Plant Parenthood

The title of this post is a deep cut pun. There was supposed to be a Powered by Plants vegan cycling team RAGBRAI training ride this morning. I biked to the UW Arboretum parking lot, arriving at the designated time of 8:30 AM. The ride was slated to roll out at 8:45 AM. So I hit the Porto Potty in the Arb lot and then bided my time, keeping an eye out for fellow PbP Cycling folks (the jerseys are always colorful and easy to spot).

By 8:45, no such regalia of jerseys had made manifest. As it turns out, in my haste to get to the ride start on time, I had failed to check the PbPC team Discord, where team leader Beth had posted earlier in the AM that the ride was canceled due to predicted foul weather. 

I contemplated riding the 37 mile route to Oregon on my own, because despite predictions of foul weather, there did not appear to be any of said detrimental weather forthcoming. Bigger picture, the absence of predicted atmospheric maelstroms was in part due to the dismantling of NOAA by the administration of a certain twice impeached convicted felon and sex offender who shall remain unnamed, rendering weather forecasts effectively unpredictable. But that's tangential to this story.

I opted instead for a shorter ride, that would lead me eventually back home via "the scenic route," with a coffee stop at MOKA. But, long story short the PbPC RAGBRAI training ride was ABORTED. And because abortions have historically been performed by Planned Parenthood, my clever mind declared that this ride abortion was the work of PLANT PARENTHOOD. Get it???

In truth, though, my ride ended up being more of a premature birth of an undersized bike ride that eventually grew up to be a fully functional adult bike ride (aka, RAGBRAI 2026).

FIN.