Last updated on March 19, 2013
Small oil and dust marks on one of the stanchions of the El Mariachi’s Reba fork show that I made use of the fork’s full travel when at Ray’s MTB Cleveland yesterday. I was there as part of an IMBA event, having driven down that morning and back in the evening.
I was initially on the fence about going (didn’t want to pay for a hotel or drive that far), but I’m really glad that I did. I met some new people, had a really great take on an espresso con panna made by a guy named trainwreck (who was also riding everything in the place on a rigid 29er with a front fender) at a table at the side of the place, rode a lot, and only crashed once.
The crash was early on and happened when I caught my derailleur (then pedal, then bar) on a short railing and tumbled over the railing down on to the pavement. The only damage was a sore shoulder, bent derailleur hanger, and broken derailleur cable housing, both common and easily solved problems.
The coffee was pretty interesting, made using a handpresso wild hybrid to dispense espresso into a small cup half-full of heavy cream which had been whipped with a small battery-powered whisk similar to the IKEA PRODUKT. This then had chocolate shaved on the top and was drank after the espresso and cream mixed themselves together. It was very tasty, and a quite-welcome afternoon treat after being up since 4:45am.
After leaving I initially headed to the Buckeye Beer Engine with Erik and Kristi, but after finding out that there was a 30-40 minute wait for a table I ended up just heading home. While I would have loved to have eaten there, the wait plus eating time would have put me home about midnight, and driving alone isn’t much fun at those times.