A few months back a call went out to the team looking for folks to help with the Cornhusker State Games mountain bike race, it'd been a few years since I helped so I threw my hat into the ring and said I'd be there.
So that was how I came to find myself up well before the sun was even thinking about rising in the eastern skies and while all the feathered creatures were still snuggled in their nests, not yet warming up their vocal cords for the customary dawn chirp sessions. Under dawns early light, I threw together my volunteer kit consisting of a cooler, Bluetooth speaker, seeds, water with ice, a hand towel and of course not one but two cowbells because sometimes the answer really is more cowbell.
First racers out of the shoot were the little guys and gals, not a bunch of them but it was fun to watch the future of the sport gettin after it.
Right around 8 am the marathon and others started, after that it was just a matter of watching folks go round and round in a circle like the NASCAR grass circuit. Of course a cold barley pop helps to keep on hydrated and gives Joe something to 'Gram about. Some of the crew did really well MG ran away with the marathon race, lapped the entire field, I was tracking time gaps for him for a bit but once it got over 20 minutes I told him he was on his own. Todd and Kat took second in their perspective categories and I managed to survive with hardly any sunburn at all.
With Saturday being a working day, that left Sunday for riding. The forecast did have rain in it but not until later in the afternoon, Mother Nature looked like it had other ideas though when we showed up in Colon for the start of the ride. Since we are trusting individuals and since the forecasters are always right, off we went with confidence that dry we would remain. Of course this meant that it did, in fact, rain on us almost as soon as we pushed off. The first shower was short lived and not all that bad, maybe that was all we were going to get...
After the brief shower, the sun did try to make an appearance and we got most of the way to Prague before the skies opened up again. This time they were not as nice and we found ourselves hiding under a tree on the start of an MMR from the latest spate. Deciding that we needed to keep moving because it didn't look like the rain was letting up anytime soon; we rerouted off the MMR and continued on toward Prague. Ever since the GTDRI last year when I lost my trusty Canon G15 to a rain storm, I have been carrying a dry bag to shove the current camera into for just such occasions. That meant that there weren't many pictures of the soggiest parts of the rides but believe me we got drenched in that last 2 miles into Prague.
We rode into Prague and immediately hid under the pavilion in the park like a group of drowned rats with mud stripes on our backs.
I was so soaked that the only logical thing I could think of to do so as to not remain wet the rest of the day was to remove clothing items and wring them out as best as I could. Since I didn't want to be a streaker in the park, I made sure to wring out one item at a time to remain mostly clothed. I might as well had just taken them directly out of a sink full of water and put them on to go riding as wet as they were. Of course the strip tease led to a little pole dancing but that's a story nobody needs to see or hear about.
After cleaning up and drying off for a bit, we ambled over to Kolache Korner Cafe for a kolache, a sip of beer, splash of Holy Water and a few squeezes of the pig before heading out. (click on the pig and it will take you to the video where you can hear it in all it's glory)
The rain was done by the time we left Prague but the damage was already done, with the humidity kicking up and the skies remaining overcast I never did dry out much during the ride. Our next stop was at the old closed bridge for a bridge "beer". Yes this is the same bridge and route from last week but we decided to join the group that didn't go last week and were going this week.
Made a quick stop in Cedar Bluff's at Todd's Tavern for lunch, the club was very good, and then pushed on to Colon. If you're ever in the need of groceries and VCR tapes and don't want to run all over town to get them, JN's has you covered... maybe, not sure they are still opened but if they are, there's your hookup.
A quick 8 miles on mostly flat but soft gravel and we were back where it all began, a little wetter than we started but mostly no worse for wear.
Who ever is naming roads is doing a really shitty job, the "road" leading to Colon really should be Rectum Rd or at least Anus Ave, someone really dropped the ball on this one.
