"I have ridden the mighty Moon Worm." - Part Deux

 

The Evil Empire (David, Emily, Billy b, Mark)

"Hands, touching hands
Reaching out, touching me, touching you

Sweet Caroline
Good times never seemed so good
I've been inclined
To believe they never would"

   - Neil Diamond, Sweet Caroline

"Boys and things that come by the dozen

That ain't nothin' but drugstore lovin'
Hey little thing, let me light your candle
'Cause, mama, I'm sure hard to handle now, gets around"

  - Black Crowes, Hard to Handle 

Part Deux:  Beerfest

Once David aka the Beav and I finished we went to the car and put the bikes up, freshened up a bit (Me spraying us with Axe Body Spray), and put some shorts over our cycle shorts.  One can not simply ripe off their bike shorts in the middle of downtown Benicia, unless one wants to go to jail, and lets be honest, I am to pretty for jail.  After putting up our equipment, and our whores bath, we walked back to the Beerfest.  

David and I might have been done, but the rest of the Evil Empire was still out there.  Being evil of course but also riding.  I would love to say David and I just kicked the rest of the team’s ass.  However, that isn’t true at all.  The other two team members Mark the Massage Machine and Emily opted to do the metric century, which is 60 miles.  Not only that but Emily opted into the King of the Mountain competition.  My understanding of which is a time trail up a big ass hill.  Now, look I am all for going up big ass hills, but going up fast, she is a better athlete than I, for sure.  It was pretty awesome to have some who did it in the Empire.  Although they never announced the results of that, i wonder if they emailed them out.  hmmm...  Anyway, it was Mark and Emily who kicked our butts.  David and I waited for them but we didn’t have to wait long.  Even though they went twice as far, it didn't take them twice as long.  They fast, me slow.  

As David and I waited we got our wristbands for the beer garden.  I don’t drink, but I felt it was my right of passage to get my wristband and hang in the beer garden.  Afterall, I biked for beers.  There are times I miss beer.  Not very often, but there are times.  I was also never much of a day drinker.  Drinking all day always made me sleepy, which if I recall the old saying that hung in my fathers bar:

He who drinks gets drunk,

He who gets drunk goes to sleep,

He who goes to sleep does not sin,

He who does not sin goes to heaven,

So, lets all get drunk and go to heaven.

I always loved that sign.   However, I have done plenty of sinning in my dreams, so I wonder if that counts?  Anyway, me drinking by day, had me pass out early, and up all night.  So, probably good I am off the sauce.  

 

While, David waited in the line to get our beer bracelets.  I did a little shopping picking up three dri-fit T’s for 15 bucks and a new bike jersey for 20.  That is a good price.  They were prior year goods, but that is ok.  They are for a good cause and  I was really happy to support it.    

Then the Beav and I headed over to the most important thing of the day.  The BBQ.  The BBQ after Tour de Fuzz was not so great.  That could simply be my bitterness talking about the way my ride ended Fuzz, but honestly, I just don’t think it was any good.  The Bike the Bridges BBQ was fantastic.  Great meats, great tator salad, beans, and BBQ.  Oh, don’t let me forget the little Hawaiian rolls, OMG the Hawaiian rolls were good.  At the table with us while we ate were three other cyclist.  One of them was insane, I am quite sure of it.  He was training for the Death Ride.  He rides Del Valle on repeats, which means he willing goes up and down it repeatedly.  He was defiantly a few sandwiches sort of a picnic, but I thought he was awesome. While, I don't see myself every doing what he does, I sure the hell respected it.  He had a jersey talking about how he had done multiple 200 mile rides.  I think that is so bad ass.  

