Last weekend I rode up in Prescott in an underground race called the Prescott Monstercross. The idea was a scavenger hunt-like ride that would take us all over Prescott in search of certain markers. I hooked up with Mike (helimech) and his buds Hari and Tony. They were all strong riders, but leaned more to DH than roadie or XC. I figured we were in for something at least like the Whiskey Offroad – 50 miles and 7500 feet – and the goal of riding as a team was to stick together. So I really was not sure how the day would play out in that regard, and just hoped I could keep up on the downs while helping my team on the ups, and that we’d all just have a good time.

I drove up the night before and crashed at Mike’s place right on Granite Basin — nice. It was much better than driving in the AM, except that I could not sleep to save my life and lay still on my permarest for the better part of 7 hrs so as not to wake the other guys in the room. Up at 5:30 and it was cooooooooooooooooooold. I joylessly power-ate some pasta and eggs. Tony had poptarts and coffee I was jealous – I had forgone coffee and alchohol for the last couple days; the strategy worked for me at Tour de Scottsdale and I wanted to give my body a fighting chance.

It seemed like it wouldn’t warm up as we gathered around the start at 7, but the sun was just inching up over the peaks and Dave (ionsmuse) fortunately had the race start on a big climb. There were about a dozen or so people, I didn’t really know anyone, and had only ridden once each with Hari and Mike. Everyone was pretty subdued and groggy in the chilly morning. Mike and Hari knew the area, so reviewed the map of Prescott with hints and markers to all the checkpoints, and we lazily rolled up the hill out of the campsite and on our way.

We started with a 2500 foot climb in the first 5.5 miles. it hurt — nice trail actually, I really enjoyed it, and would have gone for it harder if I wasn’t staring at another 9 hrs of riding. One guy Fixgeardan followed me up for awhile chatting, then decided it was time to drop me and he shot off to the top — friggin locals and their rare-air-n-mountain acclimation . By the time we got to the top, the fire watch station on Spruce Mountain, we had lost all thoughts of being cold.

Here was our day, profile and 3d map:

The top was the first checkpoint, and we had to follow some clues to find a book…yes, an old paperback in a sandwich bag…buried somewhere nearby. Finding these things turned out to be hard, scrambling in bike shoes, and sticking our hands into cracks and cactii. there were no flags or strobe lights to make finding these easy. After about 30 min, Mike came up with the loot, which managed to tip off the other teams up there scrambling around in circles with us. As if 4 grown men in bike shirts rolling around in the dirt was not goofy enough, there were 3 others and the sense of competition as well. But it was fun, silly fun, and it quickly became apparent that none of us much cared about winning and were all out to have a good time. Very cool. We mostly hung around each other for the next hour or so on the same routes, until we went our various ways. It made the day much more fun to run into some now-friends along the way, and the party that much easier to get to know everyone a bit and break the ice. I met Chad, whom I had talked to a bit on MTBR, and Scott and Paula. Scott turned out to be the writer of Topofusion, which I had been doing occasional QA for in exchange for using the program, and it was nice to finally meet him as well.

At the second checkpoint an hour or so in, Chad was having problems with flats, he was out of C02 and no pump. Since he was alone, I lent him mine. Big mistake. We shot off down trail 307, a fun chunky descent with logs and plenty of loose rocks. I was being a total pussy on the Blur for the first 5 minutes, pining for the Heckler. then the pressure to keep up forced me to remember the 50 times i had the Blur on National and all the other crazy shit its taken me through. this is how married men who have long-term affairs must feel, disoriented a little in the dark trying to remember who’s name to call or who likes it stuck where. I tried to just ride more and think less, and wasn’t losing too much ground to the team, when I almost endo’d off a little drop and realized the mistake was because I was losing air in the rear. Earlier in the week, I had replaced my nobby tires with some fast XC ones, and my rear tire had been sitting in the garage for several years. my team of DHrs might as well have been on another planet as much as around the next bend — they were gone! The rear wheel was a 2-yr old Mavic 819 that had lost its tubelessicity 6 months ago. now its weld had turned into an exposed bump of metal, and I pinch flatted 2 tubes when I switched out tires earlier in the week. my new wheels from Adventure, quite literally, could not come soon enough. Grrrrrrrrrrrr…I knew it! stupid stupid stupid compromises for speed. shit this could be bad! Then Chad showed up, gave me back my pump, and thankfully the tire went back on without incident. It all happened so fast I didn’t want to stop and think about it to jinx myself. In retrospect, a regular tire did not compress the tube on the old rim, only the abundant and useless supply of USTs in my garage did. But now the mantra about flats and old tires was stuck in my head, along with less than the 40psi I wanted, so I had that to think about for the rest of the day.

