Stinky Spoke and Dirt Bike!

All of the info is here!

Last year I came across this ride called the Stinky Spoke. For whatever reason, I didn't end up doing the ride last year, but it sounded fun. A few days ago, I saw a poster for this year's Stinky Spoke ride. After a quick call to ask Ruth if she wanted to join, we were both signed up and ready to go.

About a half mile into the ride, it starts going up!

Quite a few people were walking the first hill. It was steep and you got a token for climbing to the top. I got mine!

The ride is a mellow poker ride for charity. You do an 18.5 mile loop with 5 stops for poker cards. They give out prizes at the end for the best hand. It's not a race and just a fun way to spend the day. The catch is that they try to hold it on the worst weather day they can find. They succeeded this year!

Ruth with her first card of the day.

My hand at the end of the day. With 1000 riders, 2 pair wasn't winning anything.

The ride was fun. I rode my Diamondback Mission and enjoyed spending the day with Ruth. It started out with a light mist and by the end of the day, it was a full snowstorm. Ruth was warm in all of her layers. I dressed like I was going out for a training ride expecting to be hot and sweaty. I was wrong. I felt hypothermic as we rode the last few miles back to the van. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a heater as much as I did that afternoon.  The ride ends at the Red Hook Brewery, which helped numb the cold.

It was a little muddy at the beginning...

...and snowing at the end. Ruth enjoying the snow after the ride.

I  grabbed the drink lady's tally sheet. Turns out cyclists aren't really wine drinkers!

Sunday was a nice lazy day. I ended up talking to Mike Smith and mentioning when Rylie was a puppy, she chewed the gear shifter on my van. I didn't mind the damage as the shifter still worked, but she managed to chew through the overdrive-off button. Not being able to turn off the O/D makes towing the trailer not very fun (plus it's really bad for the transmission). Mike happened to have a friend who had just replaced his with a chrome one. A few phone calls and 15 minutes of work later and I'm ready to tow the trailer again! Thanks Mike.

My mom is laughing at this right now, but at least my dog didn't chew through the legs of my dining table!

The last bit of awesome news. I finally got a dirt bike! I've been looking for a while and wanted to get something that would be simple, reliable, cheap and easy to maintain etc. Today I picked up a KX250 in great shape off of Craigslist. The only downside right now is we are being pelted with snow and I won't be able to ride it for a while!

KX 250! Time to go ride!

The plan is to close on our house next week, and I'm trying to figure out the last few dates for the 2012 season schedule. I just watched the video my new teammate made that will be dropping soon. Stay tune for that as well! More on all of it next time...

-KT