What, no McRib?!

So it was that I found myself in a McDonalds, on the Cape, on Saturday, January 19th.. This was my first visit to the Golden Arches in roughly ten years. With only a few bucks in my wallet and a serious pang in the gut I numbingly made my way to the altar of all things really, really, really bad for your health.. It had been a while and I was a little overwhelmed by the menu. Really, I mean it. When I was younger it was a no brainer; two Big Macs, a large fry and a bladder blasting Coke. Easy, cheap and promptly metabolized in less than twenty minutes thank you very much. I suspect if I regularly followed this dining regiment I might look like Jan Ullrich after one of his bratwurst and lager winter training camps. All concerns of a disproportionately large ass, and immediate heart attacks, were pushed to the wayside. It was time to belly up to the counter and get the hell out of there, the place is kind of creepy what with the large red haired clowns hanging around. I grabbed my grub and decided the drive home was the perfect way to ingest the gazillion greasy calories and slip into a diabetic coma.

That's when it hit me. That taste, so familiar, addictive and yet completely not good at the same time. Edible and scary all at once. Salt overloaded my taste buds, so for all I know it could've been dogshit between the buns. But man was that salty greasy crap great! Seeing as how I'd dealt with a nasty case of bronchitis the previous week I figured any residual antibiotics from the mystery meat might help me out. The massive supply of calories helped offset the two hour singlespeed ride at Otis Air Force Base. I think I might have actually consumed more energy in 5 minutes than I actually expended over 120.

Speaking of the ride, it was great. No snow and firm trails are in short supply in the Providence area, and the drive down was well worth it. I was hurting on a few of the steeper climbs due to not having ridden at all during the week. After clearing out the last remnants of lung fungus things started feeling right, and a little flow started coming back. I had no idea where I was going but I wound up back at the car after an hour and ran into Hannah and Scott (?) -sorry I have a bad memory.. chalk it up to active ingredients in fast food. I went out for another hour and continued to have a blast. Fast and swoopy is how to describe Otis, kind of like Trail of Tears without as much climbing. I'm sure there are better directions/loops to ride the trails but I managed to find a lot of fun techy features to keep it real interesting.

Hey - if you happen to read this and are at all interested in becoming a RI NEMBA trail ambassador please go here: rinemba.org In other RI NEMBA news local to the Providence area we will be starting up a regular ride at Lincoln Woods on Fridays at 6:00 PM. There will be two rides (beginner and intermediate) and it should be starting up in mid April. This will be a great opportunity to learn a loop in the tangled web of trails that are in LW. More details down the road. Thank you, drive through.