New Rule: All rides must now start and end at Taste Coffee House in Newtonville. This day started early and the New Rule hadn't been established yet so let's start from the beginning. Andy Huff of Belmont Wheelworks and owner of one of Boston's most gentlemanly mustaches sent out cryptic invites of a rumored cross party/ride coined Waffle Cross about two weeks ago. That got my attention straight away. Waffles and Cross how bad could it be? Pretty great is what I thought. I got on the bandwagon early and tried to talk sooo many of my teammates and friends into this. Granted it was a 7 am tee time. But still that's not that early. I get up for some cross races at some ungodly hour half the time.
My next thought was ride to the ride. Enough of this driving to the ride crap. Its weak. Seriously on so many levels it is weak as hell. So being the suburban cat I am I scoped directions via google maps. It didn't look pretty. But I have become a bit more emboldened from riding with Richard Fries through Porter Square at Mach 10 during the Ronde so I kept digging a bit. I remembered there is a guy who commutes from Dover to BWW everyday rain or shine on a Bianchi fixed gear. Ok I thought I'll call and see if someone knows his route. I called Belmont Wheelworks and who answers the phone? Of course it was the super commuter himself! He gives me the killer sneaky sneak route in. It was perfect! I met David Wilcox and Jenn at Cutler around 7 am and we rolled in together.I broke a very important rule of meeting up on bikes for a ride. Rule #1 of meeting up for a ride? Be where you say you are going to meet. Duuh? I so almost screwed up. I thought I knew where David and Jenn would be riding from. So I plunked myself right next to Nahanton and waited. David appeared. We caught up saw all the grumpy triathletes go by. Damn Adam is right they are downright unfriendly...we'd wave and they would scowl...Time went by and then a nagging thought kept popping into my brain. What if Jenn is at Cutler? I checked the super phone and shit she's at Cutler! We hop on the bikes and get to the parking lot just as she was pulling out. She was very cool about it. Sorry Jenn totally my bad.
We rolled through Newton and into Belmont in a flash the route was fantastic. Easy, very little traffic and just a nice way to get to a ride. We rolled up and were greeted by all the cool cats at Wheelworks! To say they are nice is an understatement. They had waffles ready for us and we all talked about cross bikes and hung out for a while. I got to meet one of our new teammates for the first time! Michele is so awesome! And her Husband Ed and son Elliot were there as well which was really nice. At 9 am we all got together and headed out on the road. There were about 20 of us. A really cool mix of bikes. One ss mtn bike, a crazy Igleheart mixte, a fixed gear and a classy road bike ridden by quite possible the cleanest biker I have ever met in my life. Andy the Castelli rep rocks! I seriously need to spend more time riding with that guy he just radiates biker style. If I am lucky maybe some will rub off on me. He rode the cleanest pair of white sidis I have ever seen in my life. They were spotless when we got back. I have no idea how he did that. I was covered in mud. Granted a mud puddle is pretty much a magnet for me but still impressive.
Eddy would have approved. I assumed, incorrectly, this would be a "social" ride. Ha. This was a very spirited, quasi-attacking cross ride. We did 2 hrs on Battle Road and some sweet trails/fields in Belmont. It wasn't attacking like on some group rides it was more just plain letting it rip because it was so cool to be on cross bikes with other riders who are just as stoked as you are about cross. I was sooo impressed by everyone's riding ability. There was some crazy stuff. We rode a trail called Star Wars and it was sketchy but sooo fun. I had a close one as I was taking some action photography and everyone turned sharp left all of a sudden. No one crashed or freaked out. Another reason why I love cross racers. Its going to take more than an out of control dude with his hands off the bars clicking photos to get them all a twitter.
Hup had a good crew we had Jenn, JZ!!!, Michele, and me. Oh and the I raced Battenkill excuse to why you didn't make it? Not happening we had a very fresh and snappy rider from NEBC who'd raced the 4s and was attacking at will on her cross bike all day. She seemed unfazed by all the gravel and sand we were riding on. Imagine that. She was super cool. I think her name was Joy. She may think I am a lunatic between my near t-boning the crew while shooting pictures and my blabbering on about mindless drivel. I can become a chatter box when I am getting close to bonky town. Sorry Joy usually I am pretty normal. I think.
