I've got this idea for a ride

"I've got this idea for a ride."

My buddy Hank and I were slowly making our way north in his truck on Forest Service Road 500 in the Talladega National Forest just east of Anniston, Alabama. It was February. Cold. Our mountain bikes were on the back of the truck. There was beer in the cooler. We were heading to the Warden Horse Camp to park and ride some horse trails and gravel roads.

Hank just stared ahead with a grin on his face, looking out the window. It was the kind of perma-grin he gets when there's nothing to think about except the woods, and trails, and riding bikes, and beer.

No rush for me to complete my thought. We were up here camping a couple of days early before the Skyway Beer Run, then in its 3rd year. Mostly just sitting around poking the camp fire at Cheaha State Park, talking about anything that came to mind, dozing off in our camp chairs, riding our bikes here and there, and drinking beer. No cell phone reception. At some point, you get so zoned out by the peace and beauty of it all that you can go awhile between thoughts and the articulating of thoughts, and that's ok.

So Hank just sat there with his perma-grin, crushing gravel under his wheels, surrounded by the forest, knowing at some point I'd tell him all about my idea for a ride.

"I think I wanna do a 9 day ride so that I only have to take off a week from work, and with the weekend before and the weekend after, it would be 9 days total. And I think I wanna try to do a century each day. 9 centuries in a row."

"Dude," Hank turned and grinned wider. He got a little animated and hit the steering wheel for emphasis. "You can't just do 9. You have to do 10."