A Day Spent On the Bike and Another Night Ride (With Bonus Zombies!)

The view from the cockpit.

Got up, this early morn, and showered the work week off. Once the steam had cleared and I was dressed, I hightailed it down to the coffee shop for my three big cups and a scone. After about three hours of sittin' and sippin' and visitin' with the various cronies and caffeine fiends who slunk into the shop in search of their morning eye-opener, I rode back home.

Once there, I spent a couple of hours playing the guitar out in the front yard (the neighbors love me), knocking around with the dogs and just generally having a nice summer day. Eventually, I rode up to Pete's (the one on Colfax, not the one close to my house on University. Remember that, for later.). There, I chowed down on the Breakfast Burrito Supreme, drowned in green chili, with two sunnyside-up eggs on top. Approximately 9000 calories of salty, fatty goodness!

After I got home from Pete's, I decided to dip the brake levers on the red bike in PlastiCote. The spray paint on the right lever (which you may recall has been rebuilt from JB Weld) was rubbing off due to the friction of my gloves. So, I figured the PlastiCote would cover that up, and give me the finger-friendly non-slip grip that I crave.

Of course, I couldn't take the levers off of the bike to dip them, so I laid the bike across the arms of a lawn chair and pushed the PlastiCote can onto the levers, rather than dipping the levers in. It was awkward, but it worked. Two coats, appled thirty minutes apart, covered pretty well.

Squint your eyes, and use your imagination, and maybe you'll see the dome of the Capital Building.

I had sent out an email, yesterday, to 11 people, here in Denver, inviting them on a night ride at 9:00, tonight. Everyone who responded, did so to tell me that they couldn't make it (I guess I'm the only loser, in town, with no plans on a Friday night). Three or four didn't even do that. Oh. well...solo ride.

I actually left the house at about 8:00, because I wanted to check out the First Friday Artwalk, on Pearl Street (the stretch just south of the Interstate, where the Sushi Den is). Unfortunately, nothing much was going on. I saw one art gallery which appeared to be open. Every other store and gallery was dark. So, I just rode on through and headed north.

I thought I might just ride up to the Capital, and see what was happening. On the way, at Pearl and Alameda, I passed yet another Pete's restaurant. I'll have to eat at that one, next time I want a big gut-buster breakfast.

Eventually, I found myself on Sherman, at 11th, taking the picture above. I hope that the dome shows up when you click the picture to embiggen it. It looked pretty cool in person, anyway.

As I approached the Capital, I began to hear music. Oh yeah, The Taste of Colorado food orgy is going on in the City Park area. I figured I'd check it out. After about 30 minutes of riding around the perimeter of the festival, and being told by three different festival staff people that there was no bike parking provided, I finally found the Bike Denver bike corral, and checked the red bike in.

The "non-existant" bike corral.

The City and County Building, lit in a weird blue, Maybe aliens had taken over.

Flesh-eating zombies, shambling through the festival, moaning their plaintive "Tuuurkey Wiiiiings" as they searched for more greasy weird food to stuff into their undead mouths.

I wandered around, a bit, giving the shuffling hoard ample opportunity to bump into me, step on my feet and ram me with baby strollers. Good times.

I had a five-dollar glass of instant lemonade, and got the hell out of Dodge.

Moon Over Mi Casa

I wandered my way back home, and actually had a fox cross the road as I went by, a couple of blocks west of Washington Park. I tried to get a picture, but he did the Cheshire Cat thing on me right when I got the camera out.

I rolled back to the house at about 10:30, and let the dogs in. In 14-1/2 hours, I took three separate rides, drank a bunch of coffee, ate some good food, and played with my bikes and guitar. And, I attended the Feast of The Living Dead, and escaped with my brain intact (though I may have misplaced my mind).

Not a too shabby of a day.

By the way, Brad posted up a couple of things I scribbled out for the Association Of Caffeinated Wheelmen blog. Give it a click and a read, why don'cha?

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