Adgateville 8 our lunch

A summary of last week's ride:

Yhis week’s Sunday Dirt was not without incident. Jake, Dave, Rajib(sp?) (Florida friend of Dave’s) and I started from Adgateville at 1pm on Sunday. After about an hour of great riding, Dave’s (well, Christian’s – Dave was on Christian’s bike) rear hub went out. I couldn’t get Betty Jean on the cell, so the 3 of us left Dave walking toward the nearest paved road. After about 5 phone calls, I reached my sister at the DQ drive through, who reached my brother in law, Shane, who was ready to turn off the Falcons anyway because they were getting shelled. Shane drove to pick up Dave, who was busy camouflaging his bike in the bushes, and bring him to my house. Mean time, I turned off the planned route, did a dirt TT to my house, put Dave on Betty Jean’s bike (he looked like one of those circus clowns with his knees almost hitting his chin on every pedal stroke), and then the two of us intercepted Jake and Rajib back on the route, where Rajib had dismounted his bike to use it as a shield against a pack of dogs at a farmhouse. After riding about 20 more minutes, I realized that I’d never make it back to the XTerra in time to get back home to go with Betty Jean to a Christmas Cantata like I’d promised. I didn’t want to spend the next week in the doghouse, so I told the other 3 guys how to get back to the truck, then did a u-turn and attempted another 15-min dirt TT back to the house, where I jumped in the shower, hands and feet burning like fire, and got to the concert during the first song.

Jake picks up the story of the three remaining riders after I left:

“Dude. Did you talk to Dave? These rides need to be called Sunday dirt adventures because we never know what’s going to happen. About 15 minutes after you turned around, I got a flat on my rear tire. Rajib (sp.?) had a tube, but no pump…nobody had a pump. So I said I would just ride it. 10 yards down the road, the thing started to come off the rim. So Dave and Rajib said they would come back for me. So here I am walking down this dirt road freezing my rear end off by myself. Finally I got to the crossroads of Jordan Road and something crossing road. There is an apparently abandoned church there with no sign or anything there. So I cinched up my socks and pulled my knee warmers down a little and sat to wait. Well after about 20 minutes of that my toes were numb and the sun had gone behind the trees so I was really cold. So I got up and started jumping up and down like a jackass trying to get some blood flowing. I got tired of that about the time the wind started to howl, and I mean HOWL. Remember that 30mph gust hitting us in the face? Yeah it was like that over and over. I had to get out of the wind so I went and stood behind the church, and left my bike propped up on the road sign so that Dave would see it in case he came barreling by. I bet I stood behind that church for an hour, shaking like a dog trying to crap a peach seed. Then…all of a sudden after an hour or less…I hear a car…”yes! I’m going home!...” only it’s coming from the wrong direction. An old dark blue Buick comes down the paved road and slowly stops for about 20 seconds at my bike. I’m like holy crap, this guy is about to steal my bike. Keep in mind that I’m peering around the side of the church, trying to be sneaky and hoping they just keep going and don’t see me. So they turn down Jordan road and I start walking towards my bike after they drive off, keeping the church between me and them. I get about to the edge of the church and I hear a car BEHIND me driving in the grass! I look and the freakin car is driving around the church lawn because apparently they saw me. There were 4 guys in the car, 3 of ‘em black and one of ’em is white. They pull up next to me and the first thing I see is the white guy holding a deer rifle in the passenger seat. All of them are rough looking, with coveralls on and the white guy had a camouflage coat with shaggy, but greasy hair. It looked like they just got off work from a saw mill or something. And here I am standing there shivering in my tight bright blue bike shorts. ROBERT (I think this is where Jake started to hear banjo music) They started asking me all kind of questions like whachoo doin? Where you goin? How many of you are there? Where they is? Where the hell is you riding to? Where is you riding from? I was “spittin’ and slidin’” as my dad would call it and I was talking fast, trying to just get them to get the hell outta there, I kept saying “I’m ok…I’m fine…I’m good” there was no way in hell I was getting in the car with those guys. After talking to them for the longest 5 minutes of my life, Dave pulls up. I said, “THERE THEY ARE” and almost ran over to Dave’s car in my bike cleats. Dave said something like “I’m just picking up the broken bikes” and those guys eased by him and kept going. That was clutch in every sense of the phrase. I’ve never been so happy to see him. Apparently Rajib bonked about 2 miles after I got my flat. Dave gave him some gu while Rajib sat and he made it back to the car. So he had to rescue me and Rajib. So everybody had something go wrong yesterday. But it’s a heck of a story. It’s funny now, but not so much at the time.