AO: _bike
Q: Endo , Stretcher, Titanium Plates
PAX: Magnolia, Falcon, Bratwurst, Rockwell, Peaches, Stickers, Titanium Plates, Rooster, Cartel, Cableguy, Southern Tip – Brent, Rubbermaid, Kick Stand, Twinkle toes, Damascus, Stretcher, Endo, Anton X, Zap
FNGs: 1 Zap
COUNT: 19
What had happened was: Damascus is the inspiration for some of the profound thoughts delivered in this BB. The setting was an amazing 72 degree blue sky day, dry trails, and the trail spiders are not big enough yet to close-line us with rope sized webs. With such a perfect setting, naturally the PAX are already anticipating in their minds the most perfect shred session imaginable, that could easily be filmed and made into an immaculate mountain bike video to be viewed by millions. We split up into two groups, Group A led by none other than Stretcher and the other group that is also happens to be known as Group A led by Titanium Plates. The initial drop in and creek crossing experience was nothing short of perfection worthy of any high budget MTB film. But every interesting story needs a plot twist. Damascus was riding his new MTB as if he had just robbed a bank and was trying to outrun the PoPo to the safe haven of Poco. Down into a rock ditch Damascus took a hard hit and had to divert back to base; you can picture this in your mind as somewhat similar to the scene in the movie “Unbroken” where Louie Zamperini and his crew had to fly an aircraft that had been shot up by the enemy back to base, and they barely made it back with a crash landing. The groups continued on the mission in honor of Damascus and sampled some of the newer territory North of Lenny Hill, where on a very sketchy climb Bratwurst somehow came out of the climb with his bike saddle literally sideways – I still don’t know what happened there. After PoCo and Cutty our trail leads of the day successfully got us back to base where we had a meaningful yet efficient COT thanks to the tutelage of Titanium Plates (see last week’s bb for the backstory). Upon full inspection of Damascus’s whip, we discovered a nasty crease in the rear rim. Even with something as wonderful as Mountain biking, life has it’s way of forcing some imperfection into the experience. However we need to embrace the imperfect, and turn the tables on life’s attempts to bring us down. Now we have another story for the OTC archives that we can recall and enjoy with Damascus and use as affirmation that our MTB adventures will have unexpected twists and turns, just like our trails. While the MTB wounds and wallet wounds are still fresh for Damascus, I probably won’t bring up Damascus Ditch for a while, but eventually he will be able to laugh it off too. See you all next week for another riveting episode of Off The Chain!
