Age Before Beauty

Beautiful day out yesterday and I'd love to tell you how TB and I went out and proved all the pundits right by riding the New & Improved (errr, dumbed-down) Forest Hill Park on the road bikes, but this story takes a different turn. We picked up Clark and headed out west, and were making a pretty good clip of it up Old Gun. Well Clark looks over his shoulder and says we Have a "Bogey back." Now I've never played golf, but I did have to learn the rules (and lingo) for 10th grade phys ed, so I'm trying to remember is that 1 or two strokes over or under par. Well about that time Clark looks over his shoulder again and says "this guys coming fast!" So I'm thinking now how fast is fast cause as far as I know I'm on the wheel of the fastest guy in town right now. We about that time TB says "we'll just throw it in the big ring and see." I held TB's wheel but Clark immediately comes to grief. Well about that time this human rocket comes flying by liked a greased weasel shot out of a howitzer. This guy had an aerodynamic profile that didn't stand more than about 5 hands off the pavement. Well TB looks at me and we try to get on but by this point holding his wheel was like trying to hold Richard Gere's pet gerbil. So TB looks back and all i can do is grunt out an couple of muffled syllables something akin to "hell no!" and TB takes off. So his indecisiveness has cost him and he's got a lot of ground to cover. I don't know what happened after that, but when I finally caught up to this guy (now know as "the Greasel")at the stop light, he turns out to be like 65 years old. Bob Burch's (skinny) twin brother. For real. Southside Masters/Cat 1-level racer dude.

Well we ride some of that Salisbury loop together and we start yappin' about Forest Hill. He start in with this bit about dumbing down the trails, they're not technical anymore, etc. (we've all heard it) and the three of us gang up on him (politely) and throw in the sustainable routine, etc. Well apparently he wouldn't have much of it, he went quiet for about one minute and then dammit there he goes again! From the back and into outer space again! Again we all jump on but this guy is so tiny there ain't no draft, and again only TB can stay with him.

I could go on forever about how amazing this guy was but the moral of the story is never, ever underestimate the other rider.