Cold Turkey

While most people hung around the house on Thanksgiving morning preparing meals large enough to feed a small country, we made other plans (we actually had a turkey dinner with all the fixins the night before.) We picked up Mr. Shepherd in the morning, and headed up to the mountains for some Turkey Day singletrack. First though, we grabbed some lunchtime grub at a local supermarket. That place was full of folks doing their last minute meal shopping for the big dinner, and some of them went all out in the wardrobe department.



You couldn’t see it from this angle, but his pants said “Sexy” down the side. Wow.


Anyway, the plan was to ride Dark Mountain. We had plenty of reasons to be thankful, and mountain biking was one of them. Our merry little crew of myself, Mr. Shepherd, Little Miss Sunshine, and Lunchbox hit the trail on a chilly Thanksgiving morning.

Mr. Shepherd was happy to be riding back in North Carolina.



Little Miss Sunshine got to ride her Niner on those trails for the first time, and she loved it.



Dark Mountain is one of Lunchbox’s favorite places to ride, and he’s always glad to tag along when we go.



The trail was in good shape, even though there had been some rain in the area. There were quite a bit of leaves covering the singletrack though, so we made a few wrong turns here and there. Even though I was just there a week before, I had trouble finding my way around. Dumbass.


After realizing that we took one wrong turn that made us miss out on some trail, we decided to loop back around to hit it. Little Miss Sunshine decided to wait for us so she wouldn’t get lost.



We took off on our loop, and had a good time. There was a little bit of climbing in that section, but the super fast downhill action made it all worth it. When we finally made it back to the meeting point, Little Miss Sunshine was waiting to take photographs.

She captured me in “action.”



Followed by Mr. Shepherd:



And Lunchbox was running sweep:




After riding on the mountain for a while, we couldn’t wait to hit the very last section. It’s full of whoop de doos, jumps, and hella fast downhill shit. Before that though, Mr. Shepherd wanted to play on the rocks.




After that downhill section, we were dumped out onto the field by the lake. The sun was starting to go down on a great day of riding.





On the way home, the sun was barely visible over Lake Norman.




It was time for a feast, and feast we did. We had to replenish those calories we expended, right? The wife prepared a nice meal, and we ate, drank beer and wine, and reminisced about our ride. We also started planning the next day’s adventure, which would involve another road trip…this time with the Dirty Party Cycle. I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

Not The Review You Were Looking For

The review I’ve been talking about for the past few days will have to wait until another day. With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up tomorrow, I figured that most of you were concentrating on eating turkey and drinking beer anyway. Speaking of beer, here is my latest find:





This is a nice bottle of Decadent Imperial I.P.A. from Ska Brewing Company. I was in the local beer supply store da udda day and the bottle caught my eye. Not the fancy design mind you, but those three little letters (I.P.A.) The top of the bottle even looked cool though:





It looks like they used a wax-like substance (most likely wax I guess) to seal the bottle in addition to a standard bottle cap. I’m not sure of its purpose, but it looked pretty cool. I thought it would be difficult to open the bottle with that stuff on there, but it really wasn’t an issue. A standard bottle opener is all it took. That was a good thing, since I don’t need an extra step added to my beer drinking process.


I poured the beer into a glass, and took a sniff. Wow, it wasn’t overpowering, but you could tell it was full of goodness. I’ll admit, I’m really into hoppy beers, and this one looked promising. I took my first sip and I was in heaven. It was pretty strong (just how I like it), and the taste was phenomenal. It was a little sweet, but not too much that I felt like I was drinking liquid candy. The bitterness balanced out the sweet for sure. There was a nice hoppy aftertaste too. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.





I swear I’m not copying George by posting about a beer from the same company. I just found this one, and I love it. I have yet to try the Modus Hoperandi that he mentioned, but I will get to it when I find one. Possibly soon, my friends.


Hopefully you all have a good Thanksgiving. You know, drinking beer, eating turkey, and all that good stuff. I’ll probably eat some turkey too (and drink lots of beer). I hope the turkey isn’t too big though:





On second thought, maybe I’ll just go for a bike ride on Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for big wheels, knobby tires, and singletrack anyway, and I certainly don’t need to stuff myself full of cooked bird and put on more “offseason weight.” Riding sounds like a better way to celebrate anyway. Lunchbox and I are planning an out of town bike trip on Friday, so I guess I’ll see y’all Monday. I need a break, and a road trip just might do the trick..