catching up in late February
Oh, man, is this ever overdue!
First off - the MLK Jr. ride went well, with decent turnout. We met in Hodges and did the route without any major hitches, riding in better weather than I feared we might have. It was the warmest MLK Jr. ride to date, and here are some pix to prove it.
For those of you who wondered - yes, I did go back and buy that Gibson J-45, which has a lot to do with why I haven't been posting so
much! It's a lovely guitar, especially now that I've cut the string slots in the nut down to where they belong to get the action where it belongs. It's felt like a timewarp machine - I keep looking down at my hands while playing it and wondering if it's 2007 or 1987, it looks and feels that much like my old ones from the 50s and 60s.
Yesterday I got out for the club ride. We had a good turnout - Big-Ring Jim Cox, Tommy D., John Lake, Connie, Donnis, Drew, Denise, Bill Thompson, and two new riders, Alex Gonzales and Ms. Howard, whose first name escapes me now. Ainsley showed up aboard his fixed-gear and rode sweep with me.
Along the way out the trail, Ainsley and I discussed his recent rides. He had gotten out on Monday and ridden a metric - then rode Tuesday night with
the A-Team in the woods.
"So, lad - did you suffer?" I asked.
"Yes, I did indeed," he said.
"But did you suffer mightily?" I asked.
He affirmed that he had.
"I'll confess, I'm not quite sure I'm up to speed on the rankings. Isn't it, suffered mightily, suffered epically, and suffered heroically?"
"Well, Tuesday night wasn't a long enough ride to have been epic, so I'll go with suffered mightily," he said.
We stopped at the end of the trail for a quick mechanical, then set off for the traditional Wednesday night route. Somewhere in there, we split into three distinct groups. Riding sweep, we still wound up being the first ones in.