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No, not the motor oil folks.  And not the 90s band with the addict singer.  I’m talking about the Seattle to Portland bike ride.  200 miles of people who shouldn’t be riding it doing just that.  Oh shit…here we go…

It started on Friday the 13th.  No shit, how do you like that?  This weekend is put into perspective now.  Okay, Friday night.  Dean drops me off at home so that I can grab supplies.  We’d gotten a 20ft camper to spend the night in, complete with BBQ supplies.  That in addition to our normal complement of mobile bike repair supplies.   And beer.

So we show up at the camper, which had been parked at the start line for the STP.  The start line was in the parking lot for Husky Stadium and we were to be one of the repair places for last-minute fix-er-uppers before people pedalled their behinds to Portland, OR.  Hey, no problem.  We’ll grill steaks, drink beer, listen to music and make fun of each other until it’s time to sleep and then get up and face the masses.  Which is exactly what we did.

However, we knew not what we were in store for.

4am rolled around pretty early.  At 4am, to be precise, which is pretty early.  Anyway, we got up and expected that from 4 to 5am we would mostly see the folks who were true riders who were prepared because they wanted to do the 200 miles in one day.  Then we might change out some flats and maybe even have to replace a brake pad here or there.  No big deal, the standard last minute crap.  Uh uh.  No, Dean got a wheel with two broken spokes right off the bat.  I got a hub adjustment, and then a fairly serious bottom bracket issue.  Where was Dave?  He had a line forming in front of him 10 deep.  What did those folks need that required a pro level bike mechanic?  Air in their tires.  ???  Yeah, you read that right.  At one point or another, Dave, Dean and I each did about 1000 pushups pumping up the tires of people who couldn’t do it themselves.  I pumped air into tires attached to $50 bikes and $5000 bikes.

Are you serious?  Granted, we can change flats faster than the average rider because we’ve done this for a living, but if you can’t tell the difference between a presta valve and a schrader valve, then folks, we gots problems.

“Can you help me?  I can’t figure out why my tire won’t take air.”

“Well that’s easy.  You’re a fukn moron.  Not only did you not unscrew the top of the presta valve, but you also have deep-dish aero rims, which require at LEAST a 48mm valve while you are using 32mm valves.  Here…” pump up the tires for them “Get outta here.”

I mean come ON!

After it was all over, I spoke to one of the ride organizers.  He said that by 8am, they’d already had 4 people in the hospital.  It was like it was a sponsored ride for blind clowns from the dynamite factory.  Holy shit!

And even as I bitch about how many complete imbeciles we had to deal with (I didn’t mention the lady who showed up in front of us at 11pm the night before, or the idiots with the tandems), I had a great time.  Hanging out with your friends and helping people out who are just there to have fun?  Yeah, sign me up.  Oh, you mean I’m going to blow out my lower back and spend the rest of the weekend catching up on a screwed up sleep schedule?  Yeah, count me in for that shit.

Ride your damn bike.  It loves you.

PS, I don’t know no Woods valve. I call that one a Dunlop valve. Roger that, out.

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