Happy "Too Fat for Love" Day!

"Too Fat for Love" wasn't so much a Pittsburgh tradition as it was something we traditionally talked about.

We love bikes, none of us had girlfriends, and, mostly, Valentine's sucks. The plan was this: Valentine's weekend, ride 20 miles to Cici's Pizza in Robinson, Pennsylvania, gorge ourselves on their $3.99 "pizza" buffet and salad bar, then ride home. This was how we'd celebrate the "holiday."

Girls suck, Valentine’s sucks more, the $3.99 "pizza" buffet rules. The name was appropriately inspired by Steve K.'s love for Motley Crue.


"Too Fat for Love" 2009.

The Saturday evening before Valentine's, me, Steve, and Brad "Urban Velo" Q. rode out of the busy city and into the busier suburbs, psyched for pizza, hating on girls, bellies ready. We flew through traffic on busy, suburban roads where cyclists are rarely seen and probably never on February evenings. It was a typical Pittsburgh winter night, cold and damp, perfect for a ride.

We met a few friends in Robinson who'd wimped out and drove. We smuggled beers in and toasted them under the table in soft drink cups while families around us gorged themselves, our Valentine's muse their going out to eat with the family on a Saturday night. To justify the trip in terms of us being "healthful" cyclists we each ate at least a plate of salad from the salad bar and slices of "desert" pizza -- desert pizza has apples on top.

After, we rode home, bloated and buzzed, decked out in blinky lights.

That was two years ago ... today-ish.

Ben and I celebrated "Too Fat for Love 2011" last night at Jersey Boy's pizzeria in Whitefish. We walked; I'd ridden 45 miles earlier in the day. Two veggie slices and a beer was $8. There was no salad bar.

The scenery's changed and some friends have moved on, but the feelings are still mostly the same: Girl's are still a pain, Valentine's will always suck, pizza rules, always has, always will.

Happy "Too Fat For Love" Day! Keep the tradition alive.