So I managed to come through on my desire to start exercising my fat ass.
I went for a bike ride today as well as yesterday.
I love riding my bike.
I do.
I'm currently sporting a 24 inch Mongoose Brawler.
It's real nice because it captures the essence of those days of my youth spent cruising around looking for jumps on my PK Ripper but also is sized slightly larger and has a short wheel base ideal for trail riding.
I felt like I could have riden forever today.
Like back in the day when I'd ride from my parents house in suburban Maryland down through Rock Creek Park and into DC.
Me and my buddy Scooby. We say we were going to ride to the National Zoo but we'd eventually end up at some bar and then skip off on every imaginable trail on the way back home. I'm talking a good twelves hours or more in the saddle. We lived on our bikes.
Scooby was short for Scooby Doo because he was a black guy with a flat-top fade like Big Daddy Kane in the late '80s and he looked like the cartoon character.
We all had nicknames.
My whole BMX crew and those loosely surrounding the BMX mecca that was Rockville BMX. The most noted alum of Rockville BMX is film maker Spike Jonze.
There was Nubby who used to get me in all sorts of trouble in high school. Nubby was the kind of guy who would say he's picking you up at 10pm and not show up until 11:30pm.
In high school mind you.
But my parents loved Nubby so I generally got away with murder hanging out with Nubby and Scooby.
My name was, and still is, Greg E. Boy.
Eventually, I would end up working as a courier at a place called Topel Blueprinting in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Scooby's older brothers both worked there - his brother Stephen was the spitting image of Weird Harold from Fat Albert. Notice something about this family? They all looked like cartoon characters who had come to life.
One day when I had come back from my spring semester at Towson State and resumed my summer job at Topel, I spotted Rodney (www.dangerouspies.com) wearing a tie standing on the median strip in downtown Silver Spring.
"What are you doing Rod?" I asked him because he didn't look comfortable wearing a tie.
"Man, this shit sucks!" he hollered into my open car window.
"I got to find me a job," he said.
Two days later, Rodney was working at as a courier with Scooby, Nubby and myself. By our bosses, we were affectionately known as the Dickie Boys. Oh, I can't forget The Wedge. The Wedge looked like Slash. He did.
It was commom knowledge around the office that Thursdays meant $2 pitchers of Rolling Rock at Cagney's in Dupont Circle. The bosses used to take bets to see which one of us would be the most hungover, be late or worse yet, who wouldn't show on Friday.
It was usually Rodney who was M.I.A. Because Rodney was a man whore.
Anyway, back to the bike: I've forged lifelong friendships through riding BMX. These guys are like brothers to me. And although I haven't spoken with some in years (Nubby does nothing but ride his Ducati sports motorcycle; Scooby is a mountain bike guide in Boulder, Colorado, where he claims he's "the only black man" and likes it that way), but if I saw them tomorrow I know it would be like we never skipped a beat.
And the stories we could tell...
