in ten minutes before closing this time.  Post food and beers, Watts wanted one more before heading back, so we stopped in at Gwar Bar.

Which is exactly what you would expect.
  

It looked like someone's very small, partially finished basement full of Gwar artifacts, costumes, headwear, and a large amount of phalluses and wiener-related items.  One beer there was enough to call it a night... and we picked up a sixer at a convenient store because why bring your own when you can pay a local vendor $16 for six beers so you both can have one more before bed time?  We still had prep-work to do before bed and a nightcap would be okay while we strapped things to our bikes.  We thought so, anyways.

Get back to the BnB, and the texts start coming in.  Burke has shifting issues.  Frands halp frands, and before you know it, Burke and his many beers came over, along with Dr Mike and Joy... and our tiny, completely finished, non-Gwar themed basement runneth over.

I mighta had two of them Burke beers which were not in my plan, along with staying up an hour or so later than I wanted, but how often do you get to hang out with your friends from Charlotte but in a basement in Richmond?

Lay down, sleepy head.  We Mountain Cat on the morrow.

A bunch of photos of the event are trickling out, so the whole tale will be told soon'ish.