 

Emily and Mark finished up and we met them.  Much like us they were ready to go get into other outfits.  So, we told them we would meet them over at the food.  I mean they just road 60+ they needed to eat.  So, as they went and changed the Beav treated us to Kona Ice.  There really is nothing I love more in the world than chewing on frozen water.  If you add some sugar water to that, then I am pretty much in heaven.  Kona Ice is one of my favorite guilty pleasures.  Although, I firmly believe that they need to drop the penguin as the logo and add my furry little monkey Kona Koffee as their mascot.  Then again, we all know that I have a personal bias, when it comes to her.  I am trying to figure out how to get a Kona Koffee sticker to place her over the penguin in the souvenir cups we got.  I am not going to say the best thing about Saturday was the Kona Ice, but I am not, not going to say that it wasn’t 😉

 

After they ate, we headed into the Beerfest for some beer and live music.  I can’t tell you the last time that I hung out and listened to live music.  It has been a very long time.  Even before Covid, I was practically a hermit because of my weight and size.  It took a lot to get me up and out of the house in those days.  So, saying it had been years since I listened to live music outside isn’t a stretch. 

Lumberyard was the band playing when we went in and they were pretty good.  You can't really go wrong with classic rock n' roll in my opinion of which they played a lot and played it well. What I think I remember most vividly was:

Four teammates standing around the a table. Three drinking beers and one sipping water that he kept in his back jersey pocket. Really all shirts should have pockets in the back of them to hold stuff. It just makes good sense. The cyclist definitely got that one right. Suddenly, Emily reaches out her hand and locks hands with the Kid and then she reaches out and grabs Marks hand and Mark takes David’s hand and The Kid takes David’s other and locked hand in hand they start moving with Lumberyard’s music and then along with the rest of the crowd they are singing in unison “Hands, touchin’ hands. Reachin’ out, touchin’ me, touchin’ you… sweet Caroline… bom bom bom… Good times never seemed so good.. I’ve been inclined to believe they never would be..” there feels like there should be more sweet Caroline’s in there and there might of been.  We sang it together.  Pretty cool.  

I also remember them breaking out in a Black Crowes song.  I believe it was Mark who made the joke that it doesn't really matter what you say before Hard to Handle, it can be whatever you want, just as long as you get the Hard to Handle right, everyone will just smile and rock on with you.  I think he is right.  He kept doing different iterations of it, with words that weren't from the song. It was pretty funny.  I wish I could say I couldn't remember exactly who said it because I was hammered by that point, but the truth is I am just getting older.  

I don't know how many people came up to David and I and told us how much they loved our jerseys.  We rocked the Gears & Beers Jerseys and we rocked them well. If i had known how popular they were going to be I would have bought more off Amazon and sold them at a profit.  I am not that smart.  However, our jersey's were pretty Bad Ass:

Can't go wrong with Homer Simpson socks either.  What a great quote on there.  

It was really fun to hang out with Emily and Mark.  They are good people.  The four of us seemed to enjoy each others company so much we stayed at the beerfest till the very end.  Hell ya, we closed the place down.  It was awesome.  

Some Photos of the Beav and in front of the special olympics signs:

There was a little controversy when they announced the top fundraising team and it wasn't the Evil Empire and the $8,310 dollars we raised.  Instead they gave it to a team who was also a race sponsor.  I wasn't happy, but I didn't want to say anything be after all the point was to raise money for a good cause. The rest of the team members were ready to riot.  However, I said it was ok.  Although it ate at me, and by the end of the night I had sent an email to the race director with a picture of the Evil Empire at the top.  The reason it ate at me was because we kept sending out notes about wanting to be #1, and people kept giving.  So, i think it was important to get to the bottom of.  She wrote back a few days later and said she would correct it, I told her not to bother.  I don't  want the award,  I wanted the satisfaction of knowing the Evil Empire was number.  She says she will update it in the post race email, but again, not needed.  

I spent a lot of time at the beerfest holding palaver with Emily.  She asked me about my blogging.  Which I thought was really cool and how I got into it.  She does some blogging of her own on Strava, which is cool.  We talked about playing the guitar.  She plays a little. I used to play, but I have ten fingers and no talent.  If I ever had a one man band I would call it 10 Finger and No Talent.  Anyway, she was really cool.  However, she did through me for a bit of a loop though, when she asked me "What's Next?"  I knew she wasn't talking about what I was doing after I got home, or what my next job was going to be.  She meant what was my next challenge and it was a great question because it stumped me a little bit.  I had put so much into Tour de Fuzz and Bike the Bridges, I hadn't stopped and thought about what I would do next.  

However, I know now... but that will have to wait till next time... to be concluded.....