PKR 2017 - Bright ideas from a dim bulb

Your feckless leader addresses 150 of his closest friends.
It all went downhill from here.

Well we did it. The 17th Annual Peckerhead Invitational is in the books. Father's Day weekend has come and gone once again and for the management at HQ anyway, it's time for a recap and then a well-deserved nap.

Attendance - 131 registered and documented, probably 150 on the road. It was the largest mass of humanity assembled since our current president's inauguration.

Temperature - It were H.A.W.T.

Hard to imagine my standards being
lower,  but hey, turns out they can be.

MVP(s) - A tie.  Rabbit basically expired 16 miles out from heat exhaustion, suffered all the way back to HQ and then just fell asleep in the yard (he skipped the Gatorade and went straight for beer).  Jeff J. got two flats, broke a valve stem because he doesn't know how to operate a pump, rode the flat back to HQ, had my daughter call me and tell him where my patch kit was, patched the tube, and went back out for 30 miles. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you earn a lifetime exemption and a standing invitation.

Thanks - First and foremost to the hostess with the mostess, Amy. The PKR doesn't happen without her. To my kids and my parents, who carry a lot of weight behind the scenes. To our neighbors who put up with this shit every year and never call the cops. And to all the riders who come from near and far to get together over a bike ride and form friendships and community that carry us all forward.

This group has seen welcomed new babies, mourned dear friends, nursed each other through accidents and injury, felt the joy of a great day on the bike, and suffered the indignity of a bad one. And over 17 years we've made Ohio a better place to ride bicycles.

And finally, forgive me. If there was ever a year when I was tempted to hit the pause button, this was the one. For lots of really great reasons (lame-ass excuses), I just didn't have it in me back in January (too fat and out of shape) to gear up again. But Amy kept after me (told me to man up and do my duty) and yours truly finally got his shit together (in a relative sense).

Boy am I glad I did.

See you next year on June 16, 2018. #PKR4EVR

Had a few friends over for lunch. No biggie.