Everyone Loves a Parade

The mean streets of
Downingtown

 This time of year, the North East weather can be soul sucking for a mountain biker. Days of sloppy singletrack the consistency of peanut butter punctuated by periods of ice and, if we are lucky, a couple days of dry frozen trails. Too much down time between rides. Too many YouTube biking videos. The email traffic gets edgy and it's obvious we need to ride. Even a rainy day gravel grinder would be a welcome distraction.

Bryan and I turned today's ride into more than a distraction by grinding the gravel to The Cup in Downingtown. Our own private rainy-day parade. At The Cup we figured the Sunday morning crowd might not appreciate a couple muddy mountain bikers mixing with the Sunday crowd, so we got our coffees to go and parked our butts on a sidewalk stoop to drink our coffee and Snap, eat Christmas cookies, and watch the Sunday morning traffic roll down Lancaster Ave.

Coffee and cookies finished, we took our parade back to Marsh Creek and cracked a couple of Jai Alai's (a stiff IPA from Cigar City brewing) at the top of the dam while watching the mist gently waft across the lake. For the ride home we had Pandora streaming Christmas Jazz from my pocket, and finally Bryan and I parted ways with a fist pump and and a copy of his traditional annual Christmas mix on CD (old school).

Even the rain couldn't rain on our parade.

Jai Alai and Christmas cookies

Chris

"Keep riding, Nancy. It's just water and dirt."
     -- Huck And Roll