The Horny Cat 69: Still Not Brought to You by Mutual of Omaha

Okay.  It's official.  I want to voluntarily make my life difficult for awhile and make great'ish bike ride for others.

The date will be October 4th, with a rain date of October 11th.  Some things will change from when this grand occasion occurred two years ago.  Other details will be the same.  There will most definitely be a hangout after the ride. I would love it IMMENSELY if you could donate $13 to the pizza/beer/soda fund, because a hangout without pizza/beer/soda is dumb.

"THIRTEEN AMERICA DOLLARS, YOU SAY!?!"

Yeth.  The cost of this non-event has gone up $3, or approximately 1/2 the cost of a reasonably priced pint of decent beer in Charlotte.  I have "reasons."  Mostly, I think if you were okay with the potential of throwing away $10, you're probably okay with $13... keeping in mind if it rains or the trails are closed on October 4th AND on October 11th, I might just end up with a sad ride/party on the 11th or donate all the money to the Tarheel Trailblazers as opposed to just the proceeds after all expenses are paid for (excluding incurred on any trips I may or may not make to the emergency room).  So mostly because of that and a little bit because 13 is funny like 69.

It's a charitable donation to a party, and as I said back in 2023:

"I have a hose if you're thirsty because I literally can't stop any cheapskate party-hater from joining us on a bike ride. This is America, and you have all the rights to do all the things you think you can do."

And sadly, despite me once saying "all the rights to do all the things," this is America two years later.  I'd like to exclude certain unspeakable things that have been brought to my attention lately.  Mebbe ask me if how I feel before you do something in my backyard that borders on rights-trampling.  If you find yourself thinking, "what unspeakable things does he speak of?" this might not be the right party for you.  That would include illegal "deportations" and "detentions," taking food out of children's mouths, possibly kicking my mom out of a nursing home, squashing LGBTQ rights, taking away my daughter's ability to make decisions about her own body, or more generally speaking, fucking around with someone else's life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because you're afraid of some boogeyman you heard about on a not-news channel... a boogeyman that is currently not the source of your real problems now anyhow... *

Poaching the route and/or horking a beer are low on my list of offensive actions.

*pushes soapbox back in the closet but keeping it handy*

The ride will start and end near the Back Yard Tails system @9:00am to give you a general idea that you can sorta plan around (think about showing up @7-45-8:00am), but the exact information will be in an email, and obvs I'm gonna need you to get there much earlier than the start time to sort yinz out.  It will be a Ride With GPS route, so know how to load things on your data acquisition device and follow bleeps and bloops.

Donations.  I'm not collecting them yet, so please don't send an email to the address from last time nor Venmo me party/donation fundage right now.  I'm going to wait until I get back from Breck Epic in mid-August for two reasons:

I need to live through the Breck Epic.

I don't want the hassle of dealing with the "can I give you cash on the day-of?" or "can I pay you half now and half when I get my settlement money?" messages until then.

The route is 95% done, but I'm leaving room for tweaks.  

This will be a good time, if you're into this kinda thing.  If not... why did you even read down this far?

Off to the Summer Steamer in Knoxville this weekend, and I will surely return to regale all with tales of derring-do and misadventure. 

* If Brawley's can pre-sort their clientele, so can I.