One of the best weekends ever

That's right, you read it hear first......
I work nights, so when an event like the Dead Baby Downhill comes around I take the night off to enjoy the festivities. I had heard about this race before even moving here. The Downhill race itself is very short, I however chose to participate in the alleycat portion skipping the downhill for a longer event. I will tell you up front this is an event not to be missed, it was other worldly, dare I venture to say futuristic, it had a very Mad Max feeling. I think you get the picture. I forgot my camera, but I have pictures taken with a friends camera, at the moment I am having trouble locating them. I have located them, they appear to be in a zip file and I am having trouble uploading them, so you may have to wait for photographic evidence until later, but I will attempt to tell the story of the entire evening now.......
It all started with a few phone calls, and then it was off to meet my directionally challenged friend Keith at the Big Time Brewery, my place of employment, for a beer. I did mention that he is directionally challenged thus we figured it would be safe if we met at an easy to find location. Let me tell you Keith has no problem finding a bar, and after all it is the exact place that we met each other, so it was only fitting. But I digress. Beer almost gone, growler filled for the next stop, hanging out with Dustin at Cadence Clothing, and my boss steps in and I am forced to talk shop for the next 20 mins. That over we are off, first stop a bank downtown, the bank that I belong to is good however they aren't the largest bank, and have a limited number of locations. Dodging traffic with Keith in tow, we make it to the bank. Mission accomplished. I was impressed I took some awful lines through traffic and Keith, again being directional challenged was forced to follow, he didn't feel like getting lost in his own backyard. I am having a little too much fun with this right now, Keith thanks ahead of time for being a good sport about it. I hope that you are laughing as you read this.
Back to the day. Cadence for a beer with Dustin, by the way he is producing some great threads, order them up. Off we go to an address on a paper, somewhere is south Seattle. Stop for a bite to eat, not the best idea, the vietnmese food would be a hindrance later on. Note to self, spicy food on top of beer before a race is not the best combo for success. We find the Club house, do some investigating, pay our 20 dollars for water bottle, which doubled as the only way to get beer later, food tokens and shirt. What a bargain. Find the manifest, plot out course, I am getting better at navigation, but still don't know the city all that well. Wait a bit, then the 7 pm sharp start is more like 7:15, I was impressed. We are off. Next alleycat I am running on a geared bike, I think, fixie and I am off the back a bit. We race towards town, and our first stop. Planned Parenthood to get a condom. It is near danielles parents house so I know kinda where it is. I am in good position. I leave, make a navigational error, but get back on course towards the back of the pack. Get to the next stop, drop some beer money in the hat. I know where the next stop is, get there in good time. I am off, thinking do I stay in the alleys or get back on a more traveled path. I opt for the more traveled path, wrong answer, run through a couple lights and here a siren, look over my shoulder, thinking do I make an escape, no I just stay put. He write me a ticket for running a stop light, 81 dollars. It could have been worse, that was for one, not three. Well I figure my race is over, but I will continue on to the last checkpoint, which is hard to find, then another navigational error and I am on track. 5 mile time trial to the party. I make it,not dfl, but down the ranks. So much of these races are navigation, that and not getting pulled over. Good times. So now we are at the party. Pbr flowing. There are some bike powered rides, swings, slot machines, a sationary bike with a leather strap on the wheel that was rather painful. Few drinks, live music, clowns, funny bikes, etc. What a scene. So I tried to ride a swivel bike, started to get it just as I do, slam I am on the ground being tackled by a clown, go times. Tall bike jousting the rumor circulates that it is happening in the alley. We get out there, and the foot down game is about to start, I think this could be fun, until I get in to the ring and everyone else is on a kids bike, I am a target, I go down, I picked up a nice raspberry on my left elbow, think cheese grater. It is healing, but slowly. It is getting late, I joke about riding home with my eyes closed as thing happen in threes and I got a ticket, got tackled by a clown and ripped my elbow open. Keith hurt his ankle, before being drunk, so I limped him home, and that was that. One for the record books.
Saturday was pretty uneventful, hung out with Danielles family.
Sunday, Keith and I had planned to ride, but he had to bail understandably, Pete our other friend, who has a new girlfriend, hadn't returned my phone calls so I thought it was going to be uneventful as well. Well before I got up Pete had called a couple times and wanted to ride. I wanted to ride Noble Knob a trail that I had heard great things about, the drive was an hour and 45 mins, we decided we wanted to do it. It is absolutely amazing and I will leave it at that. Lots of climbing and amazing views. I don't want to say much more because it was that special, I want it for me.

The trip to Tahoe is shaping up to be a great one. This weekend I think I am going out to the Vibrator on an local island. Life is good. Last week was big miles, this week a little relax is in order. Slow and steady is the way back to health. Thanks for reading and as always keep pedaling