Fat Boy Deluxe

Oh boy, this was one to remember. We just barely made 10 people on Tuesday’s ride. Initial plans had included ideas such as riding in from the normal spot and taking the long way across 14th St. and looping back around to Georgetown so we could hit Birreria Paradiso. This changed as soon as we learned of the plans of some other friends. Initially I guess they were thinking of meeting in front of the White House and doing a nice little road ride, ending up somewhere for some Fat Tuesday festivities. Well the only place I knew of having anything Mardi Gras related was Clarendon, who evidently had a kick ass parade at 8pm. When the other group of people started having people jump ship, they decided to hook up with the TNS crew.

The heart of the crew was there, plus some. Spearmint and Stoner (the heart) were joined by Gary and Braun (both on their way to being regulars), with Chris, Ricky, and Butch also coming in. We were 8 strong leaving Falls Church. No problems all the way into Georgetown to the beginning of the Capital Crescent Trail where we met up with Markie. Now 9 strong we continued up the 7 mile long (?) CCT to Bethesda. The CCT is a nice long gradual climb that will work you good. Once we all got to Bethesda, the next route was decided. I was all for riding back down the CCT since it’s all downhill from there, but the others wanted to make it into a nice loop.

We ended up taking the Georgetown Branch Trail (gravel path) to Chevy Chase (going right past the City Bikes shop) and hooking up with Rock Creek Park. At some point we hit Beach Dr. and Ricky has the first mechanical of the night, a flat tire. A quick tube changeout (quick = 15 minues or so) and we were ready to go on. Ricky took Markie’s tire lever and this where all the fun is traced back. Let me mention here that Ricky had Victoria tires. We continued on before jumping off the streets and onto the paved path. Once we hit the trail is was swoopy river paralleling trail. We hit a bridge and bam, the 2″ ledge to get on the bridge brings Spearmint’s Victoria tires to an air exploding end. Steve being used to much bigger tires and with no warning of the ledge plowed right over it. So we stop again while it’s Steve’s turn to fix his flat. After a fair amount of arm wrestling to get the tire back on the rim we pulled out again. This time only about 20 feet before Steve has a revelation…shit, it’s a double flat! Thinking we were almost there, he was going to ride it out on the rim, but meeting up with everyone he got the pressure to just fix the flat.

At this point Markie takes off for his place in DC to grab an extra tube. Good thing as my spare tube ended up being a 700c Shraeder valve…WTF? Steve goes to take his tire off and what do you know…Markie took Steve’s tire lever. After playing around Gary gave him another lever. Then a long tire patching process took place. The process never did take, but it was successful in bringing in the cold! It was at this point my toes decided to stop feeling. Markie finally makes it back with the tube and a new tube is installed. Ah finally, only an hour after we had our first flat and we are finally finishing up the last couple of miles. Markie leads us out and goes a side route to take the C&O Canal to Georgetown, but being cold, 10pm, and everyone wanting a little food and drink, everyone bypasses the C&O for the one block street ride to M St. Five minutes later we were building the bike tree and starting to warm up inside. It’s here we picked up another hearty soul. He was from College Park and works at Proteus bike shop. He pulled up on his Jamis Rush Hour, which is a pretty cool stealthy looking bike. He decided to join us for beers.
After being there for only 2 minutes, Kristin made it to the downstairs bar. She had just come from her glass jewelry class. She joined the crew for a couple of beers before heading home to the Busterman. Meanwhile everyone enjoyed the fine brews on hand and the gourmet pizza. I got the Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale, Loose Cannon from the beer engine (hand pump), an Old Rasputin Imperial Stout, and finished things off with a triple belgian suggested by Thor (Val Dieu Tripel I think). All were very good. Guess I’m going to have to have a beer review section now! Sometime around my imperial stout, almost everyone decided to pack it in and head home. Spearmint, Gary, and myself stuck around for another pint and more discussion with Thor. After that it was just a quick jaunt back to the cars to finish off the ride.

By the time we got back to the cars, Spearmint’s odometer was reading 38 miles, so if I add the two miles or so my house is from the starting point then that’s a solid 40 mile ride. Not bad if I do say so. It was a nice night for riding, a little on the chilly side if you stopped too long, but it was nice and clear and traffic was low. Click on the pic to check out the gallery.

DT

Last Tuesday we had our biggest TNS to date.  A couple of past riders joined up for the night, as well as having a couple of new riders, which made us 7 strong.  I rode out from my house as usual and met up with Gary, Steve, and Stoner.  We rode from Falls Church where we pick up the W&OD to Georgetown via the Key Bridge.  Once on M St. it was only a couple of blocks to Pizza Paradiso, which had a newly opened basement bar with a bunch of exceptional beers on tap.  Steve did a really good write up on the night and beers tasted, so I’ll let you surf on over to his blog and check out his post on our TNS ride, complete with pics.  The only pic I have of the night is one Stoner sent out to the group, but it’s a pretty good pic of the bike pyramid we had going on outside the bar.  Good enough that the bartender sent one of the waitress staff out to take pictures of it to supposedly put it on their wall, ha.

DT