the story behind the photo

back in 2000 i worked at a company for a short time that was run by "co-presidents". one of these presidents had a side project called MetroManUSA
of course i went to the site to check it out, had many, many laughs and then sent the link to everyone i knew. it was just way too funny to keep to myself.
i shared the link with eric and together we laughed and laughed. we laughed at the mitch , we laughed at the rocky, the jason and well, you get the picture. we liked that each one had its own name and we looked up everyone we knew. we especially laughed when we saw the dale and how patriotic it was (and currently sold out!). eric races with a guy named dale and it instantly became a big joke with us that we would get the dale and give it to him. it was just something we only talked about, until ERIC ORDERED IT!!!
it showed up at the house, from snohommish, they hand signed the packing slip with a little smiley face. eric took it to south seatac park for the wednesday night races there and put it up as the prize to whoever happened to win that night.
mid race eric was too anxious, stopped in the middle of the woods somewhere, stripped down and tossed on the dale. apparently when the real dale pedaled past erics clothes in the woods he said in his very dale voice "atwood's naked" which wasn't 100% true - he had on the dale. he did a few laps, had a great time and discovered that mountain biking in a g-string is not comfortable at all. he then poseded for a few photos and then put his clothes back on. he tied the soiled dale to the real dale's seat post and we have never seen it since.
i, of course was at home, probably pregnant and miserable. as soon as he walked in the house he said to me "before you hear it from someone else...." and then told me about his stellar race. its all in good fun. i can't remeber though if this was before or after he had his picture taken while posing like a sports illustrated swimsuit model in his pink speedo.
really, he is very manly.