Since Saturday was supposed to be my last day on earth, I figured I should spend it with my two most favorite things.... booze and bikes.
(In my list of favorite things, my husband would come in a close 3rd. Mom, Dad, you'd make top 10 for sure.)
I found it no coincidence that May 21 and the supposed day of rapture happened to be the same day as the Ronde van Bastardia. This is another pointless RAGBRAI-type ride. As Team Trousermouse has Oktrouserfest, Los Bastardos have the Ronde van Bastardia. This ride consists of 70 miles of Wisconsin country roads leading us from townie bar to townie bar.
The Ronde van Bastardia was created by Team Trousermouse teammate, Steve-O. Steve-O was originally a Bastardo, but joined forces with Team Trousermouse a couple of years ago as Los Bastardos kind of disbanded. The Bastardos aren't completely extinct, but their team is not as dominant in RAGBRAI circles as it was a few years back.
The first leg of the ride was an easy 20 miles to Eleva. The first beer stop was the Full House. I'm not sure the elderly townies knew quite what to do when their bar was randomly taken over by a bunch of dudes in spandex.
The next leg was another 20 miles except this time we got to ride through pouring rain. Thankfully the air temps weren't too bad, so it wasn't one of those super cold, shivery rains. Even so, I have to admit I hate the feeling of rain water filling my cycling shoes. We all rolled into Gilmanton looking like drowned rats (or maybe drowned mice, as in Trouser Mice!).
I'm not sure if Steve-O called ahead and supplied all the bars with the "RAGBRAI Soundtrack" or if it just so happens that all townie bars play the same 10 songs. Whatever the reason, it definitely felt like RAGBRAI to be in a shady bar, soaking wet, dancing to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" and singing "Sweet Home Alabama". (If we were truly on RAGBRAI, we would have most definitely added Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" and busted out a line dance to "Strokin'".)
We managed to sit out the rest of the rain at the bar in Gilmanton. The 10 mile jaunt to Mondovi was nothing less than beautiful. In typical midwestern fashion, the sun broke out and we were left with nothing but blue skies for the rest of the day.
After Mondovi, we had 30 miles back to Eau Claire. As this was supposed to be a RAGBRAI-type ride, there was no way we were going to ride 30 miles without some sort of alcohol stop.
Only a true RAGBRAI jedi would know to always plan for periods without beer stops.
While this is probably neither legal nor safe, remember that Harold Camping told me this was my last day on earth. On my last day, I care not about safety or legality.
After a good climb, we all treated to ourselves to way too many pulls off a bottle of Crown and a bottle of Captain. In fact, with 21 of us, we managed to polish off the bottle of Crown in about 10 minutes. Now that's teamwork!
A few miles later, someone felt we should stop again for some more drinks. This looks like a good place.
Finally we arrived back in Eau Claire just in time to hit up Happy Hour at the Joynt. (What bars have Happy Hours on Saturdays?? I guess that's Wisconsin for you!)
This is where my hiccups kicked in, we lost Sarah's husband, and everyone started to get a little bit loud. It was time to move the party over to Steve-o's house...
but not before Denise snagged the shirt off this guy's back. How dare he wear Trousermouse blue hibiscus!!
So low and behold, Harold Camping's math was a little off and the world did not end on May 21. Instead, we were all forced to suffer through our hangovers on Sunday morning. Turns out, according to Mr. Camping, the real end of the world will be closer to the time of Oktrouserfest.
That sounds about right.
0 comments:
Post a Comment