Flagstaff, June 21 & 23

I rode in Flag last weekend. Beckie had a conference, a free hotel, and a need for a babysitter. Thurs afternoon and Sat afternoon were mine to ride, the rest of the time split between hanging out with G at the hotel, sponging food off the conference, and some work.

the goal for Thursday was to ride Jedi as part of a big Elden loop, and make it back to the hotel by 6:30 so Beckie could get to dinner. i was going to climb Schultz en route to Ricochet on Saturday, so I figured this time for variety I’d take the steeper shorter route up Rocky Ridge to Lower Brookbank. i knew that would suck, but it really sucked worse than I remembered. so much summer powder on the trail i was getting totally bounced around on Rocky Ridge, which I thought was pretty easy last time I had done it. I let a little air out of my tires on the way up Brookbank, continued to suffer, and was at the bottom of Hobbit Forest in about an hour. i love Hobbit Forest but again its a different trail in powder. Last year at Rancho Relaxo II i got the whole thing but one spot climbing, this year it was like I’d never seen a rock before.

“wow, i’m out here from the midwest, we dont have anything like this here. Like this rented Specialized?” said by tourist as he\she wipes blood from elbows.

that is what I felt like anyway, except for the blood. Some days you’re just not riding so well, better to accept it than fight it. a well-deserved break after 7 miles and 1:15 of climbing, then down Hobbit Forest, down Little Bear will cure any feelings of inadequeacey. A deer or something about that size bolted off the trail right in front of me, i really got into carving the turns, and then after skidding out on one I realized I had a pinch-flat…letting the air out on the climb…it figured.

I had fallen off my pace to get back in time for Beckie and also hit Jedi (3:30 hr), so I tried to decide if I should bail or hit the road to save time or what? I was having such a disappointing ride from a skills perspective, I really needed the newness of Jedi as a pick-me-up. So, whatever, Beckie could wait a little…I waited for her to get on the road earlier this morning, compromises had to be made! Going up Little Gnarly and i was feeling all that climbing and it hurt, but figured if I was standing my girl up I damn well better be riding and not pushing, and soon enough Little Gnarly topped out in Dry Lake Hills and I made my way to Jedi based on some guidance from a rider earlier in the day (thanks bro!). At first it was pretty ho-hum, mostly flat with an ocassional log obstacle. They were constructed and had 1-2 feet up\down each, but were pretty easy. i started to get a better feel for these types of obstacles which I never get to hit, and that was quite fortunate cause soon enough a genuine tester appeared. It went 3-4 feet up by means of a thin – maybe 6-8 inch wide – board propped up against the obstacle. First time I went up tentatively, and got up top ok but off balance with no momentum, which led to an awkward get-out. Next time I went back and focused and zero’d in on the board…up, over, down…sweet! The trail got much harder as it traversed and descended back around to Little Gnarly. I got all the downs but some of the up-slope obstacles i passed on; i was alone, loose conditions, end of the day…it was the smart move.

Back down on Schultz I flew down, flew down 180 into town and called beckie to learn she had left all of G’s clothes at home, so was at Target, buying G a new wardrobe including swimming pants for about $35…its nice to be a tinyHuman. Back to the hotel!

That night, Friday, and Saturday am I got to spend lots of quality time with G. We swam, hiked, played, and she helped me clean my bike. After the conference ended and we checked out, it was back to the base of Elden for another ride. Again Beckie ran with G, this time I was exploring a new route up Schultz, Weatherford, then Ricochet to Supermoto.

Schultz was a fun, slow climb up for 4 miles until intersecting with the road and the Schultz Tank parking lot. I found Weatherford, and this is where the exploring began. On the map, Weathorford looked to be about 2 miles and 800 feet up, and that was basically the deal. What the map didn’t show was how loose the trail would be…it was 30 minutes of mostly unredeeming blue-color work, a long grind to the top. There were a few moments of nice passages through lines of trees, but mostly I gave a sigh of relief when I got to the National Forest boundary and the turnoff.

A quick downhill with some whoopdees, then a mostly-hidden turn onto the much-ballyhooed Ricochet. Ricochet did not disappoint; it was tight and twisty singletrack through the woods with an ample helping of rock obstacles, staircases, and log obstacles. Not a lot of elevation change, but a gradual downhill over a great variety of challenges. I faced another BIG log crossing, and was pleased to see myself making improvements on each tough challenge — hit it hard, go up with confidence, find the line down before you crest the top. Ricochet ended too soon, but with some map help and instructions I quickly found more sweet singletrack on the Secret trail lower down the ridgeline.

Secret was not quite as technical, but still had its share of short, hard ups and a few technical downs. More log obstacles as well. There was one giant one not long after a hard, fast up. I was just barely recovered as I rolled up on it, but was feeling good about my prior success and figured “all the others have been well built…just hit it strongly and look for the line down!” Turns out the log on the downside had a giant rotted hole in the center. I did such a good job spotting the far side when I came over the top, I saw that gap the whole way as it swallowed my wheel. Fortunately I reacted enough to pull back and just have a bad sideways dismount — a prong to the groin from the saddle, but otherwise a damn good save.