JZ is a BALLER! It was so good to see Justin! The Van Dessell is looking hott! And damn I had no idea what technical skillz our brother has. I was literally freaking out of my mind as we were dropping off some rocks and Justin is all chill just dropping in and surfing that single track. I did almost implant my record shifter into his butt at one point...Sorry 'bout that...But seriously this is not just a social ride. The Wheelworks crew have a gem in the making right here. It would be so cool if this built into a monthly crossapalooza. No excuses next month. Be there!!!
We rolled through Newton and into Belmont in a flash the route was fantastic. Easy, very little traffic and just a nice way to get to a ride. We rolled up and were greeted by all the cool cats at Wheelworks! To say they are nice is an understatement. They had waffles ready for us and we all talked about cross bikes and hung out for a while. I got to meet one of our new teammates for the first time! Michele is so awesome! And her Husband Ed and son Elliot were there as well which was really nice. At 9 am we all got together and headed out on the road. There were about 20 of us. A really cool mix of bikes. One ss mtn bike, a crazy Igleheart mixte, a fixed gear and a classy road bike ridden by quite possible the cleanest biker I have ever met in my life. Andy the Castelli rep rocks! I seriously need to spend more time riding with that guy he just radiates biker style. If I am lucky maybe some will rub off on me. He rode the cleanest pair of white sidis I have ever seen in my life. They were spotless when we got back. I have no idea how he did that. I was covered in mud. Granted a mud puddle is pretty much a magnet for me but still impressive.
Eddy would have approved. I assumed, incorrectly, this would be a "social" ride. Ha. This was a very spirited, quasi-attacking cross ride. We did 2 hrs on Battle Road and some sweet trails/fields in Belmont. It wasn't attacking like on some group rides it was more just plain letting it rip because it was so cool to be on cross bikes with other riders who are just as stoked as you are about cross. I was sooo impressed by everyone's riding ability. There was some crazy stuff. We rode a trail called Star Wars and it was sketchy but sooo fun. I had a close one as I was taking some action photography and everyone turned sharp left all of a sudden. No one crashed or freaked out. Another reason why I love cross racers. Its going to take more than an out of control dude with his hands off the bars clicking photos to get them all a twitter.
Hup had a good crew we had Jenn, JZ!!!, Michele, and me. Oh and the I raced Battenkill excuse to why you didn't make it? Not happening we had a very fresh and snappy rider from NEBC who'd raced the 4s and was attacking at will on her cross bike all day. She seemed unfazed by all the gravel and sand we were riding on. Imagine that. She was super cool. I think her name was Joy. She may think I am a lunatic between my near t-boning the crew while shooting pictures and my blabbering on about mindless drivel. I can become a chatter box when I am getting close to bonky town. Sorry Joy usually I am pretty normal. I think.
JZ is a BALLER! It was so good to see Justin! The Van Dessell is looking hott! And damn I had no idea what technical skillz our brother has. I was literally freaking out of my mind as we were dropping off some rocks and Justin is all chill just dropping in and surfing that single track. I did almost implant my record shifter into his butt at one point...Sorry 'bout that...But seriously this is not just a social ride. The Wheelworks crew have a gem in the making right here. It would be so cool if this built into a monthly crossapalooza. No excuses next month. Be there!!!Ahhh and as a wrap up back to the New Rule. Taste Coffee House is a special one. We stopped on the way back and the four of us—Jenn, David and Andy vowed all rides now must start and end at Taste. The coffee is incredible, the crepes and egg sandwiches are out of this world and you can just tell they dig muddy, dirty and smelly bikers. Well they liked Andy too and he was sparkling clean and smelled of Eddy Merckx's Swiss Nanny's eau de toilet...Such a good day.
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