Quite the Saturday

A bunch of my cycling friends participate in The Great Pumpkin Ride out in Warrenton every year. While the ride, which is always just before Halloween, encourages costumes, in practice most riders come as they are or at most decorate their helmets with pumpkins and such. Not my friends - they go all out, with a group theme every year. Last year it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which even included someone dressed as a pizza (in case you don't know, the TMNT love pizza). The year before that it was some children's show with gnomes riding foxes - I'm not familiar with the show, but Leo, who is quite artistic, made very impressive cardboard foxes which integrated with the bike frames so it really looked like the cyclists were riding the foxes. This year's theme was the Nintendo Mario Brothers games.

Now, despite the fact that I used to publish articles in game development magazines (back when such magazines still existed - real, printed on paper magazines!), I've never been much of a gamer and so wasn't really aware, but the Mario games collectively have a wealth of characters - which is good when you're looking to outfit a group. We had originally knocked around the idea of Ghostbusters but figured there weren't enough distinctive looking characters. When someone floated the idea of Mario they posted a picture of a group of cyclists at some other event (source unknown) dressed up as Mario characters, including someone in a dinosaur kigurumi. I said, "Hey, I have that dinosaur kigu!" (from a Halloween gig last year) which sealed it for the group - Mario it was! [As an aside, I learned just the other day that the character Mario was named after the landlord of the team developing the original Donkey Kong game - this was in the news because the namesake Mario just passed away).

I also don't usually participate in the Great Pumpkin ride because I almost always have a musical gig that evening (the Saturday before Halloween is a big party night) but this year it was looking like I didn't have a booking, so I signed up for the ride. and then of course, a booking came along. To further complicate matters, the gig was out at B Chord Brewing in Bluemont, Virginia. Warrenton, Bluemont and home form an equilateral one hour of driving triangle. I didn't want to drive an hour home just to turn around and drive an hour back out to B Chord, and I also didn't want to drive 50 miles home late Saturday night after a bike ride and a gig, so I booked an AirBNB in Leesburg to crash before and after the gig.

Saturday morning the weather was dreadful - cold and dumping rain. As I struggled to fit my bike, music gear, clothes and costumes into the car (I resorted to using the rooftop carrier for music gear), more than once I thought to myself, "this is ridiculous. I should just bail on the ride." But after all the planning, I just couldn't. So, off I went to Warrenton.

The one concession the group made to the weather was to switch from the 60 mile to the thirty mile route. That allowed a later start and less time in the rain. And, lo and behold, the rain cleared out just before the 30 mile ride start time! Yeah, we had drizzle here and there, but never real rain at any point, which was awesome - particularly since my fleece dinosaur costume would have been really unpleasant to ride in had it gotten soaked.

The group

Our group numbered about fifteen - some in costume, some not. For the record, in the above photo we have Shira (no costume), Kurt (no costume), Josephine as a Koopa Troopa peeking out from behind Leo as Lakitu, Erin as Princess Peach, me as Yoshi (though people kept asking if I was Bowser), Judd as Mario, Robyne as Rosalina, Chris W as I don't know what, SteveO as a very convincing WaLuigi, Chris (no costume), Jeanne (no costume), and Ken (no costume). Not shown: Rachel and KarenW (no costumes).

We all started together, but not long into the ride Jeanne felt she might be getting a flat tire. I stopped with her to make sure everything was OK. It was, but just that brief stop separated us from the group. I like Jeanne and it was nice riding with her, but I spent a bunch of time in a funk because there I was riding almost solo on what I had thought would be a fun group ride. However, we all caught up at the rest stop - where they provided a cornucopia of food and beer (it was at a brewery). I think turnout for the ride was low because of the weather and so they were over-stocked for the number of riders who actually showed up. After consuming pumpkin soup, quesadilla, PB&J, beer (just a sampler for me) and desserts (none for me) we rode together for the most of the remainder of the ride.

At the rest stop

We got separated again at the end when we came across a cyclist stretched out by the side of the road suffering from severe leg cramps. Some people rode on. Some stayed and helped him. I stayed for a while but realized I was just being a rubber-necker and so ultimately continued on. As a result, I was by myself when I crossed the finish line. Except I didn't really see a finish line. I found myself back where the ride had started where I was puzzled to find ... nothing. Every other organized event I've ever done has had some degree of hoopla at the end, and I seemed to remember that this one had promised food at the end. I walked back to the car, put away my bike and my costume, and checked the information email for the event which said that, "Volunteers will still be at the same location as years past to serve your end of ride meal." Not very useful for those of us who were doing the ride for the first time. The email also mentioned a post-ride gathering at Worthog Brewery (another brewery!). I walked over to Worthog but it seemed pretty quiet, so I went back to the car. As I was about to get into the car and drive off, I said to myself, "let me check Warthog one more time". I walked back and sure enough, there was the group at the bar. Everyone asked where I had been - I missed the food and the group photo at the end of the ride! Apparently there was end-of-ride hoopla after all; however it was off the trail (I never figured out exactly where) and somehow I had missed seeing it.

Anyway, we hung out at Worthog for quite a while. I finally took my leave, knowing that I wanted to leave time for a quick nap and a shower (one gets a little sweaty riding in a dinosuar outfit over rain gear) before my gig. After a pretty trip up Rt. 15 I arrived at my AirBNB. This was the first (and maybe only) time staying in a place where it's not a separate apartment. I was just sleeping in a bedroom in someone's townhouse. There was nothing amiss about - nice place, clean, well furnished. It was just, well, weird. But I did get a quick nap in, showered, and then headed out to Bluemont, stopping along the way at a Chick-Fil-a for a quick dinner. I hadn't really eaten anything except granola bars since the pit stop at 11 AM, and I was HUNGRY.

Magnolia Blue on stage

Our call time was 6 PM for a 6:30 sound check. I breathlessly rushed in at 6:10 to find, well, maybe one or two other band members there and the sound guy just getting things set up. It turns out there was no rush. We didn't sound check until 7:30. And then we played and played and played. We started at around 8 and played almost to 1 AM, with only one break. We had the fabulous Colin Thompson sitting in with us on guitar, and our former guitarist Mike Shade, who was in the area for another gig, played with us too. You may ask how we came up with 4+ hours of music? Well, basically we started with a two hour set and then added two guitarists' worth of guitar solos. 😵 

Oh, and of course there were costumes. I had planned on going as an Arab sheikh. As luck would have it, thanks to the nasty murder of a journalist, Prince Mohammed bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia was much in the news, so my costume morphed from the generic sheikh to something much more specific and timely. Perhaps next year I'll go as the artist formerly known as Prince Mohammed bin Sultan ;)

Prince MBS at the keys

The night ended around 1 AM with some pizza and a last round. Then I packed the car and headed back to my AirBNB, where I got a decent night's sleep before heading home. One day, two costumes, three towns, a whole lot of gear, a whole lot of beer, and a whole lot of fun!