We had an amazing amount of fun this weekend in Atlanta and Birmingham!

It started off with us leaving around 3:15 from Birmingham hoping that there wouldn’t be any traffic, because we had just enough time to get there and then race. Thankfully the roads were perfectly clear and we got there in record time (don’t tell the cops)! There was a pretty good crowd when we rode up, and a couple of guys were riding around doing tricks in the street. I started getting a little nervous.

We got ourselves registered and got a PBR Tallboy (they had 50 CASES!!) and stood around looking at the competition. Getting more nervous. Saw some friends. Telling them how nervous we are. Locking our bikes to the fence with about 70 others. Really really nervous. Listening to instructions. Totally freaking out. Then we go!

We followed the crowd to the first stop, chugged a pbr (and poured some out), got our next destination, and joined up with that kindest of boys in ATL, Bert! He rode with us to all seven stops so we didn’t get lost, such a gentleman! The next stop we went to required us to take a pic while having the facial expression of taking a shit. Lovely. I wonder where those pictures will end up? We rode some more, then next stop was the big one – TATTOO TIME! Elisa and Bert both got one, a little bike horn with the number 2 blasting out. Elisa’s hurt like a bitch, or so I heard.

As we were leaving from that, Rebecca’s chain got all sorts of twisted up so we had to get that all fixed, which took an amazingly long time and required the help of some guys from the bike shop. While we were working on that people were riding up saying that this was their second to last stop or their last stop and we quickly realized that we weren’t going to be getting first, but we left and rode to all the other stops anyway. There wasn’t anyone there, so thankfully we didn’t have to get our pubes shaved or anything else potentially awkward. But we had SO MUCH FUN and I think we rode through all of downtown Atlanta. We finally made it to then end and enjoyed even more PBR and some delicious burgers.

The next day Bert brewed us some fantastic coffee, took us to the best breakfast place ever (Ria’s Bluebird), guided a tour of Atlanta, and then told us how to get to the Dick Lane Velodrome for the race. I about peed myself when we got there, it was so extremely cool! I can’t do the rest justice in words, so I’ll leave you with some of the pictures I took. A great weekend!