Thurs night shenanigans

Another great thurs night was enjoyed last night with the Yazoo crew, and their better halves. I got the itch for some longer miles and was thinking of riding a loop at Percy Warner before meeting up with Thad to ride in to town. After discussing many routes and finding out his plans, I decided to ride out to the farm and meet up with him. I had just been thinking about good routes the day before so this was a great way to test one out. I printed out my directions and hit the road around 3:30pm. I took a lot of back roads and ended up riding around Percy Warner to avoid getting lost in the park, and the hills. I rode some great country roads and the weather was perfect, short sleeves (wool) and shorts were all that was needed. I showed up at the farm right on schedule and Thad and I headed out to meet up with Manondale at his crib.

Matt was already ready to roll when we showed up so we quickly got back on the road towards the tap room. Since it was 5pm and traffic was getting heavy, we headed over towards Franklin rd and took that route into downtown. Everything was great until we got onto Franklin Rd, then it was headwind heaven the rest of the ride in. The sun was down and the temps were falling. I had arm warmers and was toasty up top, but realized I didn't bring any leg warmers. Thankfully the temps didn't drop too low but it was a brisk ride.

This was probably the earliest I'd ever gotten to the tap room. It was nice to visit and enjoy a couple, or three beers without worrying about the 'last call' pressure. We all had fun visiting, until the heater turned off. crap, it got cold in there fast. Beth was thinking of fish and chips before she even got to the tap room so she was spreading the word and trying to get people motivated to head to McGuinness. After giving her the bad news that I was going to ride my bike, she got real antsy and wanted us bikers to get going so she wouldn't have to wait on us at McGuinness. heh in the end we all rode right next to her, skirting highway 40 down to Demonbruen. Good times on the short ride, even almost got a free ride hanging onto the Explorer.

We all scarffed down some great food and beers while Beth snapped picture after picture. It was fun to let loose and not worry about driving home after drinking and the fish n chips were tasty.

Ended up with almost 40 miles for the day. My legs felt great on the ride and the new saddle is feeling pretty good. I'm still figuring out exactly where I should be situated on it and getting it positioned well. It's the most comfy saddle to date though right out of the box. It should break in nicely in the next 100 miles. There is talk of another gravel grinder tomorrow morning so it will get a lot more use there.

With the Metro Parks Master Plan meetings last week and some not-so-positive news being circulated through email about cyclist being left out of future land plans down highway 100, the local biking community is really getting up in arms and really voicing their opinions. This is great and hopefully we can continue to push and become more organized. I went to another local SORBA meeting this week were was very positive and showed up much people are willing to volunteer and do what it takes to further land access for our sport. Thad is very interested in getting Walk Bike Nashville and Mid Tn SORBA together to work together which is a great idea. It was told to me, third or forth hand, that Metro Parks are getting more emails from mtn bikers than there are horse owners in Percy Warner. Keep it up!! We need to continue to show Parks that we are a large user group and we are desperately under-serviced in Davidson County. Parks keeps saying how they want everyone to have an equal opportunity to enjoy the parks and we need to show them this is not currently how it is.

We will hopefully be working on an online petition that will be posted up soon. You'll definitely see a link for it posted here and I hope you all can help pass the word around.

Pics from the last night.... Thurs night shenanigans