Stu: The Speed Of Butterflies

When riding up hills, we go slightly slower than the speed of butterflies. They flutter in circles around me, until they get really bored or are hit by large trucks passing by. When riding down the hills we go pretty much the same speed as Andy does when driving on a highway (45 mph). Recently, we rode up to Santiam Pass and down to Sisters, Oregon on 126.

In Sisters, we stopped at a bar named Scoots. The bar was very new and had a big sign by the door that read, “Bikers Welcome,” which we realized was not for people like us, but for motorcyclists (pronounced motor-sickle in some northwest towns). Our spandex shorts and somewhat wussy gait surely gave us away as the other kind of cyclist.

Anyways, even though we weren't their target clientèle, people were still pretty friendly and we met some dudes named Aric (yup, with an A) and Ted. They were red-haired brothers who loved their town, the bar, and drinking in the bar a whole lot. Eric and Ted insisted that we go to the top of these rocks so we could see the most beautiful sunset in the world. They were pretty floppy, so they got their friends to drive Andy, and I to the famed place. When we got in the car, we learned that the driver, a very nice woman, had just rolled her car over the day before. Luckily she survived with only a minor loss, the tip of her middle finger. We got to see pus-ridden pictures of it on her cell phone. It was all oozy, bloody and awesome. They took us to the top of the rocks and we could see mountains all around us, 360 degrees, including the one we had just rode over. I can't describe how panoramically-picture-postcard-esque the view was, so I won't.

After the sun was pretty much done setting, they drove us back to the bar and showed us a game that they play while driving down the big hill. Basically, they put their car in neutral and coast down the hill into the town. That means they hit the first couple blind turns at 50-ish which causes them to take extra wide turns, using both lanes of the road. The driver got some cold feet though (perhaps because of her extremely recent accident) and used some brakes, so we didn't make it. Bummer. When we got back to the bar Aric and Ted proceeded to feed the juke-box money to sing their favorite Sublime and Queen tunes at the top of their lungs until the morning came (I can only assume because we left before the bar closed). In conclusion, we owe an exciting night in Sisters, Oregon to Aric and Ted, two sweet dudes who love where they live and love to show it off with reckless abandon.