IT WAS....a beautiful fall afternoon for a bicycle ride in the forest. The trails were packed tightly, with only the occasional hint of moisture in spots, and the only other variance to the surface would be the typical puddels. It was as if the day itself was curated for the purpose...a celestial and meteorological circumstance of perfection for the Cemetery 6Pack. Here is the story of that event, as told by someone who lived it.
The concept of this event was birthed in the avid mind of one Matt Wagner, and the traction instantly gained through instant support voiced by fellow mountain bike idiots immediately solidified his resolve to see his idea through to fruition. The task...ride the Cemetery Hill "lollipop" loop with connector stem 6 times and consume a fermented beverage of choice for each lap. The course would be about 2 miles long, twisting singletrack with the occasional sharp climb. Three laps clockwise and three laps counterclockwise...just to even things out and encourage the possibility of collision with fellow competitors.
I arrived with the intention of getting some warmup miles in, even though my chief concern lay with my relatively poor beer-drinking skills and how I would perform in that aspect of this particular duathlon. This attempt was thwarted by my own ineptitude in the mechanical realm. This weekend, I thought I was on a roll, having successfully converted a wheelset to tubeless, and then cleaning and repairing my Milwaukee Bicycle Company singlespeed...replacing the bottom bracket (which had a completely locked drive-side bearing) with one that was sitting on a shelf in my basement bike room. I had ridden the bike the previous day, but something felt loose. I discovered that a cleat on my right shoe was loose, and fixed that as soon as I made it back to the lot...so I figured I was good to go. Nope. The loose feeling remained, and, in fact, was a lot worse. I thought that perhaps the cranks were loose, so I cranked down hard on them. Still, they were floating. It was then I was informed of the proprietary nature of the crankset I was using, and the size of the spindle being smaller than the inside diameter of the bearings...hence...the "float." Not good. What to do...no time to go get another bike, nobody had a replacement, and I WAS DOING this event at all costs. The bike WAS rideable in that state...BUT...in order to improve upon the feel of it, I wrapped the axle with electrical tape to reduce the space between axle and bearing. Not a perfect solution, but one that worked. I hammered everything back together with 5 minutes to spare, and brought my 6 pack (three Bud Lights and three Spotted Cows...in cans) over to Matt's pickup...the unofficial start/finish line.
Upon the chime of four...the beers were cracked. Well...except for Dave, who had opened his early because he was thirsty. All told, there were 8 intrepid souls that left the lot...Matt W, Jon, John, Dave, Matt S, Lawrence, Joel and myself. The first four apparently lack gag reflexes, because their beers were gone and they were mounting bikes before I got 1/2 way through my can of Spotted Cow. I am generally a person that drinks without any sense of urgency, so, when the can was empty and I set it down and threw a leg over the bike, my gut reacted rather negatively to the sudden influx of liquid. I was on Joel's wheel, and it felt like my stomach took over all the space in my chest cavity, leaving no room for lungs. The belching mechanism went into play immediately to clear some space, and I'm pretty sure Joel was attempting to surge to get away from all the horrible noises following him. The Cemetery loop doesn't provide much in terms of passing zones, and Joel and John in front of him were running a decent pace, so I settled in and enjoyed the lap.
Returns to the truck were made more interesting by the fact that all racers had to cross a fairly busy road...fortunately, we were aided by Melissa and Troll, letting us know when cars were coming. Joel and I got hung up by a sudden clot of cars, and lost the lead pack for good...our drinking wasn't really on par with those guys anyway. Matt S and Lawrence had gotten a late start, and to their credit, they hung in and battled back into contention and drunkenness. Beer Two for me was a Bud Light, and it seemed to go down easier than the Cow, so I was out of the lot before Joel and on my own for the remainder of the event. It was time to pace myself...only...I had had two beers and wanted to ride fast...so I didn't pace myself all that well. Does hard breathing make you more drunk? Possibly.
There were very few rules/guidelines in this event...and one of them was that the loop was to be completed 3 times in each direction. There was no direction as to which direction we were to go first, nor was it out of line to go the same direction twice in a row. The result was a series of exhilarating high-speed drunken encounters with other racers heading the opposite way, which, in my opinion, really gave the whole thing a nice extra bit of spice. Somehow, nobody hit each other. I DID end up feeling really bad for the girl who was apparently just learning how to mountain bike in the midst of these shenanigans. I passed her at least three times, apologizing each time, and finally was able to tell her at the street crossing that she should not be in any way discouraged by the unusually high concentration of idiots on this particular trail.
Beers three and four honestly kind of ran together, as by this time, the alcohol was starting to take effect. The belching continued, rather uproariously, in point of fact, and, during a technical downhill on the start of the 4th loop, began to...solidify...shall we say? I came to a stop, took a couple deep breaths and swigged some water from my bottle, then remounted and continued to hammer down. I began to worry about my ability to complete the whole thing...not the riding...but the BEER. It was seriously putting a hurt on me. But...I persevered.
Beer five was the last of my Bud Lights, and by this time I was buzzing pretty good. I narrowly missed Jon, John, Dave and Matt, who were light years ahead of me and might not have been yelling and drooling as much as I was. I began to pick new lines. I splashed through puddles that I had been riding around. I bounced off a tree with my bar end, and took a root to the side of the foot that I swear almost ripped my shoe open. I did not, however, slow down. At least it felt that way. I also realized about 1/2 mile into lap five that I had left my glasses sitting on the side of the truck bed.
Choking down the final beer was probably the hardest thing I'd done all day. My stomach was full. My taste buds were overwhelmed. I'm pretty sure if I'd have drunk it any faster, all five previous beers would have unceremoniously re-entered society. Somehow I got it down, and before I could even mount the bike again, Jon and John, who had been dicing it out in front, FINISHED. I was a lap down. Crap. I furiously pedaled away, only to be intercepted by a speeding Dave, taunting me and laughing manically. Lap six was nothing but flow. I was turning, ducking and diving between trees, braking late in corners, thrashing myself on the uphills, launching roots, blasting puddles...basically hero-biking. I am really glad there was nobody coming the other way and that there is no video of my ACTUAL ride...which was probably ponderous and slow.
Soooo...how do you properly celebrate a ride that contained as an element of difficulty the very substance which you would imbibe were you celebrating the conclusion of a "normal" ride? Apparently you drink more. The grand prize winner was Jon, having consumed 6 Modus Hopperandi and ridden his butt off...and the grand prize was a bottle of Malort. Having been force-fed a shot of Malort...I'm not sure I ever want to win this event. Jon celebrated with such aplomb that the next morning's message from him inquired as to the location of his car. Which is exactly how it should be.
Roll on, my friends. With beer.
