The Olyiest
Alex led us from Boulevard St. to Legion Way, which runs parallel to fourth and dead into downtown Oly. Kate pedaled past me as we made for the slope, and all three of us plunged down Legion. Somewhere around where Legion crossed Eastside Drive, the slope bottomed out and dipped up into an incline. We hit this with enough velocity built up that we hardly needed to pedal to clear the hill.
We cycled around Oly, looking for a rack where we could fit all three of our bikes into my cable lock. That done, we walked to the Spar for dinner and local brew. I chatted with a friend from Evergreen we bumped into there and had a couple Terminator Stouts. That done, we snuck a few tokes in the Planned Parenthood parking lot before riding out of town. I'm confident that, throughout that evening, we were the Olyiest folks in Olympia. We would have needed a protest rally to spray graffiti about to satisfy more Oly stereotypes.
Legion Way was a hell of a lot harder to ride back up. My custom with hills is to really lean into the motherfuckers and blast up'em before my legs quite notice what I'm putting them through. I keep my bike in the big gears because I like to go fast and I like to show up where ever I'm going with massive, throbbing quads. So as the slope began to steal our momentum, I confirmed directions with Kate and started barreling up the hill.
The thing I've always got to convince my legs of is that stopping for rest on a hill will just make their jobs harder. If they can just keep pumping and hold onto our velocity, then we're gonna clear the slope much quicker and much easier overall. But after a quarter mile or so heading straight fucking upwards, my limbs were rather difficult to negotiate with. My great speed bled away and I was stuck just trying to grind my way up Legion. I had to drop into the low Gears of Shame.
As we reached a flat point, Kate and Alex caught up to me and passed me by. As they passed, Kate said that the hill we'd just all completed was a killer. Panting and snarling, I agreed. Then she said it was the next hill that really wrecked her. I looked up from my front tire and saw the slope she spoke of. If I owned a cell phone, I probably would have called a taxi with a damn bike rack.
Instead we slogged to the top of Legion, got some beer, got blotto and got blazed. The next morning, I tried to blast down the Western Chehalis trail to get home before my hangover kicked in. I nearly made it.
We cycled around Oly, looking for a rack where we could fit all three of our bikes into my cable lock. That done, we walked to the Spar for dinner and local brew. I chatted with a friend from Evergreen we bumped into there and had a couple Terminator Stouts. That done, we snuck a few tokes in the Planned Parenthood parking lot before riding out of town. I'm confident that, throughout that evening, we were the Olyiest folks in Olympia. We would have needed a protest rally to spray graffiti about to satisfy more Oly stereotypes.
Legion Way was a hell of a lot harder to ride back up. My custom with hills is to really lean into the motherfuckers and blast up'em before my legs quite notice what I'm putting them through. I keep my bike in the big gears because I like to go fast and I like to show up where ever I'm going with massive, throbbing quads. So as the slope began to steal our momentum, I confirmed directions with Kate and started barreling up the hill.
The thing I've always got to convince my legs of is that stopping for rest on a hill will just make their jobs harder. If they can just keep pumping and hold onto our velocity, then we're gonna clear the slope much quicker and much easier overall. But after a quarter mile or so heading straight fucking upwards, my limbs were rather difficult to negotiate with. My great speed bled away and I was stuck just trying to grind my way up Legion. I had to drop into the low Gears of Shame.
As we reached a flat point, Kate and Alex caught up to me and passed me by. As they passed, Kate said that the hill we'd just all completed was a killer. Panting and snarling, I agreed. Then she said it was the next hill that really wrecked her. I looked up from my front tire and saw the slope she spoke of. If I owned a cell phone, I probably would have called a taxi with a damn bike rack.
Instead we slogged to the top of Legion, got some beer, got blotto and got blazed. The next morning, I tried to blast down the Western Chehalis trail to get home before my hangover kicked in. I nearly made it.