Powderhorn 24 2018

Sitting by myself manning the tent watching riders
and talking to my neighbor.

Another year of Powderhorn 24 is complete.  As advertised, PH24 is a community ride and not a race.  Most of the fun if this 24 hour (7pm Friday night to 7pm Saturday night) is indeed the community.  My team adds some additional fun by wearing tutus.  In the large group ride at the beginning, several people were excited the tutu group was back. The ride is on city streets through the Powderhorn neighborhood, and people from the neighborhood come out to cheer, refresh with water, hand out free donuts...

Although route is 4.8 miles (basically a rectangle), we are often advised to go off route into the community for bonus stops.  Bonus stops are a variety of activities, and one never knows what to expect.  This year at one stop I merely had to list my gender pronouns (she, her, hers) which was interesting and somewhat educational (A younger teen rider didn't know what was expected, so they talked her through it). Other stops included trying to find the talking cat (9-11pm).  I kept riding expecting someone in a cat suit to jump out at me on the Greenway.  Finally, I started asking, "Are you Brian, the talking cat?"  Eventually someone answered.  It was really Taco Cat, not talking cat.  Brian had a bag of tortilla chips for me, but I had to go back and check in to get my points.  Some of my other bonus stops included hiking down and up a steeper incline with my bike merely to high five someone, making a spoke card, and singing karaoke.  I never sing when others are present, but I wanted the bonus stop point (BTW- some teammates lied about their bonus stops... come on... get the stop or say you didn't).  In true community fashion, the two guys in front of me allowed me to join their group to get the point.  A slice of pizza was also part of the deal except it was a five minute wait for pizza at the end of the day. 

Besides bonus stops, community is formed at the tent residence that awkwardly gets set up on the greenway.  The neighbors in our next door tent were kind and sociable.  In fact, I spoke more with Jessica than some of my teammates (two of whom seemed to disappear during the day leaving me to man the tent by myself... yep, a bit bitter...).  Of course, it's also formed as one tends to ride next to people of the same cycling ability as the day gets longer.  On one of my last rotations, I was riding next to a couple on a tandem.  We started talking, and the gentleman on front of the bike explained that he had ridden with another member of our group, "the girl in the purple tutu," on Friday.  He told me that she was very well behaved.  When I realized the identity of the girl in the purple tutu (We all try to wear different colors), I laughed and said, "Yes, yes she most certainly is well behaved." 

In addition to laps and bonus stops, we have volunteer stations.  This year we had six hours at checkpoint 3 which meant we had to punch manifests for each rider who passed.  It's fun seeing the different bikes, jerseys, personalities.  I was commenting on how there were pebbles under my bare feet.  One person also volunteering suggested I put on my shoes.  Instead, the volunteer coordinated for this stop gave me a blanket to stand on.

Fun times.