Nascar with Bicycles..

We headed to Greenville on Sunday to do some big time shopping...that you can find at any regular mall that is not in Greenwood, SC. We were going to stop in downtown to grab a bite to eat when happened onto the "Fall for Greenville" festival. Really a pretty cool thing. Greenville has the Reedy River flowing through the middle of downtown, and they have done a great job of building the downtown area around it. There is a bridge suspended over the river (which is amazing) with assorted parks around it, amphitheaters for events and restaurants....and apparently a very important bike race through downtown a few times a year. The idea is you cordon off all of downtown, then ride your bicycle in a circle as fast as you can around several blocks against a group of other insane people roller derby style (flying elbows, etc). And then you can go have a funnel cake or watch a bar tending competition. Oh, don't worry if you fall off your bike in the first billion laps you can get back on and still race, but that is totally against the rules in the last 5 laps. Apprantly even anarchy has rules. It is an awesome event that Greenville has really embraced. Greenville is much more progressive than you would think. Lots of almost hippies with bikes, dogs, granola, Teva sandals, but they are just not as serious about their "hippiness" it as their Asheville brethren. We had our dog along and I have no fashion sense, so we blended right in. Jake and I sat outside and ate some lunch in the sun while watching crazy people drive in circles as fast as they could on two wheels. Not a bad day.

I am certainly surprised with all of the biscuit eating I have witnessed that SC is actually one of the hotbeds of triathalons, running, and other fitness business in the US. Very weird when they eat fried chicken for breakfast. I think it runs in pockets. The fit people are REALLY healthy, and everyone else is REALLY UNHEALTHY. Yikes.