So, when I got home from the 832nd Annual Tour De Cowtown and showed off my ritzy new teeshirt to Todd, he immediately remarked that the design was such that I had a bicycle wheel over each boob. Somehow, this seems quite fitting to me. (also, bleh, I look fat as a woodchuck in this photo, but who cares, my shirt is awesome)
I had brought my camera, with the best of intentions to take pictures of the festivities, but I got too caught up in frizbee-ing, riding my bike, shooting the bull, throwing junk bikes around, and eating pizza, and never once pulled the camera out of my bag. Luckily, not everyone was such a bum, so here are two different people's photographic records of the occasion: FixedKC's Flickr photo gallery and Ryan's bike stuff gallery.
The ride itself was awesome good fun. It covered a lot of the territory we often range through on our Saturday “Explore the Urban Core” rides, so if I'd gone it on my own, I'd have been okay, but I went with a group on the scavenger hunt, because I was feeling pretty social. We started out heading East, getting info at the Garrison community center, then continuing on through Kessler Park (Cliff Drive) until it dumps out onto Gladstone Blvd., over by the Kansas City Museum. Then we wended our way westward, with a stop at the Kansas City Univeristy of Health Sciences before hitting the West Bottoms. We were searching for zipcodes, old amusement park equipment, and landmark graffiti down that way. As we hotfooted it away from the Haunted House area down there, I obtained my obligatory bodily damage.
Almost any time I go out riding in some kind of event, I have a wreck. My road bike has a short wheelbase therefore it's handling is what the experts call “responsive” and what I call twitchy. It's sinfully easy to oversteer, and it tends to get skittish on wet, sandy, or rough pavement. There's a sad record of my extravagances in cornering written in scratches and scuffs on the brifters and quick release levers, and on nice, shiny scar tissue on my knees and forearms. Most recently, at the Alleycat, we were coming out of the Haunted House district in the West Bottoms, and were building speed to attack a hill. We rounded a curve beneath an overpass, and in that intersection was an amount of sandy/gravelly stuff, and BOOM, I went down hard. I was wearing my Sugoi SubZero tights, and my first thought was “shit, I ruined my fancy-pantsy truly excellent winter tights.” Luckily, the tights weren't damaged in the least. Oddly, however, my right knee managed to get quite skinned up through the tights and the entire knee is a fetching green bruise.
Digression aside, we headed back for downtown pretty quickly, as we were nearing running out of time, and had answered all of the obligatory questions. We didn't get any of the bonus stuff, as we had run out of time and none of us was feeling inclined to tote bricks or sandbags back. Once back at Acme, it was time for pizza. Then there was a Huffy Tossing Contest. Christi kicked off the contest with a throw that sent the Huffy flying across two parking stalls. It was a dollar a throw–winner takes the pot, so I put in a buck and pitched the Huffy, as well. I think I got it around about the same distance as Christi, but her throw bounced and mine kind of skidded. We were the only two women to have a go at throwing the bike. The rest of the bike-pitchers were dudes, and each had a different methodology, some of which were quite effective, and some of which were merely frightening or humorous. It was a hell of a show any which way you looked at it. One of the guys who was spectating got a good picture of me in the process of hurling the Huffy, and if he mails it to me as he said he would, I will share. It is hilarious.
After the Huffy was hurled into bits, the prizes for the scavenger hunt were granted, then a total bounty of doorprizes went out. I walked off with a TimBuk2 teeshirt. One dude got an Old Town Cyclery track frame! The doorprizes were a pretty varied assortment, and were distributed by random draws of all of the numbers of the spoke cards. It was pretty awesome.
Anyhow, the next big event is The Sweetest Plum Racing Team's Alleycat of the Beast on 6-6-06. I'm really stoked about this ride, as it is billed as being a real flaming bitch, and it is the day before my birthday, which seems like a propitious time for me to go play in traffic.
Oh, and before I sign off, I leave you with the most recent embellishments on my road bike (beyond the newest brifter damage)
That bitchin' basket you see here came from the same rummage sale that netted me that stash of polyester. I spent $0.10 exactly for that basket, and will treasure it for years. It is cute and incongrous on my road bike, and I think it will grievously discombobulate a certain segement of bike snobs out there, which is always fun to do.