Midnight Cowboy

Good day ladies and gentlemen. Doctor Goscinski here, and man do I have a story to tell you. About two days ago, Robort and I got a call at the TC Man from none other than Tropical Midget Storm Mason. The reason for his call: Midnight Century time. The plan was to meet at TMSM's just before the bewitching hour, mount our road bicycles, and crush out a hundred miles while the competition was sleeping soundly in their beds. Well, everyone but Dwayne anyways. Honestly I expected to see him out for a spin at some point during the evening, but no such sighting occurred, maybe he was out doing Berryman laps. At any rate, shortly after the designated time, TMSM, Nico Toscani, Robort, and I departed and set a course for pain country.

At this point, it is important to understand the huge, enormous amount of shit that I gave Robort as soon as I learned of his intention of going. This one ride would double Robort's mileage for the year so far, a feat that I was sure he could not achieve. For at least two solid days I let Robort have it with both barrels, after all if he couldn't withstand that abuse, there is no way he would survive the ride. All the while Robort assured me that I would eat my words, but the off color and not appropriate for children comments kept coming.

After a warm up lap of Nico and I's Forest Park century course (yes, we really for some reason did a century entirely in Forest Park. I really have no explanation for why anyone would chose such a course of action) We found ourselves headed in the direction of lovely Creve Couer lake via Midland. From there it was the Chesterfield flats, to Hog Hollow (entirely painful on a single speed) We continued in a westwardly fashion on Olive until it becomes Clarkson. I am not sure exactly how as this was only the second time I had been in this area, but I think we took Clayton to Khers mill, to Strecker, to easily the best part of the ride: Shepard. I had done this stretch only once before, and in the opposite direction at that. Nico and I thoroughly enjoyed our 42x16 and 42x15 (respectively) single speed domination of this climb. From there we decided that the only logical course of action was to climb Marshall, so that is where we pointed our bicycles. Finish the ride up with a jaunt down the Grant's trail (which even at 4:00 in the a.m has joggers) through the city, a little ways up the RFT and then back through the city to TMSM's for BBQ and Brews, lots of brews. So many brews in fact, that I awoke at about 3:00 P.M. laying on TMSM's porch to the lovely Mrs. Doctor kicking me and telling me I told Robort I would be at the shop by 3:30 so he could go to school, and that she had come to take me there. Holy shit.

All in all, it was an amazing ride. By the end of the ride, everyone involved had been awake for about 30 hours or so, ridden at least 100 miles, climbed around 4,000 ft., and had a kick ass time. Robort rode strong the entire time, finishing the ride no problem, thereby successfully doubling his mileage for the year. I was after all forced to eat my hilarious, delicious words. The truly impressive part is that Robort showed up to work on time @ 10:00 a.m., he then promptly fell asleep. It's for the better though, all we had to drink was delicious beer (Schlafly APAs and Stouts) and Robort only drinks Zima. Oh, and going to work drunk isn't as much fun as it sounds like it would be.