Warren Fourth of July Parade and a Few Words

OK, I'll admit it. I'm totally distracted by the several days of Le Tour De coverage that had built up on our DVR while we were away in Vermont. So what I have for you is a few photos of the Warren Fourth of July Parade.


Oh, and this horrible photo of a "feature" up on Perry Hill that almost ate me alive. I found that while riding in "The Valley." i.e., the Waitsfield area, that nearly everything was rideable, not too much scariness. I mistakenly applied the same attitude to Perry Hill and, during a brief moment when I was in front of George, I took the stupid line off of a big, honkin' rock and ate it, BIG TIME. It was kind of a roll down into three steep stair-step type dealies. The last one sent me ass over coffee pot. I don't normally go down so hard, so the getting up, pulling mulch out of my helmet was a novel experience for me. I was always tell other people, especially kids, "if you're not crashing, you're not trying hard enough." However I rarely practice what I preach.



Another dumb-ass move I pulled during my second Valley ride was running out of water. Jeff had told me tales of drinking out of sketchy streams in dehydrated desperation. I was there. It was 95° and I was looking for unattended garden hoses to prey upon. I was saved from possibly getting tazed by an angry homeowner when I saw a woman out watering the plants on her deck. I rolled off of the dusty, exposed climb I was churning up and rolled into her yard, ringing my bell in an attempt to appear as benign as possible. After telling me I was nuts (she was too polite to tell me I was a total dumb-ass) she kindly filled my bottles with icy cold water. She then proceeded to treat me like a lost child, trying to point me in the most direct way, back to town. Maybe I looked worse than I thought. I listened to her directions, and then turned back up the baking climb, not in the direction of town, but in the direction of more sweet trails and more inevitable dehydration.






Craziness is afoot, I gotta get some sleep before it hits.