We thought it might be fun to get jerseys for our Barn Burner race.   After 2 bikes and many purchases in a year,   shirts from Rage were in order.   Peter offered up some green loaners, he wasn’t sure how I’d feel about his fuschia shirts, but my wardrobe was getting tired   and he made me a   screaming deal.   He’s a smart guy, not about to lose a chance to move 2 of his too many pink jerseys.

I had my doubts, especially riding without baggies, but the brown dog socks added just enough masculinity to my lean kit.   The route wasn’t techy and had opportunities for resupply, so we set up to ride light and fast: saddle bag with a tube and minimal tools, pump strapped to the downtube, bottles in the cage and jerseys. This saved probably 9 lbs from my normally boy-scoutish camelback.   While I felt quite naked and insecure, Beckie   most eloquently suggested we embrace being a couple lycra-wearing XC weenies.

a little team spirit for the Desperate Houselives

since we were sharing the Hei Hei, we had an extra plate

We got to the venue around 7 on Friday, not sure what to expect.   The Red Rock production team picked a really nice spot – easy to park, and concentrated without feeling like a tenement building.   Every spot was relatively close to the center of activity at the barn, and they all offered a great view of Kendrick Mtn.

At packet pickup, the volunteers asked to confirm our registration.   Seeing Beckie holding Alana, me holding Kila, and both of us struggling to contain G, they kinda nodded to themselves as the words slipped out: are you Desperate Houselives?   This pretty well described every moment of the weekend that Beckie or I were not riding, spinning like tops trying to maintain order within our brood.   I’ve never had so much crap on a camping trip, and there are tons of other things we could have used.   We’re buying a bigger tent, dedicating a bag to kitchen gear, and would have been living like savages if our neighbors hadn’t given us a plastic fork.   I thought we were doomed when our venerable Sierra Designs tent from 1995 started leaking at 3am, but despite it giving up after hundreds of nights, we all survived the better for it.   Weekends like this are our future, and that’s kinda why Beckie and I signed up for this in the first place: get on with our lives, or give in to overweight slack-jawed parenthood.

Both G and Alana suffered a little, but they both had a good trip.   Alana got wheeled and carried and napped ensconced in fleece cocoons.   I can only assume being cold and hot and wet and hungry and full and happy again will help her become burly like it has her sister.  G, on the whole, was in heaven.   She went from watching DVDs in the truck to spinning laps on the BMX track in the center of the camping area and back.   For 2 days prior to the trip she kept shouting about us going camping out, and through the muck and cold and lack of comfy chairs, she kept rising up for a new bit of outdoor fun.   Her ever-improving reason led her to complain and want to hide where it was dry and bemoan her food selections.   It also let her choose the right clothes, recognize break-time by her fatigue, and demand comfort food from the over-priced bbq vendor at the end of the race.   While going in the port-o-let, G was aghast at the mud and the unflushed state of affairs.   So I told her, slowly and to the point, sweetheart this is how you have to potty when you go camping.   G is borderline compulsive about the freshness of her bowl, but she sacked up, expressed her displeasure, and took care of business like a responsible little pooper.

Mostly Genevieve did big mileage, just like mommy and daddy.   The BMX track was her epic ride.   She hit it Friday night, Saturday while I was riding, and again while Beckie did her second lap.   She went hard in the straights, high-centered on her training wheels in the rutted turns, and plunged down the table-tops.   I kept thinking she would clutch or steer off, but she is fearless in her willingness to point and shoot.  Once she stalled trying to climb a table-top, and the folks next to the track cheered her on; next time around they had left their campsite and she said “hey, where are all the people?”   The sweetest moment came when she woke up from a nap, immediately began wailing about her broken pedal, and pleaded with me cause “you can fix anything!”   Sure enough, her pedal had spun off the crank!   The Hei Hei survived 106 miles in the slop, the only damage being me losing a gasket while trying to service the muddy headset the next day in the ManCave, but G’s 20lb 12inch bike lost a pedal to the force of a 3-yr old! We went to our neighbors, borrowed a pedal wrench, I was a superhero, and she sweetly returned it with a big “THANK YOU!”

Kids like G, riders warming-up, boys on tiny motorbikes…everyone spun on the bmx track.   And amazingly, everyone was friendly about sharing the trail. It was a good metaphor for the Barn Burner. What it lacked in vendors and spectacle and Q factor, it made up for in chill vibe and family environment.   There was no attitude at all…about the dog, the little girl on the bmx track, the parking, the space, the noise, the passing, the mount line. It felt like everything I like about Flagstaff riding. Maybe it was because Barn Burner is in its first year and could support far more than the ~400 riders who attended, but a lot of credit goes to some smart decisions by the organizers. Red Rock Productions ran a very smooth event. Everything was easy and intuitive, the site spacious and flat, the course was well-marked and well-stocked at good locations, lots of SAG vehicles. Beckie and I both thought on-paper it was a bit pricey at over $150 all-in. And if I looked at the ride on jeep roads, it wasn’t all that exciting. But it was a super-fun time, and if it grows the right way it will become a must-do event and a very good value. We certainly could have made more out of the weekend by planning and equipping for two days where everyone rides again on Sunday!

