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fallenraffe · 1 year ago

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25. Wildcat (Mavericks Tackle Love #1) by Max Monroe (3.5*)

3.5 stars

MCs: Quinn + Cat

POV: dual

Quinn Bailey the man that you are

this book was half meh / half awesome, with a pinch of chapters that randomly started off with a summary of the previous chappy, like why? - but honestly knowing that it's two authors makes perfect sense💀

tbh after the first 17% / 2 hours it was a chore to pick this back up, but I'm glad I did, cos it ended up producing some pretty fun scenes, once things started going

it gets spoilery from here, so beware

some of the highlights include:

× all the sports related stuff, sometimes sports romances only touch on the sport here and there, but this book gave us a lot of practices, gym sessions, team bonding and game moments + fan interactions, tabloids and QB on insta and q frankly I ate it all up, this is the sorta stuff I wanna see in my sports romances, not just an obligatory mention of it every hundred pages or so

× QB everyone, the guy was such a cinnamon roll, but he also knew how and when to take charge, he fuckin carried this book on his big, handsome back

× the cat references on insta & irl, their date to the painting shop, the painting he did of the two of them with the backdrop of a times square that's littered with cat puns, eating maccyDs in the car wash, doing a 6 hour back & forth flight just to be in the same death trap as your crush, said crush returning the favor & visiting you at the arena, Cat surprising QB at their game in his jersey (no.9 baby), letting him know she's all in and the guy finding his play mojo and quinching that victory in the last 15s with a 32 yard TD, when he spent the past 4 quarters playing like shit & eating dirty cos he was heartbroken, helping her over the railing after the game and smooching in front of everyone then declaring his love on espn right there on the field, moving in together and hanging her paintings in their new home, creating her a workspace, just chefs fuckin kiss all of it

I could start listing the not so great, but I'm not gonna waste my time on it, (tho the BJ scene and the lead up was😭💀) I found that the good stuff made up for the not so great and it was worth wading thru, cos the highs were really high

was I the only one waiting for a Casey & Danver meet up? they would've made a 🔥duo

so yeah, this stumbled a bit, but then it also served, I'm gonna round down, but the good bits were 4/5 star material

excited for Sean and Six's story

PS.: Cat Wild is a 🔥 name for a protag, and Q.B. for the quarterback? get outta here😂 loved QB & his wild kitten

(ax2

narrators were great💜)

#2024 #Wildcat #Mavericks Tackle love

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thewheelieweirdclub · 2 years ago

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West Coast Mish

It had been a hot minute between biking missions. My knee had finally recovered from the buggery that was the Tassie Trail, and the iconic duo had a 4 day window in April, booked in months prior. What we were going to do with those 4 day was undecided until just a few days before. As mentioned previously planning is not our strong suit.

The Tarkine in the North West has been an alluring destination since I found out what it was. Australia’s largest temperate rainforest, home to Huon Pine and Tasmanian devils. I thought ‘what better way to soak up its beauty than ride through it’. Logistically this was going to be challenging as I wasn't keen on another hardcore bike packing trip just yet (the naughty knees were recovered, but probably not up to that kind of spanking). So it was decided we'd drive to Corinna, leave the car there, ride our roadies up to Arthur River, take on the 160km Tarkine loop, then ride back to Corinna the next day...easy right?

Let me preface this by saying this was a hilarious yet completely disastrous trip and literally nothing went to plan. Although in order for things to not go to plan there has to be a plan, of which there wasn't, so I guess that kinda checks out? or is that too many double negatives?

Day 1.

Big day ahead, so we meet at Sophie’s abode in Hobart at 5am, and after a few bike rack malfunctions we hit the road (not before a cheeky MaccyDs breaky). We're beyond excited to see what fuckery we get up to, and are chomping at the bit to get our butts on those bikes. Alas just out of New Norfolk Sophie’s bonnet starts emitting a kind of green hazy smoke (bugger). Concocting a new plan, I uber back to Hobes and pick up my car, swing around and head back to New Norfolk to pick up a Sophie, who has dutifully unloaded her car. We ditch her car and get back on the road... a mere 3 hours behind schedule, mind you. It was here that Sophie came up with the phrase that would be the theme of the trip, 'adapt and overcome.' Too bad I couldn't remember it for love nor money...

