It Was Good Riding with You Today Buddy

This past Saturday, a group of us were to meet for a gravel ride, leaving from the Bob Kerry pedestrian bridge at 10:30.

I was one of the group. I was excited about the ride. In fact, I boasted the day before on Munson's blog that I'd be there regardless of the weather.

Do your worst, old man winter. See you at 10:30

At 9:45 AM Saturday, I was kitted up and about to head out the door to ride to the bridge. That's when the work phone rang. It seems that there was a major issue at UP that the primary on-call support person couldn't handle. I was his backup. This was irregular indeed, so I quickly remoted into work, not even taking the balaclava off my head. The problem was a level one issue that required hot attention. It wasn't going to be a quick fix.

I sent a text to Shim and Leah to tell them I wouldn't be joining because of work, took the balaclava off my head and began digging into application log files. It wasn't how I wanted to spend the morning, but somebody's got to keep the lights on. I was disappointed, but rationalized that it was work and there would be other rides.

Later that afternoon, Mark Savery mentioned me in a tweet

Hey @BradyMurphy my ass was at the BK bridge at 10:30, where was yours?

I missed that tweet. Must have been still fixing problems at work.

Mark also wrote on my facebook wall:

Good riding with you today buddy.

Hey Mark: sorry that I couldn't join you and Rafal and Mike Miles and everyone else that was able to make it. Shim probably told you that I suddenly got called in for work.

Also on the facebook replies, Kevin wondered if Old man Winter was too much.

Hmmm. Maybe you guys thought I bailed because of the cold weather. But I had messaged Shim. And since I had never bailed on account of the weather in the past, why would anyone make that conclusion?

~//~

Well, Sunday was a new day. Weatherwise, it was nearly identical. Actually, at 12F, it was colder at 10:30 AM on Sunday than the same time Saturday, but why split hairs?

Apparently, Ryan Feagan had previously tweeted about a ride leaving midtown at 10 AM. Lucas and Jonathan Neve were game, but there was silence from the rest of you.

In fairness to you Mark, I did catch a post about you going out cross-country skiing in between the play-by-play account of the world championship cyclocross race feed that you retweeted for the entire Twitterverse to see. I mean, gosh, thank you for that wonderful service. I could hardly tear myself away from that feed.

And Rafal? Miles? Never heard from you guys Sunday morning.

And Shim? You canceled your gravel ride because, as you said, no one had any interest -- actually heart -- after yesterday's cold ride.

Now was that a fair account of how the group felt? Nobody had the heart? Wow, it really must have felt really cold yesterday to break the will of all you tough guys from going out for another ride today.

So at around 9:00 AM, I began tweeting Ryan, Lucas and Jonathan about where to meet for the ride. Jonathan promptly replied that he was out after a night of too many beers. Good for you. I can understand that. And thanks for the quick reply Jonathan.

By 9:45, I still had not heard from Ryan or Lucas, so I saddled up and rode to Askarben Village. Nobody at Scooters reported seeing any cyclists. I continued onward.

I did receive a reply from Ryan many miles down the road. Ryan's reply was short but sweet:

Not gonna do it, too few replies, too late. I gotta board a plane at 4. Missed you yesterday.

Thanks Ryan, I missed riding with you yesterday, too. Sorry that we couldn't hook up today. You must have been busy getting ready for traveling for work. Have a prosperous trip.

So with apparently too few replies, I was by myself. That was OK; a stretch of road awaited me. It turned out to be a nice ride, Sunday, spanning many hours and lots of miles.

I went along one of your favorite routes, Mark. Applewood Ave is beautiful this time of the year, by the way.

I had to stop and take a few pictures for you since you couldn't make the ride today. Enjoy:



Oh and I almost forgot the best part: I marked your territory.


Ah, now that felt good.

So Mark, to answer your question, while yesterday my ass was stuck in front of computer getting a fortune 500 company out of a mess, today it was crossing the Bob Kerry bridge at 10:30 AM while you were a tweeting fool.

It was good riding with you today, buddy.

And Shim: Screw you too, you backstabbing wheel sucker. You of all people should appreciate being accountable to job responsibilities. No, I guess you chose to disregard this value when you piled on me yesterday. Hypocrite.

And another thing: you could have ridden today, Shim. But instead of admitting that you too didn't have the heart, you blamed it on the rest of them for canceling today's ride. Oh no, we all know that you're tough. You can take the cold. It was them I'm sure. Not you.

It was good riding with you today too, buddy.

So to be clear, I may be a lot of things, but two things I am not: 1) a slacker and 2) unable to take cold weather.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. See you jerks out on the road.

post-edit: if you liked this, there's a follow up here
--wscg