scavenging beer

Another day, another dollar, another bruise, another scrape, another monday, another hangover.


The Nashville Scavenger Hunt ride was yesterday. I'd been looking forward to this ride for weeks and it didn't disappoint. Dan called me late saturday night and said there was a group meeting at Percy Warner park for a loop and then he was riding over to the east side to help get the Scavenger hunt going. After working 8-5 everyday last week I jumped at the opportunity to add more riding to my Sunday and shooed my work. I could easily do it later after the ride. (famous last words)

So I got up early Sunday and rode to the park to meet up with Dan H, Jeremy N and his wife, Marvin, and Scott M. We had a great ride through the park. Not many people were out surprisingly, for such an amazing day weather wise. I felt great on the bike and we all kept a leisurely pace. After getting back to the arches we all parted ways and I rode with Dan and Marvin towards downtown. Marvin left us after White Bridge and Dan and I continued on to the East side. We took a lot of back roads and enjoyed the weather and somewhat emptier roads. After we crossed the river we stopped by the Nashville Cyclist Criterium training race going on in the stadium parking lot. Dan knew a few people helping put the race on so we chatted for a bit and took them up on their offer of donuts and fig newtons. After another short ride paralleling Woodland, we made it to Beyond The Edge and got settled and hung out with the organizers.

Seeing as I had nothing really to do until the ride started at 1pm and it was only quarter after 11, it's no wonder I had a bit too much to drink with a quickness. 2 for 1s will do that, along with great waitresses! I did manage to be smart and order lunch before the crowd showed up to register for the ride. I made a couple calls to see if any other Yazooers were on their way to make a team. Mannondale apparently enjoyed himself too much saturday night so he wasn't coming, but Troy and Melanie were a few minutes away and were down for a team. John (RedFSR on NMB.com) was already there hanging with me so we had our 4 person team setup. The ride officially started right as we finished registering and got maps and the list of locations. We took some time to get a game plan going, and solidify the idea that we were in no hurry and this was no race. We meandered out about 15 minutes after everyone else and started our journey.

We had a pretty good plan in place to try to get the most number of locations without going way out of our way. We made it clear early, that we were not trying to win this thing, or race around town and get done as fast as possible. We were just out to have fun and ride bikes. We succeeded 100%. We got a couple quick locations done on the east side and then headed over into downtown, going by the Sommet Center (the second time for Dan and I) and seeing all the people in line for some sort of open casting call for Hannah Montana movie. Oh yea, we enlisted Dan to ride with us and help talk photos, to avoid having to use a timer for every shot.
Kinda cheating but we weren't in it to win, and he was a ref anyways, so maybe it would help our cause. (do we have a cause?)


We made great time just riding around snapping photos. We planned a route that would take us by the Broadway Brewhouse. This location was not part of the 30 (but should of been) and also offered 2 for 1s so we stopped for a halfway point break and some refreshments. After a couple Yazoo pints, Dan left us and rode back to Beyond The Edge to help as the groups started rolling back in. We left the Brewhouse and continued on our journey. We ran into a couple other Yazoo team members on our ride, Diamond Dave on Music Row was riding with a lady friend of his and then we saw Dan Werle over at the Crit race. It's always fun to ride around town and run into people, especially when they also riding around town. We also met some interesting people as we asked for help with taking the photos and saw some cool nooks of Nashville that were new to me.

In the end we rode to 16 of the 30 locations. We missed a couple easy ones we could of gotten if we paid more attention but our intention wasn't to really get all of them. 4 teams were 100% successful, but did they get a picture of topless bikers in front of Deja Vu?? We did! I ended up with 50 miles for the day, with riding to Percy Warner and then to the East Side and back. I felt great all day and had a lot of energy. Maybe it was the beer or just the slow pace with lots of stops.

I will post our photos from the Scavenger hunt on my Flickr page and you can view the play-by-play of our journey there. I don't want to write out our enjoy trip... as I know no one wants to read it. I had a great time on the ride! Nashville needs more events like this! It was great to see all those cyclist coming out, I believe there were 65 registered riders! Next weekend is the Crossdressing the Bridge ride which I hope will be just as successful! Word is lots of people are planning on coming out for that one was well. I can't make it due to a conflict with a nice relaxing beach trip, crap!

Of course after riding home from Beyond the Edge, with a few too many beers in my stomach, it was very hard to be motivated to finish my Google work for the week. Beth and I went to Whole Foods for dinner and I made another awesomely huge, protein rich salad which I scarfed down. I put in a couple hours of work after dinner and then crashed. Back at the Bennett House this morning trying to finish up these mastering projects; more Gospel, some Xmas and then some 'Music of the Far East'.... should be a fun day!!

(1st three photo credits to tRoy)