150 words about 99 miles
Like almost every spring weekend, we rode together in Monroeville as part of the century series, but we still don’t know each other’s names. Like every big ride, in the first 25 miles or so the group sorts itself into smaller groups of like abilities, at least for that day. Paul is riding strong and he’s graduated, hanging with the first group for most of the rides and sometimes until the end. So I find myself riding with a mix of people I know and those I only know from trading pulls for five or six hours on backroads somewhere in Alabama. There’s Short Pants, the young, newlywed triathlete and sometimes her husband; Lactic Acid, a guy with the chemical compound for lactic acid tattooed on his right calf; and Geezer, named after Jason Gay’s observation that in every ride there’s a geezer crushing it on a Litespeed. He does.