Luckily there were no accidents when we went out last night. If seemed almost as if we were completely protected from all the cars... A sea of red blinkies taking the entire street in both directions tends to get the cars to slow down...

They took a lot of hills, I think just to make it hard for me doing the whole brakeless track bike thing. I guess I was the first person to show up at the ride from hearing of it on the net. It was kind of funny - we lost the guy on the 8 speed BMX (a truly odd machine) and all had to turn around and hit a couple of hills that had already killed me the first time through.

At least I could mostly keep up on the uphills. I got dropped on most of the downhills - one of them made me feel really bad because they had to circle a whole block at the bottom by the time I caught up. Definatly humbling. It makes me think that I might have to get myself a new fork that I can actually put a brake on. There were a couple of times that the last 2 or 3 people in front of me had to actually stop at one of the stop signs at the bottom of the hill, and I caught up just as it became clear. I probably would have gotten hit since I couldn't stop, but since I took the safe route and slowed down downhill, it wasn't an issue.

The only bummer out of the night was one dude putting a flat spot in his rim towards the end of the night. He hit a pretty large pothole, but other people there were able to get it 'mostly' alright. He's still going to need a new rim, but it was rideable to get him home.

There was about as much stopping and drinking/smoking/puffing as there was riding. Fine by me, but one of the guys we rode with called me up this morning asking if I was interested in riding out to St. Paul since last night's ride was so short (seems I wasn't the only one worn out by the hills). I passed due to the hangover, but it seems like a really great ride. He's probably just as hung over as me (that was NOT water that he kept refilling his water bottle with) but I've got to work tonight...

Anyways, it was a great ride. Any other TC people are encouraged to make it out. 9pm at the McDonalds in Dinkytown. I'll be there next weekend.

Just don't try to keep up without brakes. I do hope they hit something flatter and longer next weekend