(Alright. Let’s power through this.)

Oh, I’d looked, trust me… but there was no darkness to be found. The light was everywhere. Bright, safe, towering street lamps dotting the park, illuminating every nook and cranny. Any and all remotely shadowy areas had already been staked out, and what was left was… exposure.

Which begged the question: when I had ordered the new curtains for the van, why the fuck hadn’t I opted for the blackout version? Not only not opted, but actively dismissed. Some vague reasoning about mornings (and nights) and the possibility of sleeping later than optimal in places from which I might need to make swift and early exits…

But I was regretting my decision.

Because while I was definitely basking in the restorative glow of being in the van and on the road, this would be night four of sub-optimal sleep, and it was catching up.

I’d done a quick recon lap when I pulled into Aniston. A series of left and right turns down the various thoroughfares to scope out the city. It was… I’ll say it… depressed. I’d hope to find signs of some thriving southern microcosm, but what I found was another southern town just hanging on.

Many, many, many years before, I’d flown from Greensboro into Birmingham, Alabama to pick up the very volkswagen van I was now driving in nearby Montavallo. The van made it almost halfway back to Greensboro before the transmission exploded somewhere near Braselton, GA, and there it sat for months before rescued by my friend, chief mechanic, and vanagon guru, Paul Pearce. A story for another time.

But my impression at the time of Montavallo, AL had been positive? Erroneously so, or not. A bizarre, tiny enclave of progressive possibility, bolstered by a University. The true definition of a “college town.”

Anniston felt like… a small town. One with a lot of history and a slow motion future. One due for a renaissance, but finding itself in a limbo of time, place, and potential. The last of those it had in abundance. It’s just the question of ignition. Hopefully events like the Coldwater Mountain Fat Tire Festival help with that spark.

I surveyed the town park turned temporary campground, and headed to the the brewery that served as the defacto hub for the event that I was crashing, walked in and crossed my fingers that I’d see someone I knew. Or who knew me.

It happens. Which is bizarre.

Sure enough… as I stood there blindly surveying the room for a familiar face, someone called my name. Boom.

It was Phillip, who I’d met… somewhere? Maybe a dealer event? A race? He was now a director for SORBA and made some introductions. Before I knew it, I had my event bracelets, beer tickets, and camping spot, care of event head Elaine.

The event was technically one night and one day in, and I’d missed the previous festivities, but tomorrow was the Poker Ride, which everyone told me was the best.

Knowing only a few people at a social event, and refusing to be the guy who sticks to them like glue, I forced myself to approach random tables of people; introducing and inserting myself in whatever conversation they were trying to have before I brazenly sat down. Absolutely one of my least favorite things to do, but let’s call it an exercise in forced socialization. Because otherwise I was just walking back to the van and watching one of the very few movies on my ipad, most left over from when my son Milo was a wee kiddo. (Probably Ratatouille, btw)

The next morning, while everyone else was jumping on the shuttles, I hopped on my bike and rode the 8 miles out to the trailhead, enjoying the chance to take in more of the city and landscape.

The last half mile of gravel road up to the start/finish was… hard. A progressively steepening grade that had me full-body pedaling and threatened to force me off the bike to walk the remaining distance. It also made me wonder if maybe I was a little fucked for this ride. For one, I was le tired. Consecutive long days on hard trails will do that. And for another, everyone at the start seemed wary of my rigid singlespeed. Not impressed, mind you, because that at least would have inspired some hard-ass confidence in me. No. Wary. Though less of the single speed, and more of the rigid front end. Enough so that I now had a small piddling voice inside telling me that I’d be walking both the uphills AND downhills today. Ok.

I quickly glommed on to a friendly group of folks who knew the trails and stuck with them for most of the event, detouring at the end so I could hit some sections that they’d ridden the day before, and thereby crossing off the “rode every available trail” on my invisible checklist.

As much as I love riding my rigid fork, I’m not so dense that I won’t admit that there are definitely times and regions and trails where it doesn’t shine. It’s almost always less about roots, and more about rocks. (I said almost always, Pisgah) Even the chunkiest of roots somehow gets at least moderately eaten up by tire volume. But rock? It just transmits. Slickrock even more so than gardens. A constant, harsh chatter absorbed by nothing but you.

And while Coldwater isn’t slickrock, it is hard. Not the difficulty, (though by no means was it easy) but the substrate; a packed conglomerate of clay and rocks of all sizes. If you were to crash on those trails, there is not one ounce of forgiving loam to absorb your impact. You would be smashing violently against a surface as hard as any rock slab you might encounter. Even the one or two small falls I had navigating some crux or another were ouchy.

So while I was fine… having ridden trails much more challenging on my rigid singlespeed… I was also cooked. Not just my legs, but my hands, arms, shoulders, neck, face, jaw, back, soul.

But… I liked it all. A lot. Especially the fast-as-fuck final section back down to the trailhead. I get why Anniston is on the map. Maybe the trails are more blown out than they used to be in some recent yesteryear… but they were challenging and fast and fun and definitely worth a return visit. And 10/10 I would return to the Coldwater Mountain Fat Tire Festival, if the timing worked out. Too. Many. Damn. Events.

Afterword, I sat around the venue, talked with random people, lost big at poker, drank some very good local-ish beer, and messily slurped Ramen from a local Anime inspired food truck with the amazing name… “Send Noodz.”

Then I rode the eight miles back to the van, cleaned up, and started the drive to Atlanta for a quick visit with my mom before continuing on to… somewhere. I was, I admit, a little exasperated when she requested I turn my quick road-trip driveby into a full two night stay… but what are you going to do? Moms.

A two night stay also meant that I could go mess around on the trails of my childhood, and ride the gravel roads around nearby Cochran, GA… which is always a highlight.

For a woman who was dwindling in hospice less than five years ago, mom is doing amazing these days. And as I always do, I left her house with a van full of shrubs, plants, and cuttings from the always sprawling garden she maintains to this day. If she asks, incidentally, they are all doing very well, and are definitely not languishing in pots scattered around the yard until I figure out what to do with them.

After one final ride of Dirty Sheets, Atlanta’s premier groads, I headed back to Greensboro, reluctantly making the five hour drive in one terrible fell swoop.

I wasn’t ready to go back, but I’d already turned a long weekend trip into a week. And sadly, I just don’t have the staff these days to be away without having to close the shop.

After unpacking with many loud sighs, and making Dorothy promise we could go on another van trip soon, I hesitantly checked social media for word of how the Nutmeg Nor’Easter had fared. Amazingly, it turned out. The rain had eventually given way to sun and all the cool kids had enjoyed a really cool time being cool on bikes in Nutmeg country. Damnit.

I won’t lie. I felt a pang of regret at having bailed. But… I had also enjoyed a spontaneous trip to new and completely unexpected destinations. That was epic enough.

Epic.

Enough.

There! We did it! Now we can move on to other lighthearted topics.

Next up: Class War