Saturday morning I drove over to Gainesville for a Forest Service meeting. They're getting serious about doing what needs to be done to ensure that their trail systems are sustainable. I've managed to become part of one of the core teams, representing the interests of mountain bikers. "Nobody light skinteded reppin' harder since Ice-T!" This meeting was enlightening. The process we're using is good. I've seen it use before in business. It makes it difficult for anyone to dominate the discussion with a tirade of hate. At the end they asked us for a word to describe how we felt after the first meeting. Mine was "hopeful."
I thought it was going to take about 2 hours, but it ended up taking 4. I made it back home with just enough time for a little fishing.
Today we tried various beef jerkys. The fish weren't too fond of the spicy one. The non-spicy one worked extremely well. It's cheaper than hot dogs, stays on the hook longer and you can just eat whatever's left, directly. I ate the spicy one and it was devastating. I almost choked. It burned my sinuses. Jacks Links Matador. Unbelievable. I've never had beef jerky that spicy. I had to take a pull off the kids' Fanta.
After that it was nap time. I reliably come back from those FS meetings with a splitting headache and neither fishing nor chemical burn jerky was effective on that one. The nap was though. When I woke up it was like waking up from a full night's sleep.
Every year I forget about Athens Twilight race and only remember on the day of. This year was no different. Isabel asked me if we could go again just this past week but it wasn't until the night before that I actually checked to see when it was. Hah, it was that Saturday. Good thing I checked.
Post nap, the girls and I headed over. It's funny that Isabel was the one who really wanted to go. I think she likes being so close to people riding so fast, but I think she also just kind of digs being in the crowds too. The first time we went it was cold. Last year it was cold and raining. This year it was just right.
We got there just prior to the women's pro crit.
There was a horrendous pile up in the last corner leading up to the finish. Probably 2/3rds of the field was involved but only one of the riders was slow to get up. She rode away from it and didn't look injured, but she was shredded for sure.
We grabbed some Doc Cheys after the women's crit, randomly ran into Stephen Carhart on the street, then we watched the pro men's crit for about an hour. 4 leaders ended up lapping the peloton. I've never seen that before. Usually they pull you if you get lapped, but certainly they can't pull the entire peloton. I had to actually call my brother to find out what even happens in that situation. Turns out those riders just have a lap up on the field. Unless somebody else laps the field, they have 1st through 4th place locked up. It's just up to their teams to get one of them ahead of the other three.
Sophie was dying of tiredness, so we ended up bailing before the finish. Good times though. I'm so thankful that my kids are into some of the same weird things that I am.
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