This past weekend was my “Birthday Weekend.”
“Birthday Weekend?” You ask.
Yup. You see when you’re married to KB she begins celebrating her birthday as soon as the Xmas tree comes down and the house no longer looks like Chris Cringle threw up in it. Her befday is at the end of January. My wife celebrates her birth for a full month each year and this celebration culminates with her “Birthday Weekend.”
After this year’s celebration, I thought, “I should have a Birthday Weekend.” And so it was decided that we would, for the first time, celebrate my birthday by more than just eating out and having a couple of beers. I mean, we do that pretty much every night any way. The big question that hung in the air was what could I possibly do to top what Kathleen does every year. I’m not sure, but backpacking in the Grand Canyon sounded pretty sweet. So we tentatively posted that on the calendar.
When Saturday finally came and I still hadn’t made any concrete plans, it became obvious that my Birthday Weekend wasn’t about to be all that special. To be honest, I had absolutely no desire to go out of town. I just couldn’t get excited about it. But going riding… Yup, I could get excited about that. The problem was selling the idea to my wife. So I just promised to do some work around the yard and deal.
And then we spent the next two days riding our bikes and proceeding to beat ourselves senseless by playing way too hard…
This meant that by the time Tuesday rolled around and I only had one day left before going back to work, I had done absolutely nothing that was on my self-appointed list. I made haste and got cracking at the bright and early hour of sometime around 10. Of course, we had to hit Einstein and get some breakfast because we hadn’t been to the grocery store in a week and there was no more food in the house. But right after that, I got going on a few things.
First things first, I finished the garden boxes that we have been talking about putting in for the past five years. Second, we made a trip into the shop to gather supplies for what most would consider way too much bike maintenance. We then proceeded to load the Tacoma way past its capacity and make a trip to the dump. There we unloaded and reloaded the Tacoma way past its capacity with mulch. This mulch filled about half of one of our boxes…
After moving a Tacoma’s bed capacity twice, by hand, I was done with yard work and made it into working on the bikes.
As some of you may have read from the Book of Faces, after an initial love for the Pike, we had a bit of a fight and I tore the stupid thing off my bike and replaced it with the Talas that had been on there. This was at about the same time I realized that KB’s bike rattled when you picked it up. So I ordered a Float kit for the Talas and a set of reducers for the Trance.
Of course, once I got thinking about it, I decided I had better service KB’s fork and shock and then the rest of the bike as well. This was followed by the realization that the reducers Fox had sent me were to be used bushingless. And I had just replaced the bushing.
As bike maintenance tends, especially when there are 11 bikes in your shed and you have way too much experience to keep ignoring the problems, the whole project snowballed. All in all, I serviced two forks, one rear shock, removed the Talas and replaced it with a Float spring and serviced my Command Post. This leaves me with one more fork and one more shock to service, plus about four sets of tires to replace.
To be honest, I really enjoyed my Birthday Weekend.
But I’m not about to be outdone by KB when it comes to celebrating. So we will be hosting the Annual Sit Around and Drink Beer by a Fire at the Mooseknuckler Cycling Social Lounge After True Grit Party. If you’re interested, show up and have a drink. If you’re not, whatever. The Lounge will open at 8 and close at 10 (I have to do trailwork the next day and so should you). So be there between those times…
P. L. and R.
