Look for me in the ER

Last night we drank beer at JC’s. Then we drank beer at Goomba’s. Then we drank beer at Sidelines. Then we drank beer at the D&D, which is actually a redneck downtown bar and offers fewer savings throws against dragon breath than one might expect.

I tried to wake up this morning, but a piercing hangover (a hangover that pierced, not a hangover that resulted from getting part of my body pierced) complicated things. My roommate left a note in the bathroom that said “The drains are clogged again!” I swallowed a bottle of Advil, grabbed a Sharpie and appended “Fucking cats!” My head felt like a melon in a vise and I feared that I might spew from the pain alone, so I went back to bed.

I woke up around 1:00 to someone shouting and banging on my bedroom window. Turns out it was my friends Shane and Erin, who were achin’ to eat some breakfast and do some mountain biking. We swung over to the Victorian Cafe, where we happened to meet some topless dancers from Stars Gentlemen’s Club. They were friends of Shane’s, and strangely enough Erin was okay with that.

Our desire to go biking was slightly hampered by the fact that I didn’t own a mountain bike, so we sought to remedy this serious affliction. I test drove the Specialized Hardrock and Specialized Rockhopper at Hutch’s, the Kona Lanai and Kona Stuff at Bend Cyclery, and the Gary Fisher Marlin at Pine Mountain Sports. The Marlin felt really good, but the frame was a pansy-ass greenish-blue color with flames. Erin vetoed it right-out based on appearance alone, saying it was really cool if I was trying to impress seventh graders. The geometry on both of the Konas felt really awkward, and their dirt jumper model didn’t have all the gear ratios I was looking for.

With the evening wearing on we loaded up Shane and Erin’s bikes in the Subaru and headed to the other Hutch’s store on Bend’s eastside. Lo and behold, they had a Specialized Rockhopper, in the right frame size, with nearly identical components as the Marlin, in non-pansy silver. I took it for a test drive in a few bank parking lots, fell in some bushes, and bought that bike right then and there.

Thus properly armed, Shane, Erin and I took to the streets of Bend for a hardcore biking gib fest. We rode for hours all around town, cranking through parks, rattling over rivers, rolling down stairs, weaving through playgrounds and darting into traffic. With a golden sun sliding behind the Cascades, we finally broke up the party at Reed Market Road. Shane and Erin went home to cook up some salmon and celebrate their first anniversary, and I cranked on back to Lava House via the Old Mill District, moved by the promise of a tall pint of Kool-Aid after an exciting day of exploration.

…and one of these days I promise to let my broken leg heal…