"My ride leaves too early"!

"My ride leaves too late"!

"My ride is too bumpy"!

"My ride is too smooth"!

"My ride isn't long enough"!

"My ride is too long"!

"My ride is too HOT"!

"My ride is not hot enough"!

And yet somehow all the grumpy bears managed to more or less complete the ride more or less in each other's general vicinity, if not immediate company.

S'quatch, grumpiest bear of all said (upon being poked in the eye with a stick) "I can't see and I DON'T WANT TO SEE"!

The End

Sshhhhhh...

Restless and discontent I woke from a late nap. I sat listening to traffic, then listening to the Democratic candidates squabble and squawk their discontent. Too early to go back to bed, too late for dinner I went down the street to Poker Night to see who dragged themselves out for the 982nd consecutive Thursday night game. A cheery table of eight were tossing hands of Mango, Baseball, Shmooli, Jacks back, Acey Deucy and pretty much anything else as long as it is not actually "poker". Squabble and skirmish, grumps and harumphs, this just wasn't doing it for me either. I eased out.

Back at the house, folded into my mini couch, detachedly watching a mutual pummeling on the UFC I heard something different for a change. It was raining, honest true rain. I turned off the idiot box and turned off the lights, opened all the windows and just listened until it stopped. I could hear the whole town sigh with relief.

-Juancho

Let's Go!

Somebody help me get a rally going. Come on, Together we stand, divided we fall! Let's ride.

2 Sport Athlete

Sunday morning I just couldn't connect with anyone regarding the wheres and whens to ride so I cruised up to Forest Meadows for a little solo spin. Redbug and Overstreet, one crunchy, one smooth, equally delicious. I rode with my tunes cranking on my nifty I-shuffle, a gift from my socially advanced California relations. Deep inside the sound tunnel, I detached from the world just a little bit and became a 235 lb woods missile (bike and rider included- my bike weighs 70 lbs.) Occasionally a hiker's wall-eyed mug would flash across my screen, but I paid them no mind. Does the tornado consider the needs of the tree? Besides, it is a bike trail, and I was letting my inner viking have his way. 10 miles of full contact singletrack and I load the bike, still smoking a little, into the truck. (Yeah, I drove out, what are you going to do?)

The transition area is my garage and I am in and out of there lickety-split.

Hour and a half later and I'm loading clubs into the truck and headed for Jake Gaither Municipal, with Bushy and Ham in the truck. Crack! Crack! Crack! Off and away, the dust from the trail still ringing my lips as I waggle and bear down before sending another ball into the drink. And another. And maybe another.

90 degrees and nobody on the course, just a long lazy walk with the fellas interrupted by hacking and slashing.

But really, who cares what I did this weekend?

Did you do anything exciting?

I'll take my answers on the road, the red clay of Georgia is calling my name.

-Juancho

Happy Birthday to Me

Tomorrow is my 37th birthday and the trouble with being the blogger is you have to do your own blogging, even for your own birthday. I am lucky in the cake department though, seeing how Mystery the Untameable Stallion and Hambone build the finest pastries in town, I might get a pretty nice cake. Or they might give me something like this.



Or this-




Or most likely, just something like this-


Who am I to complain? If I get a cake at all I will consider myself lucky. 37, after all, is not such a significant age, other than that it is an "old" age. the other night on 10th Ave some new neighbors were having a party at a very late hour of the evening. Taco and I went down to investigate, rather than call the cops outright. We chatted with the new neighbors, who were friendly enough, when a drunk young lady interrupts,

"So, do you guys just like, like partying with college kids"?

Sneering at her sloshing cup of keg beer, I raised my Stella Artois, took a sip and informed the poor child, "No, most assuredly we do not".

Then I called the cops.

-Juancho

Steady Eddie

Allow me this moment please, of candid disclosure, to give credit where credit is due. While S'quatch has been lumbering around squawking about God and Country, walking pneumonia, and his desire to throw both of his pollen-covered, rusty-cabled bikes out of a helicopter I have been mewling about a bump on my knee. Throughout this difficult period in the Circus history a regular force has been steadily applying pressure to an otherwise spurting wound.

Hi-Tops.

On both road and mountain, he has continued without us, offering the rebuffed invite again and again patiently waiting for us to change our soiled diapers and get back in the saddle.

And now he can kick our asses.

For now.

Don't call it a comeback, I've been here for years!

Juancho

El Tajadero

Yesterday on the trail I pulled a tick the size of a small dog- (I think it's a Pomeranian) off of myself. The poison ivy is flourishing and thick. The recent windstorm ripped the Live Oak Connector into a mess, and that trail is always a mess anyway. It was hot too, muggy I should say.

How do I know all of this? Easy! I rode my bike.

Not very far, not very fast, but hard and with conviction and this my friends is extremely disappointing to my friend Sasquatch, who seems to think mountain biking was a passing fad. The Rubik's Cube of last summer. The My Little Pony of last fall. Are we now supposed to move on and take up pole dancing? I hear that is the hottest thing going for the exercise-minded.

