NECSpedia

For those of you that haven't yet come to the realization that the blogs of the NECS and Team Seagal are a treasure trove of useless but interesting information well it is time to stop seeking your knowledge from second rate sources like Wikpedia and Google and instead turn your to the two greatest sources of random and meaningless knowledge.
Today we bring you resourceful information from south of the Mason-Dixon line –

Apparently when a woman wants to pick up in a bar she doesn’t pass the bartender a note with her phone number. Instead, and this happened to me, the note read “please wash your hands after urinating ☺”. Go figure, is it a golden shower thing?

Some of the women are so fat and dumb they don’t know they are pregnant until they go to the emergency room with stomach cramps, find out they are in labor and go home with a baby. (true story from my nephew, it was his step sister).

The women of Team Seagal are some serious bad asses. Recall from this candid story of Middle Fork how they go into battle armed with the finest cutlery, well this recent shot of Orin "Arm Baby" Boyd's better half was sent my way showing just how skilled one can be with a knife.Lesson learned, when they tell you to take out the trash don’t wait for halftime.

Stoopidly Cold Stewart

It is MLK weekend and I have to say that I too had a dream - I awoke to temps in the mid 50s, beautiful sunshine with the birds chirping and the trails of Stewart running hard and fast. Well reality and dreams sometimes are far apart, in this case almost far enough for Mrs. C-Dubbs to have me committed for becoming delusional.
Stumbling out to the kitchen for the morning cup of Joe there was a sudden rumbling from deep within my colon. It was the kind of rumble that had you been a Londoner's during WWII you knew it meant one thing and one thing only - The Blitz. Just like my good friend from St. Louis, Coach Ryback, the view from Mt. Kohler looked something like thisas I approached for each of the three sorties that were flown that morning (Coach you always refer to dropping a "deuce", well I have mastered dropping the "triple lindy".) The devastation was so complete that our bathroom was a scene of total destructionand the Mrs swore it was worse then the mustard gas battles of Verdun requiring special equipment seen in this shot just to make it past the destruction.Having survived the rite of passage Mrs C-Dubbs was clear headed enough to turn on the Weather Channel just in time for the local forecast and a really good laugh. Seems over the course of a great nights sleep the temps hand dropped faster then a hooker when handed a $50 and the mercury was hovering just above the zero mark (and we are not talking Euro trash measurements, this is good old U.S. of A. Fahrenheit measurements). It was so cold out that you didn't want to go out dressed like thisor you would end up with a these, not that they are a bad thing.To prepare her man for battle in such conditions the Mrs cooked a plate that the chefs at Dos Primos would have been proud of and sent me off with a stomach full of refried beans, eggs, enchilada sauce and a healthy dose of Cholula sauce to ensure that ample supplies of methane would be keeping my riding shorts warm. Along with that a lathering of Rapha Embrocationwas applied to the quads and knees to maximize comfort. Feeling the deep heating powers of the embrocation working their magic I started suiting up for the ride and while pulling on the leg warmers my coin purse happened to come in contact with the medicated areas. My initial fear was of the tales from high school and jockstraps filled with Ben Gay but alas there was a rather nice warm glow in the nether regions that ensured my package would be protected from potential frostbite. Despite everyones best efforts to prepare for the onslaught within minutes we were all freezing and in a moment of hypothermia induce hallucinations we all thought by spinning our arms around to get blood to the fingers we had the ability to turn ourselves into helicopters to fly back to Dark Horse and some IPAs.Needless to say this didn't work and we continued on with the ride, being entertained by the Raveinator's repeated falls (which we believe are the result of backward thinking in moving from 29" to 26" wheels). Repeated patches of ice had us all anticipating (and yours truly fearing) on of thesebut it didn't stop the Raveinator from contemplating this movewhen we passed the frozen lake. Finally with almost 1 1/2 hours of suffering/riding we headed home where the Mayor's beard was used to cool down the beer.

I'm Back - New Year's Day Ride

Here it is, New Year's Day, a scant 4 months out of the operating room and I am back in Stewart choo-chooing the not so painful train around the dirt roads and single track. I never thought I would make it back on the singlespeed this early but am happy to report that a successful day in Stewart snapping wrists with the gang has come to a close. This year we were blessed with warm temps that had a strong contingent of 19 riders, everyone smiling and the hard core group recalling some of the past New Years rides (2009, 2010 & 2011)
In the usual first ride of the year tradition, the flask of Del Maguay was mounted on my trusty steed and filled to capacity - and we made sure to lower the bike's weight by passing the flask prior to rolling out of the parking lot.And to imbibe some yeasty malted beverage for carb loading.Naturally every time there was a pause on the trail, either to reunite the troops, or in the case of Dex, fix a gusher when the valve broke on his Stan's filled tire (with all of that white liquid latex spurting straight into the air you can imagine the comments and comparisons that had us rolling in fits of laughter on the side of the road) we hit the flask until it was drained dry on the run back to Dark Horse.
Note Sal's proper selection of tireInfantile Tom taking one of his numerous sipsOne of our favorite sections had recently been privatized and young Paul Vicari, upon venturing into the nether regions faced the wrath of an officer of the law, so we put a proverbial toe in the water and crossed the line of death for some quick laps in the umbrella factory.
Next up was a lap around the lake/bog where the Raveinator did a beautiful swan dive/face planet right into the stream crossing and Infantile Tom caught this shot of C-Dubbs on the trail giving the classic Team Seagal salute.To finish out the lap o the lake we came to a section we now refer to as the Liberator Trail. For unknown reasons on a previous group ride Top Chef, Binky, Infantile Tom and C-Dubbs became immersed in a deep conversation about the pros and cons of the Liberator. Well the young lady that had been trailing the ride must have overheard our conversation and she has yet to return and grace us with her presence. Then it was off to Skip and Bill's were I fulfilled my New Year's resolution of nailing Infantile Tom with the now infamous "splash of death rock toss" as he crossed the river. Cameras didn't catch it but it looked something like this.As we turned onto the final ride home our perverted minds once again turned to the question that everyone has on New Year's Day - what has become of Hawaiian Mike (aka Loose Boots)? Rumor has it the past fling with his cougar, Katie, has cooled off a bit and good old Loose Boots is now fulfilling a childhood fantasy of becoming a sheep farmer. We found an old family album with this picture of Loose Boots fantasizing what fun it would on a sheep farm.No doubt that screaming face was due to the excitement of one day wandering into the barn and seeing this sight.Well good friends we reached out to our contacts in New Zealand, Ben Dover and Phil McCrackin, and they sent us these choice shots of Mike and his mates calling out the sheep in the field and relaxing over a post "loose boots" pint. As you can see the fresh air has Mike smiling like never before.As the post ride BBQ was closing down and most of the riders had gone home our crack videographers caught this footage of Loose Boots coming in from the ride.