Graham and Ian did the Urban Assault Ride today and completed within the first 50 out of 300 teams.  And they were the only team to ride fixed gear, which is a really big deal when you’re talking about a citywide bike race/scavenger hunt/obstacle course.

Last year, I met Graham and Ryan for the Keen course at Tower Grove.  I think Graham had just started riding a few months before:

Now he’s been riding daily for more than a year.  His calves, while always pretty fit (and hot) are now insane.  He’s probably in the best shape of his life and regularly gets asked to race – and then soundly defeats – weekend warrior riders who wear expensive jerseys for no goddamn reason whatsoever.

This year, I showed up at Bikeworks to take photos of the big wheel obstacle course:

(this is Graham and Ian being dudes)

(this is Graham having an excellent time on a bike I totally want to own)

(this is Graham getting ready to continue the race)

Tomorrow, he goes on a camping trip to celebrate his birthday (which is actually on Wednesday).  The race was supposed to be the perfect way to start his mini-vacation, so of course two guys who were scheduled to work today didn’t bother showing up.  Didn’t call.  Didn’t give notice.  Just didn’t show up.  Graham didn’t find out about this until the middle of the race, and by the time he finished, the situation had apparently been taken care of.  Which is fine, but it still sucks for him because he’s supposed to be in charge of a bunch of morons who can’t be bothered to come into work on a regular basis.

Sorry, am I being too responsible?  It’s just…damn.  How hard is it?  I’ve been showing up to work on the regular since I was 16.  Graham logged over 70 hours in the past week just to keep the kitchen moving and has every expectation to work at least 12 hours a day for the next few weeks.  Is it too much to ask that he be allowed 24 free hours before some fuckerhead decides not to show up?

Let the poor guy ride his bike, why don’t you?