Zombrification

As nice as it is to have donuts and coffee arrive at my door at the start of a busy day, they showed up an hour earlier than planned. Tiah called me and said she was at the donut shop (Annie's) by my house, and would be at the door in ten minutes.
It wasn't even 10:00 yet, and due to overthinking, I hadn't gone to sleep until 3:00am the night before.
So, in walks nutrition, and out of bed I get.........
After a breakfast of donuts, eggs, and halibut, and coffee, the three of us (Bjorn, Tiah, and I) rolled across NE towards The Fresh Pot on Missisipppi for the start of one of my favorite events of the year, "The NOISE Single Speed Rally".
This was the 4th year for this event. Having missed the 1st one, I have no plans to ever miss another. It was about 35 people, a diverse crowd to say the least. We had the old guard of messengers, how are you gonna keep 'em away? Josh brought some new imports from North Carolina with him. Billy Spaceman came back from San Francisco with a few others in tow, and one of the old boys again rode his fixed Tonic Fabrications mt. bike.
The Rally started at High Noon (12:45 messenger time), from the sidewalk outside the coffee shop. Chevil led us across North Portland towards the bluffs, where we picked up the trail at Killingsworth. Moments later, down at the spot known for watching sunsets, Mace got a flat. This flat of course turned into two more by Lucky, and 20 minutes later we were off again, towards the Super Fund Site.
Once we got to the school (U of P), I raced down the hill first to get nice photo ops of everyone doing a little drop, then even better pics of moving all the bikes over the parked train. We then rolled out the big gravel to Bosnia ( ala the Hunted), and had fun hanging out, then a couple of little derby's, which by the way, came down to Tad and Mace, with Mace being the solid winner.

Not far down the tracks we were harrased by the police. How funny is it that through an area that the city is planning to have a nice esplanade type path to St, John's, a little off road ride will get you a big big ticket...... (I think you can thank the religous nuts at U of P for that).

After a few spots with jumps, and more flat repairs, we headed off to Pier Park, where I took the opportunity to ride the new skatepark on my Mt. Bike. I would like to thank Dreamland Skateparks for this addition to Portland.
Eventually, we went off on a pre race lap of the "course". The majority of us followed Dan around the park on a preview of what would be a varied, and certainly frustrating two loops . Back at the container area (where the beer was, of course), we decided that it would be a "Follow the Leader" style race, with the leader required to follow the unmarked course, to the best of his, or her ability. Everyone else of course would be racing to become the leader.
After lap one, It was Tad, Brian, Lucky, and Drew up front, with me and Ryan a little ways back.
This is how we would finish up, as most droppped out to drink beer after lap 1. I recall that some OBRA guys, including the new head of, were racing with u the first lap or so, but I don't believe they rode the second.


The big winner of the NOISE Belt was Tad, and we celebrated with much revelry and beer.
Now sooner had we left the park headed for Fire On The Mt., did the police show up again to hassle the straggler's.
This is exactly why I do not lollygag around much. of course there was no time for slacking, because in two hours the "Zombie Massacre" was going off.
And go off it did. After slogging home for a 20 minute power nap, I raced down to Alberta Park for the start.
80 participants had gathered in the basketball area for some footdown, then the late start of the "Zombie Massacre".
We rode off with instructions not to get bitten by zombies, not to get killed, and not to cheat.
With 6 stops, first in SE, then further SE, then back to Ne, for three stops, then off to deeper Se again, it was at least 32 zombie-filled miles.
The stops were filled with moaning, biting Zombies, alcohol, fake blood, warm fires, and total mayhem.
I had heard the race was over at Joe's house, and didn't ride very hard to 32nd and Powell, the location of the after party.
It turns out that was the end of the race, and I was 13th place, with Lucky winning the big trophy dressed as "Spiderman".
I believe if I had pedaled harder in the end I would have been top 5, but what can you do?
And now on to the party, which, in my mind, turned out to be great. I heard the rookies arguing in the standard "I dare you to walk across the fire" mode.. So, to shut them up, I got up from my chair, walked the 5 feet across the fire, then sat back down. Between that and the trip to the keg, I didn't go far.

It turns out I didn't have to, things kept coming to me. Ted was blotto, and gave someone 30 bucks to go to Safeway, buy wine, and bring it back to me. Needless to say I stayed where I was, with Todd Danger, waiting. The police showed up about the same time the wine did, but didn't slow anyone down much.

The low part of the evening turned out to be the moment of discovering that it was 3:30 AM, and I had a couple hundred blocks to go home....
Into the back door, and straight to the buttermilk bar I had been thinking about the whole way.