Saturday

4th Annual Triangle Fat Tire Festival & Take A Kid Mountain Biking Day
Mountain bike celebration
10 a.m.-3 p.m.
Harris Lake County Park, New Hill

Forgive me if I’ve told this story before, but I’m telling it again. At this summer’s Huck-A-Buck race at Lake Crabtree, Steve Rogers (who would go on to win the Sport 45+ title in the TORC/Johnson Subaru summer XC series) and I were watching the boys from NC Bike Trials hop their bikes from sawhorse to picnic table to light post and back.

“I don’t know how you would even get started doing that,” I said to Steve. “I mean, how do you ‘ease’ into something like this? It’s like pole vaulting.”

There was a pause. “Actually,"Steve finally said, "I pole vaulted in college.”

Usually when we pose the question, “Weekend plans?” we’re only referring to an hour or two of your weekend. Not the majority of it, which is what our first item will require of its participants.

Saturday-Sunday

Bushwhack Adventure Race 2009
24-, 12- and 8-hour adventure race
Somewhere in the Triangle
Saturday and Sunday

For all you armchair adventure racers out there, we’ll start with your out: Registration has closed for this year’s Bushwhack. “... we’re out of maps,” Bushwhack organizers reported Tuesday on their web site. “You don’t really want to try the course without a map.” That said, you can start boasting about how you’re all over next year’s race, which, if it’s anything like this year’s will involve:
* 8-hour category: 5-10 miles of trekking, 15-20 miles of mountain biking, 5-10 miles of paddling.

Once again, we find it’s hard to wait until Saturday to start the weekend. Especially if you’re a gear geek and there’s a new “Celestial Vessel” canoe to check out ...

Friday night

“Celestial Vessel”
Artsy 18-foot canoe by Satch Hoyt
Durham
7-9 p.m.

What makes 4-year-old Jensen Cervati (left) the perfect pit crew member?

“He’s table height,” boasts dad Tony. The perfect height, that is, to hand mom a new water bottle midway through today’s Leave it to Beaverdam, the final race in this summer’s five-part Triangle Off-Road Cyclists/Johnson Subaru Cross-Country Series. So perfect a pit crew member that he could have simply stuck the water bottle out and stuffed it directly in mom’s cage without mom having to slow. (Not that slowing was an issue; Kristen Cervati would go on to win the Sport Women’s category.)

I haven’t looked forward to a movie this much since “Toy Story 2.” Check it out.

(It’s another 47 days, btw.)