This Labor day weekend like everything this year didn't work out quite as planned. On Saturday I had planned to lead a ride from Cocoluxe in Gladstone. I hadn't lead a ride up that way this year because we all have been staying closer to home this year and because it was too hot this summer to do a ride this hilly.
However Saturday was a cool low humidity day and would be perfect for the ride. I got a good turn out for the ride with Jim, Ricky, Jack, Pete and Sarah joining me. As I warmed up in the parking lot I had a problem with my right shifter. It would shift up but not down and on a ride this hilly I needed a way to get to the lower gears. We tried to find a way to fix it but it seemed the problem was not the cables or derailleur but something in the shifter itself so there was no quick fix that we could find.
That meant of course I could not lead the ride. Luckily Jim was there and had downloaded the route and led the ride(Thanks Jim). I was disappointed of course that I wasn't going to be able to ride, especially after driving an hour just to get to the start. The only saving grace was that I had headed up this way not only to do the ride but to also visit my father so the trip wasn't a total waste.
Between driving up to the ride and up to my father's and then back home I spent a few hours in the car. Knowing this I had downloaded a bunch of new songs and created a new play list. I didn't realize until listening to the playlist that it was a lot of songs were filled with references to our current situation so I realized this is now my official pandemic play list. The first song on the list was Fly on the Wall by The Violent. Written at the beginning at the start of the lock down. Its a song about how isolation can surface some violent thoughts that can make you feel even more alone. The next song was from Five Finger Death Punch called A Little Bit Off. Its an angry anthem about how nothing feels right anymore. The video is actually a little funny because the lead singer is walking around an empty Las Vegas more or less showing how they couldn't make the video they actually wanted because of how fucked up everything is. The song has one of the better last lines.
During this pandemic almost all musicians are locked away and most of them are working on new music because they can't tours so what else they are going to do. I suspect there is going to be a surge in new music in the near future. I heard some new material from bands, like Green Day, and am amazed what these can do in their home studios. Even mixing different instruments and vocals across the interweb.
There were a few songs on the play list that were more up lifting like Larkin Poe's Holy Ghost Fire which is a cool kick ass blues song. It has one of my favorite new song line "From your fingers to the frets, gonna testify" You also got to love a girl who can play a slide guitar while dancing around.
In any case I didn't get to do the ride but did have an good day seeing my father again and enjoying some new tunes.
Although I didn't get to do the Cocoluxe ride I was able to torture the posse from them just following my route. As Jim's write up shows there were a couple of rough milled roads and the two new roads I added to ride ended up a gate road that was a pain to get around. That's so me. I'm sorry I missed it.
The weather was perfect this weekend so I did get out on Sunday for a ride in the Sourlands to get my hill work in. I had to take the Feather because the Synapse is in the shop. Luckily it is just some corrosion in the shifter so after a cleaning and tune up it should be good as new in about a week.
On Monday I did get back with some of the posse to do a ride pass the Mansquan reservoir to end the weekend. It was a good ride and we did see some other free wheelers at Etra Park but this is usually the day of the all paces ride out of Mercer Parks so it felt a little off.
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