Not me ladies and gentleman. I am scrubbing down the elephants, sobering up the clowns, and whitewashing the big top in preparation for the Geatest Show on Dirt.

I'm just not sure where we will open the season this year.

Any ideas?

Juancho

And So it Goes

Here is a list of trails I was near to, but did not ride last week:

Tsali
Pisgah
Dupont
Dauset
Everything in Macon
Blanket's Creek
Bear Creek
Everything near Athens, Ga

And the list goes on and on. No worries though, I squeezed in 9 holes of golf with a guy named Tommy Ray up at Chimney rock, NC so my priorities are clearly in order.

1,000 miles later I rolled back to town to find out that my blog was S'quatch-jacked and I was reported to be missing, dead, or otherwise incapacitated. So at least I have all of that going for me.

After celebrating my return with a few cold ones Friday night I peeled myself from the sack at 7:00 A:M in order to have my bike blessed by, in order: A Rabbi, an Agnostic Mystic of the basic New Age variation, and an Anglo-Native-American mystic of the Legend of Billy Jack persuasion. No Protestants available I guess. No Muslims either. Oh well, when you are looking for miracles and redemption that will hoist your heft back onto the bike, you take what you can get.

After much mumbling and not nearly enough carrying on, about 40 of us serenely pedaled down the St. Mark's trail enjoying the twilight of morning. we rode about 3 miles and you bet your ass I logged it as "a ride".

Knees are good, 12 rounds of golf over the last 2 weeks only improved my game by 2 strokes (104), the weather is perfect, and I pretty much even want to ride. Life is so much simpler when you struggle to accomodate work and a personal life in between gut-busting rides and lactic recovery.

If I don't go all manic on the bike again I'm likely to do something stupid, like buy a house or get a girlfriend.

And we can't have that now can we?

Juancho the White

May He Rest In Pieces

I feel bad. Juancho took my challenge to heart (as he always does, the big lug), went back to the refuge and tried to get a close-up of the biggest gator out there.

A tourist heard the thrashing, and looked over just in time to see his left cycling shoe disappear into the mouth of this behemoth. I got there as soon as I could and took the situation in hand, but it was too late to do anything but tape the monster's mouth up and pose for the local press. I think Juancho would have wanted it that way. That's his girlfriend off to the right, wearing his reflective riding vest in remembrance, and his three greedy brothers in the background arguing over who gets his digital camera. He threw his camera clear at the last second, thinking of others even at the horrific end.

So let's send up a tribute. Here's to Juancho. Even his death is a seemingly impossible, yet strangely compelling tale.

Sasquatch

Good, Good, Friday

Playing hookie at the St. Mark's Refuge, lots of sand-slogging and sun beaming effort. Ten miles felt like a hundred. I asked the Torso to go lay down by some of these gators so y'all could get a nice perspective on how big they are. 8-12 feet long, in the 400-600 lb range would be my guess, and that is without any Juancho-fication whatsoever. This is the gate to the heralded Pinhook
River run. You want some goals S'quatch? There's one for you.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend-

Juancho

Happy Easter

Help Juancho find the big red egg!

King of the Ring

This is Joe from www.joesbikeshop.net the now famous proprietor of the best little bike shop on Lake Ella. He is not dressed this way for any particular reason. It was just Saturday, and Saturday at Joe's is about selling bikes, avoiding the Weird Harolds, and having a good time.

At least that's what it is all about for me.

-Juancho

the Hip and the Un

When Hambone invited me to join Mystery, Riverboat, and himself to see the too cool for school glitter rock act, Of Montreal, I was immediately suspicious of their use of prepositions.
What, exactly, was of Montreal?

I didn't get it, but hey, nobody needs to tell me I need to get out more. I spent a half hour trying to find a pair of pants and out we rolled.

The band was coming on just as we walked in the door at 10:00 P:M and I was thinking- "Great! maybe we can get out of here by 12:00".

You are hoplelessly adrift from your rock and roll roots when the prospect of bedtime is the thing that excites you most at a show. Our little troupe moved dutifully onto the dance floor to enjoy the headliner act only to find out after 5 songs that this was not actually Of Montreal. If you knew anything about anything you would know this was not Of Montreal. The worst part had to be when Hambone was screaming "I love you Of Montreal!" with his Sabbath fingers in the air.

The crowd at this show, I believe people may call them the "emo-rock crowd" but I'm not sure. All I know is boy or girl they all had the most unfortunate-looking haircuts, as if the school jocks had pulled them into the media room (formerly library) and sheared their bangs in the paper cutter, then scalped the nape of their neck with the wrestling coach's clippers.

Of Montreal came out and they were...

Over my head? Under my radar? The Steely Dan of the modern era?

It doesn't matter. I just wanted to watch Matlock and go to bed.

-Juancho

The BRC is temporarily out of service

Monday, bills, work, you know the drill.

later, Juancho