Courtesy of 50 Online Players

About 5 weeks ago I was staring out the window looking at the lake and cursing myself for playing online poker. It was 70 degrees on a Saturday afternoon and here I was hacking away at some $.50 - $1.00 cash game. "Caveman" I said to myself, "you need to get the hell out of your cave and go do something, anything but sitting here on beautiful late March afternoon." Just as I was thinking I couldn't be any more of a slug if I tried, my good buddy Phil called me with an interesting offer. "Dude, I just got a new bike, you wanna go mountain biking? you can ride my old one". I was tired and probably hungover but without a second's thought I said Hell Yeah.

Phil's one of those nonstop, do it all, all the time guys. Active as hell and in pretty good shape. Me? Well, I go to the gym 5 times as much as I want to but only half as much as I should and I really like beer. My right arm is slightly toned though, from dealing cards and occasionally moving around some 11.5 gram poker chips. Let's just say that I'm not at my fighting weight. Phil could climb The Matterhorn without stopping, I hadn't ridden a bike that requires pedalling in about ten years. But I do occasionally ride motocross, I was a local BMX champ in my early teens, and I do have the penchant for putting my bodily safety at risk. This was going to be interesting.

Phil threw all his old gear at me. "Here, you can wear this stuff" he said as I cautiously eyed a padless helmet and a Camelback drinking system that looked like he found it at Lance Armstrong's mother's garage sale back in '92. As he strapped on all his new gear and hopped on his new ultra plush, full suspension mondo kick ass mega bike, I felt underequipped, both physically and materially. But I was grateful as hell. I hadn't ridden in forever and it was time to get back on the horse.

Two minutes into the ride I was hooked. All it took was a few powerslides into the turns and about 2 feet of air off the first jump and that rush came back to me at once. We rode for about an hour and a half. I felt like someone just beat the shit out of me. His old, suspension-less bike had taken its toll on me. I was exhausted and most of my muscles were cramping but I couldn't stopped smiling. A good workout and having fun at the same time. Why the hell didn't I do this sooner?

As we loaded the bikes back into the truck I asked him how much one of those new fangled bikes with full suspension and disc brakes (yeah, just like a car!) would cost me. "Minimum of a grand for one worthwhile," he said, "guess you're gonna have to win a poker tournament." Hmmm, he had a point.

I immediately got heavy into it, riding 3-4 days a week. I spent the next few weeks riding his old dinosaur and my roommate's recreational level bike, knowing that sooner than later, I would need my own new ride. Phil's old bike was more of a torture rack, wrong size and old as hell, and Jeramy basically indicated I should either decide to buy his or move on.

Something needed to happen, soon.

Well, long story not so long, a little sun shone on this dog's ass the other night. As I often do, I grabbed a sixer of Sierra Nevada and plunked down $20+2 on the Bodog $6,000 guaranteed. I finished 2nd out of 319 players. And I should have won but my K-10 lost to K-9 just as I was about to capture the chip lead. With a flop of x-9-10 you tend to call your opponent's all in bet heads up w/ K-10. But another 9 came crashing down on the turn and I yelled a naughty word out loud. It happens all the time, better get used to it. My anguish and self pity came to a quick end, however, when the little box popped up saying "Congratulations, you finished 2nd in the tournament and won $1,035".

"THERE'S my new BIKE!" I yelled gleefully to nobody in particular and did a little dance.

I took that G down to Performance Bike and plunked it down on a nice new shiny Mongoose Teocali Comp. That's 4 hours in front of a laptop, well spent.

More on that later, gotta go ride.