We picked an arbitrary time of 2pm, “As long as we're off by 2pm”. This was completely misguided and a gross underestimation of what the upcoming 110km gravel ride would entail. Now the reader may be asking, why road bikes? Why would someone ride a road bike along an unsealed road in the middle of the Wild West? Roads so filled with corrugations and pot holes, so steep they'd make even the grittiest of gals get off and push? I actually don't have a clue, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

We ride the Fat Man across the Pieman River and pack up the bikes, ready to metaphorically ‘fuck this puppy’. It's here that Sophie and I have our friendships first somewhat terse moment. Whilst Sophie is a stop-and-smell-the-roses kinda gal, I'm more of a let's-get-this-show-on-the-road-STAT kinda gal. Poor Sophie felt pressured by my impatient huffs and sighs, standing there just staring at her waiting for her to do just something, anything! Granted this serves no one, and I learnt a valuable lesson in patience that afternoon. At 2pm we hit the old gravel road and were soon greeted with hill, after hill, after big motherfucking hill. It rained, a lot, but whilst our knicks were sodden, our spirits were not dampened. That was until we did a casual watch check. We had been on the road for just over three hours and we'd covered a meagre 38km and 1400m of elevation (Just your average Kununyi summit). Anyway this realisation had us both in absolute stitches because it was nearing 5pm, about to get dark and we still had nearly 70km to go....big LOL. I don't know what was so funny about this situation, but it was just so classic Sophie and Sammy we could do nothing but laugh. Ever the optimists, we calculated that we had covered the majority of the vert for the day already, so that was a small win.

Sophie's life flashed before her eyes when a suicidal wombat kamikazed out onto the road, she clipped its thicc rump with her front tyre, both lived to tell the tale.

The sun left us, the rain did not, we pumped some classic drum-n-bass and got on with the task at hand. The rest of the day kind of just flew by as they tend to do when you're in the zone, with your best mate, grinding out in a magical part of Tasmania. I mean I think it was magical but it's hard to tell when the sun sets just after 5pm.

We had a few realisations in these hours of grind. 1- That we were heinously remote 2- that we were heinously unprepared (I hadn't thought to bring a jumper or bike lights and neither of us had shoes aside from our bike shoes- WHO DOESN'T BRING SHOES AND A JUMPER TO THE WEST COAST FOR FUCKS SAKE) and 3- "You can't die of exposure if you just keep riding." Anyway, writing this I feel like the ultimate Hubbard, in fact its kind of down right dangerous to behave the way we do. But with each adventure/failure is a lesson learnt, and we're damn lucky to be sitting in our cosy living rooms writing in retrospect about our silliness.

Anyway, 5km out of Arthur River Sophie’s light dies (of course it does), so we're led by the head torch I've borrowed off her that is quickly dimming. We make it into town just gone 10pm, exhausted, exhilarated and excited for a shower (bike packing with a touch of luxury). We're feeling particularly smug too, who needs specific gravel bikes when a roadie can get you 110km through some pretty hairy roads without a single puncture?! ohhhh you sweet silly summer girls, how little did you know…

We eat our slightly grim dehydrated meals and get our butts into bed. We'd booked an Airbnb with two rooms but we're both so obsessed with each other we chose to sleep in the same one.

Day 2.

The OG plan for today was ambitious, and after yesterdays antics, we knew we didn't have it in us to make the 160km Tarkine loop. Despite this being the whole point of the trip, we actually do know where to draw the line sometimes, and decided on a more manageable 70km loop. 5km on our way north, I am blessed with my first ever puncture. First ever! Lucky I had my spirit puncture guide by my side. With her instruction and a few big LOLs, some pissfarting around and an hour and a bit later, I got the job done. Back on the road we go, and by this time our motivation for even 70km had seriously waned and our smugness over our lord roadies was diminishing. The constant rain and grit from yesterday had coating our chains in cement, leaving the bikes and riding feeling horrendous. We set our sights instead on the beautiful town of Marrawah, a mere 10km away (oh how the mighty have fallen). Marrawah was absolutely stunning, we rolled through some gorgeous greenery down to the beach and set up shop for some lunch. The sun even graced us with her presence and I decided a non negotiable nude swim was on the cards. We tootled down to the end of the beach where we stripped from our stinky knicks and dashed into the surf, no better feeling. After another prolonged lunch break we'd earned a stout at the local. All in all a minuscule day of riding, but I guess it's not about the distance covered but instead- the good times (of which there were many).

