Photo by John Leach

This weekend was all kinds of rad.

I was mentally prepared for a while to do the SIR 300K – Three Volcanos ride. Everyone who has done it swears that it is an amazing ride and it always ends up being kind of a sleeper hit. Perhaps because of the start all the way in Packwood (an hour and a half from the city), it tends to have a lower turnout than most.

Chris mentioned that he planned on racing the Dead Baby Downhill this year. There was free beer and games with registration. That, the fact that it wouldn’t kill a whole weekend, and the fact that Jane would actually want to join me, all cemented my plans to ride the DBDH instead of the 300K.

Somehow I’ve missed out on the thirteen (!!!) other DBDH rides, but this one was completely glorious. I met up with some friends at All City Coffee right after work on Friday. We all rode up to Capitol Hill for the start at the Canterbury. We were some of the first to arrive so we grabbed a table and started in on the beer. I hadn’t eaten since… oh… 11am, so the warm buzz hit me pretty fast. I’m not sure if I even paid for any of it. I think I owe someone a beer or two. I’m pretty sure that I went in to the ride with the idea that I was definitely going to race. After a couple of beers I had a firm “we’ll see what happens” idea in my head.

Jane met up with us after her haircut appointment. She was a little disappointed that I wanted to go fast, but she had a couple hundred other people to keep her company. We corked most of 15th ave at the start and somehow got a fire truck to pace us out. I started a bit further back than I was hoping to. Everyone seemed to have a pretty gentle pace and I was itching to go. I started to make my way up towards the front of the group I was in. A guy on a BMX stood up to accelerate around the fire truck and took a huge spill right next to it. I was a bit surprised that he didn’t just fall right under it.

I took a turn down Madison and followed the flow of bikes that were stopping traffic. I’ve never been able to completely ignore traffic lights at quite a pace like this before. Even at the time, I knew it was pretty stupid, but it was thrilling.

We bombed down 12th towards the International District and I made my way through some streets that I thought might be more kind on me, traffic wise. It seemed to work because I found myself up towards the front along with Chris and our friend Chuck. Everyone was pace-lining down Airport towards the finish in Georgetown.

A semi pulled out in front of us slowing our momentum for a minute and confusing a few long enough for the group to breakup a bit. We made a little jump in behind the truck and pushed hard on the bump that rises over the train tracks.

At the line, there was a guy ticking off the places (apparently not for long?) and he said “8th” to me. Our buddy Hahn was at the line cheering us on. Apparently, he and a friend had been there for a few minutes already (on a 7 mile course). Way to humble some kids, guys.

The water bottles that we got at the start were fill-able with unlimited beer for the night, so we got to work.

There were 3 stages set up with bands playing all through the night, multiple bike related carnival rides setup by Cyclecide from San Fransisco, and (of course) tall bike jousting. It was a pretty glorious event that truly filled the cockles of my heart.

Saturday morning, we slept in. Then we ate.

On Sunday, I took the Salsa Casseroll out with some knobby tires for my first ever (real) dirt ride. Chuck and his friend Julie shepherded me to the new Duthie Hill Park in Issaquah and I gave my best attempt at riding around in the mud. A single speed cross bike probably wasn’t the most appropriate setup for my first time ever riding singletrack, but it was crazy fun anyways.

I actually fell hard three times (twice in the exact same spot) and almost fell pretty much all day. The last fall was on the side of a log and it knocked me around enough to where I gave up on the day. Further attempts to accelerate up hills just started to really hurt. Still, I had a wonderful time and a couple of scars and bruises to remember it by. You can’t knock that.