Club Poto

"Tonight, at Club Poto, we've got DJ Dangerous Dan, MC Farmer and Joe 2 Slo in the mix. Someone will bring sexy back, someone doesn't know your name but seems to like you *alot* and someone keeps looking at your bumps. Or is that "lumps"? It's hard to say..."

Nate, Dan and I went to the Poto for a couple of laps on Wednesday. The plan was to leave GR around 1pm, ride a lap during the day and then throw on lights and ride a lap at night. I was in because I had assurances that we would ride easy; it is the OFF SEASON! So I was running a nice 2-1 on my 29er. Nate was running his Iceman gear (which is around a 52-16, maybe a little easier) and Dan was running one tooth easier than his Iceman gear. Yeah, this is gonna be an easy ride.

In fact, the pace was not that bad, except on the hills. I had to work pretty hard on the hills even with the gear I was running and pace I was going; those guys were crushing the hills on those monster gears. Riding with national-caliber singlespeeders is a good way to get faster, but it is a guaranteed way to feel S-L-O-W.

There are a bunch of bridges on the Poto trail. The first half-dozen were fine; a bit wet but traction was not a problem. The seventh bridge was like ice. Dan was leading, and went down like someone hit him in the face with a baseball bat. I grabbed a double-handful of brake and instantly hit the deck. Nate was able to stop before he hit the bridge, which is good because he would have ploughed my under Farmer-Style. No permanent harm done, although I am sporting lots of bruises, scrapes, etc. and I still can't lift my left arm above my head.



We finish the lap, mount up our lights and head out for lap 2.

We get about a mile in and Dan notices that his front hub sounds like a chupacabra eating a handful of gravel. Some people like those American Classic wheelsets; they are light and the price is right. But I don't know anyone that has used them that hasn't replaced bearings at least once. Anyway, Dan wasn't about to try and tame the hungry chupacabra, so we headed back to the trailhead and packed it in.

The ride back was quite an experience. Both Dan and I had our ipods, so the station wagon was rocking and make no mistake. We had both kinds of music; country AND western. Emperor Justin T, nails that were well over 8.5 inches, some very dark-eyed vegetables, etc. And some songs with guitars. Good times.

We stopped at Michigan Brewing Company for some chilie. Hot, or more precisely ((HOT))! I still can't taste anything. The guys had a beer or two, and provided entertainment for the rest of the patrons; I watched, since someone had to run the music on the way home. We finished off the evening at Founder's.

Tomorrow it is psychocross, where the DDX will first turn a pedal in anger. If I get lapped I'm gonna get my money back. Otherwise I'm not really riding bikes for the rest of the month. Doing a little running, and eating all the stuff that I eat all year long, but not feeling guilty about it.