This got us back to our accommodation at a fairly early time. Neither of us are able to sit still for any amount of time, therefore it was decided now would be the perfect time to learn to twerk via some YouTube videos. I'll spare you the details but we'd best stick to being health professionals/bike riders because Beyonce aint calling us up any time soon.

Day 3.

The day to end all days. We set the alarm for 5am knowing that we had a gravelly gritty day ahead. We were out the door pre 6am, which for my Sophie girl is a rapid turn around and I was ever so proud.

With the sun rising after 7, we had a blissful hour of night riding which was a supremely pleasant experience. Dead quiet sealed roads while the sun rose over the somewhat barren west, was a dreamy start to the day. We soaked up those 30km knowing that would be the last road for a while, with the rest of the day entailing the aforementioned gravel beast…

The first hills came quickly while we made bets on how many cars we would encounter that day, I think I went with 4 and Sophie 7. The first of these cars was some kind of zooped up lift kitted 4WD filled with tweens drinking XXXX. They were baffled but appeared completely delighted at happening upon these two loony gals. Poor Sophie was a tad behind on a particularly piggish hill and was bombarded with question after question from these boys (as they drove next to her going 7km/hr) on what we were doing here and did we want a lift and were we SURE we didn’t want a lift?!!? Sophie also got offered a coldie, which at 8am on a 14% incline was an easy but respectful decline. Off they hooned and Sophie was one closer to winning today’s car bet.

Not far into the grav section and both Sophie’s front AND back breaks start failing… fuck. This is not an ideal situation as the road was incredibly undulating and as one can imagine rather terrifying without a mechanism to stop yourself. Ever the optimist sophie decides that the best way to stop is to drag a foot along the ground and then worst come to worst yeet herself off into the bushes. This goes incredibly poorly, she hits a particularly techy patch and with no way to slow down hits a large rock and does herself a cheeky burst puncture. She dutifully changes the tyre whereby she pinches the next inner going in, and has to do the whole thing over again. Good lesson learnt. We whip out a bag of Percy Pigs (all the way from England, thank you Sally-Anne Malone you’re a true god send). I wonder if anyone’s ever eaten Percy pigs on the west coast of Tasmania before? And off we roll once more!

Both of us are feeling physically very good, legs are fresh and we’re keen to make it back to the car in good time. However we start mumbling about the mechanical issues, and at what point we need to start thinking a little more seriously about safety. We laugh and decide we’ll keep going “until the next mechanical.” “The next mechanical” was a mere 3km down the road whereby I get my first puncture for the day. This wasn’t a serious enough mechanical so we laughed it off, changed the damn thing and away we went. About 30 minutes later I got another flat, ya kidding me right now? I checked to make damn well sure there wasn’t anything stuck in the tyre, patched the flat because at this point we were long out of spare inners and off we set…again. Alas, the road had other plans, and a few kilometres later I had ANOTHER flat. Did I mention it’s pissing with rain, and as I’m trying to patch repair this one it’s getting wetter and increasingly more difficult for the sticky patch to adhere, I pinch puncture it again on the way back in (turns out I also still have a bit to learn). By this point a few more cars have passed us, we have 35km to go and have started to have more serious chats about what the fuck to do. Our patch repairs are not holding, and therefore I’m left with a nonfunctional bike. Neither of us are quitters but the option at present is to start walking the 35km or to get the thumb out and hitch. Eventually we agree to say at the same time we’ll try and get a hitch. And lucky enough half an hour later a Ute and a shiny looking car with Melbourne plates stops. We chuck our bikes in the Ute and the kind Melbourne people lay a tarp across the back seats for us (we look a bloody state by this point). And just like that we’re back in Corinna.

Wowee what a journey! Not what we set out to do but my god it was an adventure. You can get hung up on achieving your goals but then anything else can be viewed as a failure. And when I look back at this trip I don’t think of failure, I think of hectic times in the wilderness just figuring it all out with my pal. We learnt a lot about gear, safety, resilience and the power of a positive attitude. We stuck together, made decisions together and had a metric fuck tonne of fun together…mission accomplished.

ADDIT: you’ll be pleased to know since the writing of this blog both authors have invested in gravel bikes. HOLD TIGHT.

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