The Charlie Brown

I am sitting here early Sunday morning contemplating what to write listening to the torrential downpour, savoring my Seattle's Best coffee (not Starbucks) and keeping my eye on the Weather Channel. We are under both a tornado warning, and watch for the next hour or so. I thought we left that crap when we moved from "Tornado Alley" in Missouri? At least we have not had snow, hail, and sub thirty degree temps like you in MO.

Friday night after work I geared up and headed to the shop for the Friday night beer ride. I was really excited to meet some new cyclists and check out the riding conditions on the post at Fort Jackson, not to mention enjoying a cold beer afterwards down at Five Points. But much to my dismay...I was the only one to show up! I could not believe it, the conditions were perfect for a ride, sunny and 75, no wind, and finishing with a cold beer...I arrived five minutes early and waited for almost 30 minutes, that sucked! Hope things turn out differently next week.

Now to expand on the title of this post. Charlie Brown is my friend and neighbor who lives across the street from us. Charlie is a military man, Colonel, I believe, husband, and father of one third grader Lexie. Charlie is an avid triathlete, and adventure racer, and will beat your ass in any trivia game you can think of! Charlie and I decided we would take an early Saturday morning ride, probably an hour or so I thought. If you have read my previous post my big ride for the season was a whopping 14.79 miles at a blazing average speed of about the same.

The conditions again were perfect for riding. Sunny and a cool 51 degrees at ride start with relatively no wind. We began out of our neighborhood and headed into the Carolina countryside. There is something very calming about riding through forests of tall pines with the occasional blooming Dogwood or Red bud growing beneath. But the calmness was soon shattered by the all too familiar sound of dogs in hot pursuit. Thank God we did not have a Dunsmuir incident. Charlie was pretty impressed by my dog defender tactic. Simply opening my big mouth and yelling as loud and as mean as possible, NO! That gets their attention, kind of messes with their heads, they usually slow down, stop, or tilt their heads to the side thinking what the hell!
After what must have been about three or four of the damn chasers we met the big one. Big Damn Blackie. He is a black lab with a head as big as a basketball. I was pulling us along (the only time I pulled) down a straight road with a slight decline at about 25 miles per hour. (I did say slight decline). When suddenly I spy Big Blackie coming at us from the front off of my left shifter. Usually they come at you from behind nipping at your ankles. Not Big Blackie, he had other things on his mind. I thought to myself in a brief fleeting second, oh shit this is going to be ugly. Charlie is in my draft down on his aero bars and we are both going to hit the deck. I yelled as loudly as I could NO and I'll be dammed Blackie put on the emergency brakes dropped his ass to the ground and literally slid to a stop within a foot of my left Nike. Now that will get your heart rate up, not that I needed my heart rate any higher, but wow!

Despite the dogs, we had a great ride. Charlie is strong, says that was only his third ride of the season. Well I should mention that he runs on an almost daily basis and throw in a couple of swims each week, well you get the picture. He pulled my lame butt the entire time except for our Blackie incident. I will get stronger and return the favor mark my words.

When we pulled back into the neighborhood an hour and 53 minutes later we had logged in 30.19 miles. Now I don't have any cool bar graphs like Skippy or Scotty D, nor a power meter. But here are the approximate results from my new Sigma computer. I am too comfy to go out to the garage and look at the actual. 30.19 miles, ride time 1:53, average speed 17.7 mph, average cadence 87. My Nike heart rate monitor is broken, so I will just say really high!

Looking forward to more great rides in the Carolina countryside. Just remembered, I am going to try and get down to a stage of the Tour of Georgia this week. If so, hope to get some great pictures and interesting commentary.

Thanks for reading, y'all tune in again soon.