Secret gave way to Supermoto, which had been the talk of mtbr for the season. It lived up to the hype and then some. The top half was flowing tech riding over a rock strewn lava field. The slope was perfect, and for 2 miles you worked the bike around all manner of rocks large and small to earn every few yards. It then opened up into a swooping, track-like downhill to the bottom of the mountain. Probably the best run end-to-end I’ve done yet in Flag. Except I got lost by heading right and not left at the bottom and came out on the wrong side of a neighborhood. i worked back to the Rt. 180 and a couple mile spin out back on the road. i can totally handle that with the payoff being the rest of the ride. Can’t wait to go back again this summer after some rains wash the trails.

buying a car

This happened like a month ago, and it took me about 5 times longer to write this entry than it actually took to buy the car.

We’d been hemming over buying a commuter car for 2-3 weeks. So about 10:30 on a Saturday morning and with half a mind, I cruised some carmakers websites and wrote down some numbers. The pattern of cost-quality-mpg was so clear and unsurprising, it really deserved only an hour of research. At the bottom end you get good mileage for a shitbox that is terrifying on Phoenix’s highways for about 16k. In the middle is a Corrolla with better quality but low-end interior and the front of the downward curve for mileage for about 21k. At the the top you get a good-but-not-great mileage nicer car like the Acura TSX, aka Honda Accord wid bling. Or for a little less you get a hybrid Civic or Prius, its shitbox feel with great mileage, and you get to save the planet.

So I thought, anyway, and was intending to buy the Honda Civic, which would be the best of the hybrid shitboxes for less than the Prius. Then we drove a Prius and it was not such a bad ride, nowhere near the Acura, but nice(er) then the Corolla ever was. Compared to the Civic, just on paper it was clearly 4th gen from-the-ground-up design over the Civic’s converted-design v1. And the hatchback would let me fit a bike without a rack (or so I thought, but for yon babyseat), while the Civic didnt even have drop seats cuz that’s where the hybrid equipment sits. It still seemed too pricey for the ride, which while better than the Corolla was not 8k better, since the interior was still cheap-feeling. So, its all about the mileage…that is where the money went. 50% better at least than the Corolla, or $500/year for gas at $3/gallon. 10 years to be a good purchase stricly on value, with today’s gas prices. Assuming gas goes up…its a good purchase.

While we went shopping for value, we both also really wanted to buy a hybrid. Even though the value was there, it would take years to see it, and it felt strange and moronic and extremely unsatisfying being willing to pay an 8k hybrid premium, most especially since the car was so ridiculous unsexy. If there had been a luxury hybrid…not some bloated landyacht like Lexus makes that still only gets mid-20’s…but a Prius-like efficiency with the boob-job of the Acura, we would have bought it. It would have probably cost around 38k, and that is a big ticket for what is still a small and relatively humble ride. But its the same premium you pay to get the “green Corolla XT”.

I hope there a lot of people out there like us, who have enough extra that they can make socially-conscious choices with their wallets. It is the demand from the non-shitbox drivers willing to pay for hybrids that will make a shitbox hybrid as affordable as a plain-old shitbox, and lead to more choices for non-shitbox hybrids, which is what will save the environment and drive political change. The income distribution in our country takes such a steep upslope into the upper middle class, that if you can afford to drive an Acura or a BMW or a Lexus, or a 40k Expedition, you certainly have the financial ability to affect a change with a green choice. Not everyone has that luxury, the moral choice is framed differently when you can afford the premium instead of scraping by on 50k-a-year household income. Which is why we both felt that we should put some money behind our cheap talk about living green and hating Bush and the gen X-white american-suburban sense of entitlement.

After the test drive, and reviewing what the Prius had over the Civic, the decision became so clear that I was ready to buy. What else was there…great value, best-of-breed, and all in under 2 hrs? I am still stunned by my own rapidity. I’ve been burning days researching a 3k bike…I spent an hour just that morning on Yeti’s website, struggling through a 2-year old review of the 575 written in French! I’ve been to soooo many shops looking for test rides, I’ve burned all the gas we’d save in a year with the hybrid. While on paper, this decision made simple sense, it seemed tremendously capricious and irresponsible to buy a car in 2 hours!!!! Salesman X is running around asking about finance rates and prepping the manage, and I tell Beckie we should just buy this thing and be done with it if they knock off some money, the honda is no-way going to be as good, and we’ll have spent time going in circles. And she reacts just like me: dont you think that is irresponsible to buy so fat? and I say yes but its 80% or better we will buy this very car in the end after running in circles at more dealers. Nod…so its time to see if we can get them to move: bring out the baby!

They get it that we arent thrilled with the tan color and not in a rush to buy, and say that they have a nice black one they can offer us, or they will make us a great deal on the dirt-colored one. I really wanted the dirt-coloerd one anyway; its cooler and doesn’t show the dirt. Meanwhile, Genevieve is rolling around on the garage floor and on the edge of a tantrum. Cmon, she’s having a fit and getting filthy, let’s do some research and get back to them later…” And he dropped $1300. Wow! from Toyota! Sold. 2 hrs.

gotta like the look of that plate.

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