Night owl ride, and why I shouldn't stay up till 6 am

So I had originally rode down to the night owl ride just to root on a few friends, give them some courage to stay up till the sun rose. This isn't how it ended up going down.

Shortly while sitting the sidelines talking to some traffic control cops/military that were hanging about one of my buddies rode by on his beat up single speed telling me where the "stop for free beer" and "stop for pay beer and omlettes" spots were on the route. What he didn't tell me was there was a rule for "official riders" that required a helmet. While I'm all for helmet safety, I normally don't wear one.

Eventually the main person I came to root on passed by, and she was looking a little spent 3 hours in, so I decided to tag along beside her, give her someone to talk to. We did a few laps, hit the free beer spot and caught up with some old friends, had a few cheap beers, and watched for a few minutes. Eventually another buddy came by and yelled an insult as we do, and since while I'm slow, so is he, so i chased him down for a circle around the route. The climb was a much pain with a front fork I couldn't lock out. Oh the bounce bounce. I hadn't felt like that since riding in some friends trucks with hydraulics back when I was 15.

We kept doing rounds, eventually decided to hit the for pay beer spot since they also had free massages, free water/gatorade and junk like that. I was thirsty as could be since I hadn't brought a water bottle so I figured not a bad idea.

We didn't stay there too long, and the wonderful gal I had been riding with said she was pooped and ready to go. I figured it wasn't even midnight yet, but the watch read out 2 am. "What the hell?" I said, so we rolled the mile or so back to my house, but not before I got screamed at quite loudly by an event official for not wearing a helmet, or shirt(I tend to bike shirtless in all my flabby glory, so sue me).

We got back to the house, went to the store to pick up wine and beer, had a drink or two. I wish I could say that's how the night ended, but it's not. That's also not what you're here to read about, 4 wheeled transportation is for another blog.