The Best Ways to Waste Time on a Trip

People always ask me why I don't do more activities while on bike racing trips.

"Oh, you went to Tulsa? Did you go to insert tourist attraction here? How about here?"

The answer is no. I see about four things per crit trip. One- Wherever I bike ride easy in the morning. Two- The race courses. Three- The grocery store. Four- Bad movies.

Many of the crits that we go to are in the nighttime. It makes sense for spectators and when fireworks go off for the last ten minutes of a pitch dark race it is a pretty sensation tingling experience.

dmunson photo

dmunson photo

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However, this nighttime experience has an interesting ratio. For every nighttime crit, there is one entire daytime of nothing. I'd love to hike up Mt Kilimanjaro, but I do not want to get all tired and sore in my upper-butt and lower cankle region. So instead of that, we do this:

We have lots of time to kill. How do we do it?!?!?

It's simple. We hit clocks with hammers. Killing time. Like in the movie Hook. Speaking of the movie Hook, I have a hard time believing the physical accomplishments by Robin Williams in that movie. He is a pudgy, soft, hardly exercised lawyer of some sort and then he gets all Rufio and swings from trees and stuff? Really though, I know he's Peter Pan and all that jazz. But how does a slightly out-of-shape hombre like Robin Williams all of a sudden be all limber and yoga-like? No se.

Ok, enough. I have composed a list in my mind which has then gone from my mind through my brain canal down my neck towards my shoulders, then crawls slowly down my biceps to forearms and finally through my palms and out of my fingertips onto my keyboard. Here is that list of ways to waste time on a trip. Use these for any sort of trip. A business trip? Use this list. Family vacation? Use this list. Prison? Probably can't use this list, sorry.

1) I'm going to start basic for you. Sleep as much as you possibly can. This means eye masks, earplugs, Hammer REM caps, Chamomile tea, Gypsy potions, blessings from Buddha, gag Danny so he can't talk, disconnect David's phone (he carries around a wired telephone, it's weird), and make sure Steve does not watch cyclingfans videos too loud.

2) COFFEE. Holy F. Our house has a coffee machine where all I have to do is push ONE button. Then coffee gets itself all grinded and ish, then it whirs and purrs, and then coffee comes out. Then I leave and it cleans itself. After I finish this one, I go to a coffee shop on my bicycle.

3) Learning new words! Danny has #socalstyle so we learn things while spending time with him. Here are my new words:

• Dank- This seems to replace good, high quality, or cool. This is a truly dank, respectable coffee shop.
• Chill - Very versatile. It could mean cool. It could also mean calm-down. It also represents it's ok. This is a very chill coffee shop.
• Dirty- Surprise! This means good things! Dirty tends to be used in a food-manner. Dirty can describe a drink, or a muffin, all in good ways. Dirty is sooo good in appearance. Dirty is SICK. Dude, that's a dirty pastry, I'm into it.
• Harshing- To hate on something? I'm not trying to harsh your vibe, but those socks aren't tall enough. 

Or, let's get crazy!

I'm not harshing on your choice, but this dank neighborhood coffee shop has chill employees and has dirty muffins! 

(Not to say that your choice is invalid, but this high-quality local coffee shop hires simply the best baristas and they bake all of their pastries in house!)

4) Real-life Hunger Games. We race crits at night. We hang around all day. Food is a good distraction from boredom, but it is also a good way to be super hefty the next week. So instead of eating 14 meals throughout the course of the day, we uh, don't. Instead, I see 3 people eating rice cakes right now. SOOooosOoooooo good!

5) Research. We are all gentlemen and scholars, so naturally most of us try and stay educated throughout the course of the day. David reads educational things, like wikipedia. I spent much of my day yesterday reading about Mate and on a similar topic, Bonnie and Clyde. Nothing like learning about old-fashioned gangsters to get you in race mode!

6) Really, really terrible(y) awesome movies. What else to say. Bad movies are better on bike racing trips. Bike racing trips would make the movie about the guy who drove his lawnmower across the US a tolerable movie. Ok, probably not. But American Pie movies are raising the humor level and Ben Stiller was awesome in There is Something About Mary (before he sold out and started doing lame movies). Speaking of movies, if I were to be one movie character I would definitely be Sid from the movie Ice Age. Sid is a great guy and really understands the value of friendship and determination.

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