Back on the descent, I just tried to roll easy and get my rhythm back and hope my team would not be fidgeting waiting for the slow, no balls, closet-roadie busy picking sand out of his vagina. Where’s your Heckler now, tuff guy?!?! I caught the guys pretty quick, and in my surprise to see them on the trail just a bit ahead of me, slopped into a rut in the trail and did a stupid low-speed ball-wracker on the stem. Where’s your Heckler now, tuff guy?!?! For a moment I felt like the first point at Daweena in 2001 when i picked up with Sockeye and won it; I had not loosened up the knee and back enough, and first point I doinked a goal over my head in the endzone then proceeded to throw two turnovers…all in my first point, with a bunch of guys who had played in multiple Finals at Nationals. Fortunately, the guys were all in a marathon-mindset, and I had established enough cred going up the hill that it was all good. I received only some mild and well-earned slander, much like at Daweena whereafter i did not make a turn the rest of the tourney. hopefully this would play out as well.

We then descended out the easy part of the trail, and a good 6 miles into town. The road downhill was fast fast fast, and I was hitting the mid-30s with my fast tread. I wasn’t even pedaling hardly, and it made me feel better about being the slow guy on the descents — that is most definitely not the case for me on the roadie. so i sat back and enjoyed the ride. Turns out we would do so much road and hardpack that my tires were about as optimal for this day as could be from here on out, as long as they stayed turgid much like my mojo. we fell into roles where I led most of the time on the pavement, Mike with his big 29r was close behind, and Tony on his Superlight and Hari riding his 575 brought up the rear. Chad was rolling with us for a stretch here, and i heard that his maps blew out of his pack near the top of the road descent. Tony apparently thought to himself as he flew by…hmmm, those look like they belong to someone, wonder if i should stop, err…too late. We felt a little guilty about it, but felt better when we heard Scott sailed by the maps and gave Chad the blowoff as well. tough crowd, not a lotta love in this room.

Mike wanted to take a short break in a local park, and riding through town was the nicest Fall I have experienced since New Jersey. Green yards, leaves in brilliant colors…but the thing that really got me was the smell of leaves on the ground and burning leaves in the air. It just dropped me right back on the East Coast…walking back to the dorms after Ultimate practice, as a kid in the yard playing kickball, getting out of the car on a fall night in high school…all sorts of random memories the smell and Fall air unleashed. It was a great relaxer-n-recharger to just trip out for awhile and flow with old sensations after the first 20 miles and 2+ hrs of riding. and use an actual toilet in the park.

The chill vibe was a good thing for me, as we hung in the park longer than I would have liked, then cruised slowly over to a burrito shop. Tony actually bundled up 2 burritos into his pack and carried them for about the next hour and some change. I was into the team thing and the group ride-geist, mentally i was totally cool for it, but viscerally i was antsy and wanted to keep riding. Oh well, no worries, beautiful day, dance with who ya brung, in for a penny in for a pound, blah blah blah. After town, we did about another 10 road miles across town. I tried to get the guys to draft, but it was harder than herding cats, drafting is a dirty word to DHrs. Willingness aside, our speeds were just too different, and our cadences were simply not matching . Mike was strong and steady, but mostly in his own rhythm. Tony was behind me and I never did figure out his riding vibe, and Hari was strong but slow on his big bike and big nobs. i believe I could have helped everyone by pulling, but my comfort speed was so much faster that it would have tired me out to slow down. As the day went on, being the beneficiary of many short breaks to let the guys catch up probably helped me. Eventually we hit the next trailhead, more flailing, then about 1 easy mile on route 308 to checkpoint 7. then our day sucked for awhile.

We rolled around in the dirt and the needles for almost an hour looking for the book. We looked under every tree within 50 yards of the trail, we went up the hill, down the hill, on both sides…each one of us read those damn hints at least 10 times, recited em to ourselves as we paced off 60 feet here and Dave’s “imaginary 100 yards” there — i musta set up 100s of ultimate fields, and there is no way this rock slot was 100 yards up the trail! nor does it look like a rock slot?? Dave is i believe more enduro than technical, but he’s not that soft!!!!

we were getting a little cranky.

look under this one, and that one, and all these. take a picture of all of em and MAKE DAVE TELL US!

we quite literally went in circles, for want of – in retropsect – a cheap compass. turns out I think my forerunner would have worked for that, turns out Dave trusts his compass watch, turns out Mike only fixes helicopters and thankfully doesn’t fly em, turns out years of video gaming and trusting your instincts on visual cues from cheat-websites rather than specific information as-per-written was no match for our fixatedness that a certain direction was north when the other direction had an actual rock slot 100 yars away…fuck if I know. Back at camp we heard Scott found it rather easily, trapsing over an area Hari and I picked through but in the back of our minds were convinced could not possibly be right. fuck if i know. it got completely tragicomic when this group of out-of-shape dads and their kids come riding through and are sessioning the scratch of rock we had been searching around. fuck it let’s go!

i had some searching weed and felt much better. the other guys had burritos and felt much better. we rolled on through Granite Basin, and within a mile the flowy, engaging trail put a giant smile back on my face.

