Results of a busy weekend with friends.

Ok, so it was ride, ride, beer, run, ride, beer, and collapse!

Saturday morning I'm usually not jumping out of bed at 5:30am.  I'm usually on the coach early to enjoy a nice slow cup of coffee (at best).  This weekend allowed no such luxury.  8am was out the door and headed for the final farmers market and as many fresh roasted chili's as I could afford.  After the ride back to the house, we dropped the chili's and had a hasty breakfast before grabbing the bikes and heading back to downtown for the "Sweet 3 feet" law parade.  Of course I forgot my camera so you'll have to trust me that we had 100 ish riders for the ride from Reno City Hall to Sparks City Hall and back.  We even had a courteous police motorcycle escort for the 4th Street portion of or ride.  So thank  you RPD for keeping track of us for a bit! The end of the official route left wifey and I dangerously close to Silver Peak on the river, so we forced ourselves to enjoy a beer and appetizer before finishing the ride home.

The next morning I was denied my relaxing time with Juan Valdez yet again.  We were off for the race for the cure out at Boomtown.  I don't know what I was expecting, but this thing was packed.  We left fairly early and found a mile long line of traffic on 80 west just to get into Boomtown!  Needless to say we diverted to back route through Verdi and managed to get in just fine.  The race went smoothly and I was only required to cough up one lung at the finish.  I managed to make a very blurry picture in the paper and the event raised $190,000 plus, so we'll call it a win all around.

That would be yours truly, dead center and fuzzy!

After a quick return dash to the car, (to flee the general madness of the crowd) we made it home.  Bicycles were grabbed and we headed for Great Basin Brewery in Sparks to attend the (in?)famous Gonads and Strife Poker ride (another cancer benefit).

With a large group of friends already waiting, wifey's bike promptly blew a valve stem (with shot gun sound effects included).  My cheerful group of colleges was very supportive and volunteered not only a replacement tube (thanks Jen) but to help change the flat video my efforts to change the flat.  After a quick tube swap and some valiant efforts on my part to re inflate the tire with a tiny hand pump, they did let me know that I hadn't set the bead on the tire correctly....so I deflated it and was successful on my second try (after much additional pumping)!  I'll be sure to share the video if they send it along.  The rest of the ride was good fun with a leisure suit riding preacher for good measures.  The beers were as you would expect with such company...."blessed"!