MAKE IT RAIN!!!

So, another Friday comes, the day started out beautiful! Shorts and a sleeveless-t, nothings better. After the shop closed up a few of us rode out to NoHo to the Smith Bike Kitchen to say hello to the gals that work there. It was a nice ride, back roads not too hilly but burned the legs. We got there after a little search around campus, it must have looked a little odd for a pack of eight or so guys riding through the all girls campus, yelling at each other and not paying any attention to the people around us, I don't think people knew what to do when they saw us coming. Well, we find the Kitchen and introduce ourselves check out the space and start helping out with bikes. We were working outside then it began to rain. The Kitchen is no bigger than the Coop at UMass, but a little more out of the way and looks like Freddy lives there, but its a space and the girls there enjoy it. We say our goodbyes and are off to ride the 9 or so miles back to campus.


We get back, riding through some farms and nice mellow hills and some great flat sprints. It was raining pretty heavy at this point, so we jump onto the bike path ans I cruise back to my house, the path conveniently come out behind Amherst College a few doors down from my house. I take a shower, have a beer and re coop before heading out, grab a nice meal with Dorthy Mantooth and never call her again.

Well, now its raining really hard and it is Ten so time to hit the spoke, we don't get asked to move and hide under the over hang. We decide to hit one party and hang there as long as we can. its a friends house so we know it will be alright to be there all night. Route 9 in Amherst is a long stretch of strip malls and gas stations. It all starts with a big descent down a monster of a hill. We get going after our booze is picked up, the rain is still coming down hard and the roads are soaked, I forgot my rain pants and most everyone else didn't even have rain pants. Down the road we go, single file, not much talking or laughter going on like we usually do. I hang at the end of the line and look on as everyone rides on, my clothing beginning to collect the rain. I get into a rhythm, ten pedal strokes to every drop of rain from the brim of my cap. Smooth and fluid as the water around me. I just hang back, keep a mellow pace and just enjoy the hum and swish of the road. Then we get close to the house and I sprint to the front to show the group the drive way and we are there, damp and ready for a beer.

We enter and are welcomed, told the dryer was ours for the night and to toss our things in. This is nice, I grab a seat on the counter and don't really move say for another beer, or a quick dart outside.

Time to leave and we put our half dry clothes on and head back out into the cold rain night moving toward morning. We jump out onto Route 9, and jump on the bike path home. Bad idea, its dark and they mixed glass into the asphalt to lower the cost, this means a lot of flats, out comrade got one so we walked the three or so miles back with him. Well riding a bike drunk is easy, but walking one is a son of a bitch.

Next morning, wake up late and need to get to the Coop, 15 pieces of glass in my front tire, I walked, used the spare tube the day before. Just another Friday night, don't know the extent of it all until the morning.