We rode maybe 10 miles of this, up and down it was tons of fun. I was behind Hari for a while and it was fun to watch him move his bike and try to learn a few things just by imitating and getting his rhythm. It made the time go by, but it got harder and harder to recover from the little sprints the trail required. We were all feeling it, still frustrated, trying to hammer on to one more check point. We passed Scott flying down the hill, happy as a clam with his big descent and seeing us looking testy. We told him about our failures, he mentioned a similarly fruitless excavation at checkpoint 6, where we were headed. not exactly inspirational words. Somewhere in here I turned off the wrong fork while Mike and Tony were ahead and Hari behind. I think I went down about a half mile hill…lots of shouting, a minor panic, some extra climbing a reward for an-otherwise fun descent. Hari was getting frustrated…we all were. and right around now when things got hard it became a team thing. and I dug it, I’ve been here a lot and am good at it, there is not enough team sport in biking sometimes. I think i picked Hari up, not really saying much, just saying yup let’s stay upbeat, that extra climb wasn’t nothing, and commiserating that we were all closing in on the switch to survival mode. team is a funny thing; its such a great thing when nothing + nothing equals a lot. i miss ultimate.

Checkpoint 6, we were a surly bunch from the start. again directions that were accurate but what makes sense to one person not always to another. but we did try to learn from our mistake and stop thinking about the words and instead picture the meaning. We found “the bush in the center of the open area” and fairly well clawed at the ground around it. One problem we had is that neither of the other 2 books were buried, and Mike found both so had a feel of what to look for. Buried does not mean sprinkler-hose buried to people who do not dig — it means like a fistful of sand tossed over a pile of dog crap til it dries out. no one digs voluntarily in the crap out in Arizona!! Fortunately being pissed off and tired of digging had inspired me to hack somewhat angrily at the ground with a big stick, and one swipe had revealed the corner of a baggie. WOOHOO! the mood changed instantly. never have 4 straight dudes been so happy to see an Erica Jong novel.

NB: I heard another book was Hamlet,and I wish i had checked the two Mike had found, and regretably forgot the next book we found. Dave’s humor extended to making us unearth the classics, the leftist heroes, the post-modern masterpieces for the intelligentsia…he quite easily could have picked up dime copies of Danielle Steel for his thrift store books, but I noticed the Jong novel was at least .$50 — this library was carefully selected!! he should have printed a list it would have made great conversation fodder for around the campfire. Was there a method to what was buried where? Did the furthest out checkpoint that no one reached contain Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil? The Hamlet-“to be or not to be” goofily resonated for the rest of the day. I had lots of time to ponder this during the long road stretches to follow.

Cultural disinterested, but extremely reinvirgorated! I will freely admit I was psyched i found the book, not in a bragging way cause gawd knows we were a bunch of fools that day, but again in a team-way i was psyched that i was able to pick up my team and myself, and we needed it then. it always sounds hackneyed, and i have now realized because it is just that simple. all the HR luvfests in the world can not capture what happens when you expose yourself by trying very hard at something with others likeminded. Hari busted out an energy drink, we passed it around.
We shot out of checkpoint 6 down a wonderful swoopy tight downhill. I hung on to Hari and had a blast. Until the last hard climb, where i gutted it out behind Tony and off the trail. A tedious mile and a half uphill on the road, then onto one last checkpoint. This one we found almost immediately, it was in my “sector” to dig in (we had a plan by now, mind you), and after so much struggle with the others we were almost giddy with how fast we got this one.

5 miles or so on the road into town, getting strung out, reconvening for a team gatorade at a convenience store. More town miles, and it got to be about 4:25 or so when we reached route 69 and about 10 miles til the end. Mike and I quickly dropped Hari and Tony, and in the back of my mind I thought it might be important that one of us got back by 5. I don’t really know why I thought this, much less cared, but probably for the same silly reason we had ridden all day for find some old paperbacks. I think what i really wanted an excuse to go fast and one last challenge against the clock, i was feeling the finish, and i wanted to leave it on the field. On my roadie I think I could have made the 10 miles in 35 minutes, but it took me closer to 50 on the Blur. The whole return was a slow steady grind, scary roads in some places and just tedious afterward. the sun was setting in the trees, my body was empty, and i was starting to get a chill. made it back to the camp before any further demoralization or fatigue really set in, but i definitely shot my wad in that last stretch…as it should be at the end. It was definitely a big day, but i wasn’t as bad as after some other enduros. I think all the stopping had a lot to do with it, but the cameraderie counted for something too. And with each of these i get better at taking care of myself ahead of time, and during.

We hung around the campfire and had some beers and some laughs, i was unwound so don’t much recall the details other than some very good people that i’ll enjoy hooking up with the next time around. Then a somewhat-faded haul back to Phoenix and B & G & K.

Final stats:
57.11 miles
6:44 moving time
7618 climbing
pack weight at start – just about 18 lbs with camera and 2 extra litters

mmmm….beer