Ballers - Who we are

Ballers atmo -

Getting together with Josh, and David, and Jon, and Zanc, and Darren, and Craig, and Tom, and Gary, and Wayne, and all the other cabal-istas doesn't happen enough atmo. We have been riding together for years, always in different places, and always hard. Boys will be boys, and all that. The Ballers ordeal is an icing-on-the-cake iteration of all of our get-togethers and fantasies thereof. Last year was the official Ballers 1.0 but it was in the image of all the rides, and meals, and cavorting, and lies told going back to when we all became a unit. And a unit we are. The names I mentioned are a small cross-section of cats we all hang with and would let blood drip for no matter what the reason. We are all connected. The ties that bind are a beautiful thing to behold, and Lord knows that wherever there's a WiFi one or more of us is beholden to one or more of all the others.

Ballers Weekend is equal parts Navy Seals training, Outward Bound, and a Mensa meeting for the most vain of the vain, all coupled with some brutally hard riding and dining. At the very core of Ballers Weekend is the certainty that memories will be made - memories that will never be erased.

Ballers 2.0 will be slightly different in that we have a coterie of framebuilders coming to sit at the dais and hold court when the riding is on hold. The agenda includes having these cats impart their collective histories and wisdom, and do their level headed best to infect the non-framebuilders with their enthusiasm. This is not a polish the bicycle, show it, and stand near it with a pasted on smile gig; this is about the framebuilders rubbing elbows with the rest of the guests over Walton's Mountain and across Nelson County. See these men whose names grace the down tubes of their small production of frames - see these men right next to you on mile after mile of dirt roads, on gravel descents, and on climbs so steep you might prefer to walk. Yes, walk.

It will be a wonderful weekend and the only regrets you may possibly have are the last few miles of the Saturday ride when you wish you were given piano lessons for Chanukah rather than the bicycle that turned into your adult passion. The riding is that challenging that you may hate us all, and the bicycle too. But within twenty minutes of returning to The Acorn Inn you'll be ready to sign up for Ballers 3.0 atmo.

Next year in Israel California.

(e-RICHIE)