Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Colorado - Where the Men are Men, the Bikes are Expensive and if You Think You Might Be Smelling Weed, You're Smelling Weed

Between body washes and manscaping and gluten-free snacks, sometimes it seems like guys in California are about 15% girl. Guys in Colorado are all dude.

This is Steve, one of the dudes New Belgium flew out to follow the race, he lives in California now but is indigenous to Colorado. He wakes up at the crack of dawn to go running in the woods and wrestle wolves*, he rides bikes off paths, he makes friends with hillbilly guys from Arkansas who share with him their gallon of homemade moonshine**, and he cleans his nails with a fucking saw blade thing he found in the toolbox in the back of the van.


Minutes before this, after several minutes of me begging, he used the same saw blade thing to open up a beer bottle***


And, just so this post is something more than Colorado Dude Appreciation, here's a shot of the ridiculous landscape

and a shot of the expensive bikes (a shot for which I stood out in the rain for 40 minutes to get)

And a shot I thought was going to be a shot of expensive bikes on a sunny day, but all I can see in this picture is a scrotum squeezing itself out from the bottom of that guy's cut offs.

And a shot of my van crew (and, yes, I'm wearing a trucker hat, shut up, a week is a long time and my hair is temperamental)

from left to right - Social Media Beer Guy (our babysitter/chaperone/tour guide/food buyer/driver/all-around good guy), me, Manly Man, and the super talented cartoonist/illustrator (who spent a ridiculous amount of the week looking for pot,,, which is legal there, btw)


*I'm not positive about this one, I was too busy sleeping - I still don't get why anyone would wake up early on purpose, especially when we were being put up in super nice hotels with really comfortable beds.

**I'm positive about this one - we were set up on top of a mountain for one day of the race and by the end of the day, the Arkansas guys were pretty much ready to teach him all of the secrets of their brewery... is it a brewery? Moonshinery? Still?

***I tried to get a picture of the actual chopping of the bottle, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera and you can't just ask a manly man for a re-do on something like that.