Mounted Unpleasantly

Greetings, Team Seagal seed repositories! It has been a little while since I, the Crotch, have come to you with useless news of our ridiculous team. I apologize for that absence, as I had to go out and find a person, club them over the head, drag them back to my cave by their hair, and get married to them. Fortunately for me, I managed to bag a female.

Anyway, that is all well and good, but what about this past weekend? There was a cyclocross race this weekend, once again at the Mt. Pleasant Winery. Guh. That sounded terrible. So instead of racing there, we decided to ride to it, or near it, and hanging out to heckle and watch the race after we were finished.

Except for Dr. Roland Sallinger, who would valiantly race, despite the course being Equivalent to prison-mouth-rape.

So the Mayor of Pizza Town and Titty would drive out to the winery, crush some badass singletrack in the area, while myself, and Stankward Toscani would fulfill Stanky's contractual obligation to himself to complete at least one century each month this year. This would be a modified-Hurricane Century route, which has us going up the RFT to Alton, crossing over the Alton Bridge, coming through St. Charles either on the Katy or the farm roads, and towards the Page. Instead of crossing over the Page, we would rendezvous with Stoveward and choo-choo our little man-train out to the winery to get a ride back from the singletrack-minded jerks that were waiting. Whew. What a plan.

Completing 100 miles in time to see a decent amount of racing would require Jerkward and myself to leave super early - like before the hairy ass-crack of dawn. So in preparation for such an early departure, a customer of mine loaned me the largest tail-light I've ever seen:

Jerky and I met at Jack in the Box since Hardee's hadn't opened yet. We had to go through the drive-thru since their dining room wasn't opened yet. The clerk, we'll call him "Tyrone," was super helpful and totally awesome:

Go to the Jack in the Box at Hampton and West Park around 6AM on Sunday for the best service you'll ever get at a fast food joint.

After getting served up nicely with sausage and egg biscuits and extreme sausage sandwiches, we headed east on empty dark streets, the whole time watching daylight start to rest its warm t'aint squarely on the Arch. The river was calm, and we got to see just how much progress has been made on the new I-70 bridge:

Speaking of progress, we continued northwards along the river, and it only became moar and moar ominous:

The fog had me worried that slow-moving zombies would start to emerge and try to eat our brains. But then I remembered that we weren't in some isolated farmhouse, so we were safe from a fog-zombie attack.


Since Leg Titty wasn't with us, our first piss break wasn't until the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge at their porta-a-johns. But the highlight of that bridge isn't the shitters, it's the view:

Talk about a crisp, still day! The river water was like a mirror. Before shoving off, we noticed a group of people in the water doing something, probably some kinda of polar bear aqua-zumba class:

We continued up the trail, becoming moar and moar warm from the glorious sunlight, and before long, a couple of major landmarks came into view - the huge lock and dam, and the Alton Bridge, which we would cross shortly:

After crossing the Alton Bridge, and managing to not get a flat in all that shoulder debris, we found ourselves staring at many, many flat miles ahead of us, coming south/southwest through St. You're-Alright-Charles County. The roads were smooth and traffic free, however they were as flat as the chests on the boys locked in Criss Angel's basement.

It was along these roads where we had a lot of time to reflect. We marveled how this was the most gears that The Jerk and I had ever had between our two bikes - both of us riding 10-speed equipped road bikes with doubles. 40 fucking gears! That's like 38 more than usual.

The biggest excitement came as The Jerk and I were wistfully passing in front of the Casino, wondering what all the people milling about outside were looking at. As I looked to my left, I found my answer:
B-B-B-B-B-B-BOOOOM!

That was crazy. More crazy than the look in Criss Angel's eyes as he opens the sliding door of his parked, windowless van, holding ice cream cones. We opted to take a pass on Bangert Island, in the interest of time. So we continued the pain-train down the Katy, where we would eventually find the esteemed Stoveward P. Stovington at "Bejing Bench," a memorial bench near the Page where many scrolls have been translated.

With our man-train having grown in size by 50%, we were now at full force. We snapped the wrist of many-a-hybrid rider, one incumbent rider, and countless others. Nothing boosts your ego like snapping the wrists of retirees riding full-suspension Giant Cypress hybrids.

The next landmark was yet another bridge, though this one was not being blown up:

A quick stop to see Harley the Cat in Defiance, a possible Matt Hayes sighting, and a chance meeting with Sasha's brother Jeff, and we were nicely rested:

From Defiance, we had to break of the Katy Monotony by doing a slightly modified reverse partial Class 9 Hot Mission. We climbed up some roads past the Matson Hill Trailhead, and continued down Duke Road - making sure to piss off those stupid dogs, and also yell into the woods, hoping that Gino or Titty would hear us in mid-shred. This would be the first time that any of us would have the "pleasure" of riding down Duke Road NOT on a singlespeed mountain bike. This is significant, because if you've ever ridden Duke Road from Matson to Terry or Schlursburg Road, you'd know that it defines the phrase "totally fucked." But you know, after all that flat riding, it felt kinda good to crush those hills, even though we had already done 90 miles.

We bombed Schlursburg like C-Dubs bombs his shitter in the morning - like a fucking boss. My speedo touched 50mph, which was tons of fun.

Wouldn't you know it, we would be in Augusta before you knew it. Jerkward had to scope one of these beaut's:

Having received up-to-the-second updates from Delivery, I knew that my clothing would be waiting for me atop the 'Stro's roof. And lo and behold, that 'Stro was parked next to the Rolla Giant's Honda, so as I provided service to that public parking lot, I made sure to brush my bare ass cheek on his quarter panel. Come to think of it, part of the hitch rack may have also been inserted into one or more of my orifices. (Sorry about the curly-q's, buddy.)

Finally at the destination and out that my ravaged chamois, I found my way to my people on course, the hecklers. There was a hill over by the fence that has become rather infamous as a place to get totally fucked. There I found Strove, his better half, and a number of others giving Chablis, Merlot, and Shiraz hand-ups. FEAR NOT, WE SAID NOTHING OFFENSIVE AT ALL. EVERYTHING WAS COMPLETELY ENCOURAGING, AND NOT IN ANY WAY INTENDED TO MAKE RACERS FEEL BAD OR MAKE THEM LAUGH. AT ALL. NO CURSING OR FOUL LANGUAGE WAS USED IN ANY WAY.

"I say my good man, care for some aged Gruyere?"

And that was that. Devin crushed fucking souls, Sam Moore rode a triple, and Peat got ripped.

The next race that is going to be totally fucking awesome will be the State Race in Jeff City, as there will be some good party people. That's the race to go to.

In the meantime, know the enemy: Your best chances of finding them are in the unemployment line.

See you in Jeff City.

-Casey F. Ryback

P.S. If Michael Jackson could travel backwards through time, do you think he would try to molest himself as a kid?