My plan to ride singletrack somewhere other than Mid (the 16 mile trails system on the wooded grounds that surround Mid Michigan Community college) on Saturday was a fail. I had the address, the plan, etc. for another trail system, but then just lost interest in driving two hours to ride my bike when I could ride trails just 25 minutes from my house and still have time to do other things after. C’est la vie.
I returned to Mid with the Superfly to turn out a lap before stopping by Herrick Recreational Area on the way home to fish for a little bit. I guess where once my idea of “doing a double” was going for a mountain bike ride then a road ride, having sex twice in one day, or at very least doing two laps, “doing a double” now means I do one 16ish mile lap of singletrack and then stand around trying to catch a fish, just to put it back in the water after I do. I think I’m OK with that, ’cause Saturday’s double was pretty damn fun.
The trail at Mid is in awesome shape and since I finally made the switch to the Bontrager XR2 tires (from the XR1), it has been a joy to go into corners and not feel like I am going to eat dirt. I also had one of my first rides in some time without numbness in my right hand. This is something I’ve had for a couple of years which led me to switch from Ergon to ESI grips (with some brief success) and now back to Ergons. It seems I finally found a rotation of the grip that suits my digits. In any event, it’s nice to see positive results from equipment changes. Now if I could just upgrade my back, I’d be set!
The only bad part of the ride was seeing the sign below.
It seems that in the week since my last visit someone added a trail spur and jumps to one of the few descents on the trail. This is NOT cool! The mountain bikers of the central Michigan area are very lucky to have such a sweet trail system and to have the college cool with hosting it. Doing shit like this is unacceptable and risks the very existence of the trails system. I hadn’t seen any trail tampering there since two years ago when some douche started digging out the embedded rocks from the trail, apparently looking to smooth out the dirt into a rail trail. The group that creates and works on these trails put in a LOT of work to make these trails what they are; fucking with that is not cool. OK, I am off my rant box.
It was a sweet ride and while I didn’t have the greatest legs and wasn’t going top speed or anything, it was awesome to be out riding singletrack. Once the loop was over and I was out of my Superman outfit and into something a little less revealing, I was off to do some Masterbassing™.
I couldn’t do it.
Before I did any fishing I needed something to eat, stat! It seems that one piece of toast and a cup off coffee three hours ago did not stick with me all that long. So I made the decision to stop for something at a fast food joint, something that I can’t recall doing in years, maybe since my days driving home from races with severe hunger pangs.
There were plenty of options: McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s all greeted me as I got off the Clare exit. I couldn’t commit to any of them. Realizing that I was running out of options and I was starving I hastily pulled into the parking lot of the next place I saw– the Taco Bell/Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yes, ONE building and two forms of fast food for you to choose from; or combine for the ultimate in artery clogging, heart stopping goodness.
At very least I thought a piece of the KFC grilled chicken or maybe a grilled chicken sandwich would be fine (if they exist).
NOT a Soiled Chamois photo. Pulled from Google.
When I walked in the door I was greeted by two things: a line that must have been thirty people deep and the combined smell of crap Mexican “food” and fried chicken.
I thought about walking out, but figured it’s fast food, how long could this possibly take. I stood in line for around five minutes before I started to lose patience. Then I started looking around at the packed restaurant with the people shoveling crap, “meat product” tacos in their mouths and stuffing their faces into KFC vomit bowls and I had enough. It reminded me of the casino scene from the movie (based on the Hunter S. Thompson book) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, only without the benefits of just being an acid trip.
I turned around a walked out, content to gulp some water to fill my gut while I made my way towards Herrick to fish. Had I had cash on me I would have just stopped for a granola bar or something at a gas station but I wasn’t going to use my check card for $1.50 or get money out of their ATM and enjoy the $5.00 fee they tack on. I figured that I’d be fine, that I had enough extra fat on me to survive a couple more hours and I was right of course.
The fishing
The fishing was excellent and I was happy that I made the decision to go. At first I thought I was in for another skunking as repeated casts with my trusty torpedo lure yielded nothing. Then after about ten minutes I switched to a popper that I have NEVER caught a fish on and proceeded to catch two bass in about five minutes, one hit just as the lure hit the water!
Then nothing. I moved around here and there to different spots and didn’t even get a hit, so I returned to the first spot and put the Jitterbug, yet another lure that I have had for years and NEVER caught a fish on. On about my third cast, I hooked a bass that just may be the biggest one I’ve caught this year!
Now granted, that isn’t saying much because most of the bass I’ve caught have been fairly small as bass go, but still this one was super fun to get a hold of. As per usual I got him in, remove the hook, snapped a pic and let him go. Hopefully someone else can have a go at him someday or ME when it’s even bigger!
A few more casts with nothing and I decided to head home and finally get something to eat, content with having done a good ride and caught three pretty nice fish.
I don’t know if it was subliminal thoughts of the Taco Bell/KFC ordeal or what, but later I picked up some chicken thighs, made up a marinade, let them soak for a couple of hours and threw them on the grill for some super tasty chicken fajitas. I usually like to go with breasts for such things, but for some reason was craving the taste of thighs. [Nothing like copious mentions of breasts and thighs to up you blog hits].
As I mentioned on a popular social network site yesterday, the winters in Michigan suck, the summers… not so much. It was a good day to do a double and I had no regrets having done so.
Later.
TRUTH IN BLOGGING: In this post I busted KFC’s balls a bit, but I feel that I should mention that back when I was in my teens and on my way to being a three hundred pound flesh mound, I ate more than my share of KFC. In fact I once went to an “all you can eat” buffet with my brother and I am pretty sure they were thinking of ways of asking us to leave, as it was ruining their profits. Nom, nom, nom…