Things Are All Night Now

Last night a bunch of us got together to send off a friend that’s headed across the pond for a while.  When our group of locals here get together, it’s always a good time.  It started with sushi in a fancy restaurant (and good beer, surprisingly), then it turned into a quest to find more places to party.  I don’t need to get into the details, but I’ll tell you that towards the end of the night things started to get weird.

Um, yeah.  That’s all I’ll say about that.

So instead of telling embarrassing stories (not about me, everyone else of course), I’ll talk about something else…

With summer far behind us, every right during the week now will be at night.  Unless of course, I take a day off from work (which does happen from time to time.)  I love night riding for many reasons, some of which I can’t comprehend.  Cool air, how different the trail feels in the dark, etc.  It’s just fun for me, and I look forward to it every year.  I enjoy solitary night rides the most, but since we have our Tuesday social rides every week I get to do the group thing in the dark.  Wait, that sounded weird, huh?

Group night rides.

Our Tuesday rides are pretty awesome.  Social pace and no one gets left behind.  We stop a lot to regroup, and we spend more time shooting the shit than we do riding sometimes.  It’s a great way to get out for an easy, yet fun ride, and we obviously enjoy the social aspect of it.  Sometimes we have a huge group, and other times it’s only a couple of us.  Afterwards we go out to some nearby watering hole for beer and grub, extending the social aspect of the ride well into the night.  The ride gets us out on different trails here in Charlotte, so we don’t get tired of the same place every week. 

Our usual spot after riding at the Whitewater Center is The String Bean in nearby Belmont, NC (just across the river), and the beer selection is quite awesome.  The food was good too, but we got a little surprise.  They were having a private party out on the patio, and as we sat there drinking and eating we watched the servers roll by with some kind of delicious looking dessert.  After trying unsuccessfully to trick them into dropping off a tray at our table, we finally asked if we could get some of that yummy (okay, maybe not in those exact words.)

“Sure” replied one of the servers, “I think we have a few extras.”

And just like that we were treated to some kind of fancy post meal goodness.

It was beyond delicious.  In fact, the staff kept coming by asking us if it was good.  We were amazed, because it was definitely out of this world.

They went out of their way to take care of a bunch of smelly mountain bikers, and for that we were grateful.  We always get great food and good service there, but on our last visit they outdid themselves.  Just for that, we’ll probably have next week’s ride in the same place.

Now, if you will excuse me, I’m gonna go find some dessert to help cure this hangover.