But at 6am, with a leaky tent and 2 screaming kids, we were one more cloudburst from bailing and heading home.   It just wasn’t responsible parenting.   I peeked my head out of the tent fly to find water pooled on my shoes and creeping mud.   Kila spent the night unleashed and free to fend for herself, and she stumbled with me to the riders meeting.   Thankfully at 6:30 the rain stopped and the sky cleared, and I challenged Beckie to either get her ass up or let me do the first lap.   She rallied, suited up, and did a 2:10 despite a pointless, muddy starting loop around the barn.   This was my only real gripe about the event – it was obvious the roads were good but the ranch wasn’t, no one should be forced to plunge their drivetrain into that shit just for pomp and circumstance.     Yes I have been scarred by muddy AZ races before, but I still spent 3 hours plus parts cleaning the 95% of the crap that got on the bike in .25% of the distance.

Beckie rolled in from her first lap just exactly as me, G and Alana went to meet her.   We lost a few minutes in the exchange as I briefed her on the state of affairs in Family Chollaball, then it was off for 2 laps and 52 miles.

I hadn’t looked at the map, pre-ride shme-ride!   I knew only there were 2 big climbs, and Beckie said the second half was slow.   It must have been, cause I sailed through the first 13 miles of Lap 1 in 40 minutes, then cringed thinking there was about an 1:20 of riding for the next 13 miles.   The only thing I really had time to process was my gawd this bike is fast!   Locked out, and with 38lbs psi, the Hei Hei screams!   The course was also extremely fast.   It was all jeep roads, but some were rugged and rutted.   A fast single-track line formed through most of the chum, making the route surprisingly fun if you held the line at speed.   The big wheels of the Hei Hei frequently took me into 20s+ big ring mania, passing people on the climbs and the descents.   It felt good, really good to be fast and feel strong, but I knew I was maybe 20% into my ride.

Right past halfway, we hit a climb that seemed pretty big though I was still turning the wheels hard.   Cleaning the peak launched into a fantastic screaming downhill that had me howling and hooting, my gps read 32.2 mph when I was last able to glance down before drifting through a turn and narrowly avoiding putting the bike down.   The road turned rocky as we came to the base of the mountain, but the Hei Hei let me shoot it all.   Leaning off the back seat, I grinned at how fast and steady and exactly as I’d built it the bike turned out to be.   And being a tech rider in an XC race is always good for the ego as you blow by riders used to buff terrain.

One big climb remained, it was about 2 miles and 800 feet.   I just rolled into it, not knowing much beyond looking towards one of the feet of the mountain and my gps and repeating to myself that it had to end soon, it had to end soon, though it just kept refusing to do so.   And then I crested, and   hit about 35 plunging back to the barn, wrapping around and back out for a tidy 1:55 moving time!!   Woohoo!

The next lap suddenly became kinda important to me…how cool would it be to turn 2 sub-2hr laps?   Ugh…that meant, like, racing for another 2 hrs.   Had I done this solo, I would have been doing laps more like 2:15ish and generally enjoying my music and the forest.   Opportunities came for drafting if I slowed down…which some soloists did to me, and in retrospect, they were all kinda chatty and friendly…i was, er, not.   Nothing personal, I was preoccupied with hammering and eating and trying not to lose focus and trying not to blow up.     It was working pretty well, I was right on my moving split at 12 miles, despite 3 quick stops to retrieve my goo wrapper, fill a bottle and un-suck my chain.   I had 10 minutes to work with between stops and slowing down.

I made the first big climb pretty well, the downhills safer and faster, and was still on time at 18 miles.   This is about where I chose to leave the Quiet Place I’d been hanging out in for the last hour, preparing to shoot my wad and lunge for the finish.   It was really fun, to be at this point in the afternoon, and know that with about 30 minutes of effort and discipline I was going to exceed my goal.   So the last climb did not bother me, it only hurt me and added 3 minutes moving time to my second lap for a 1:58ish finish.   My non-moving time was maybe 4 minutes, so a bit under 4 hrs total. *golf clap*

I rolled to the tent where Beckie was feeding Alana.   So she got tagged with a 10 minute delay, but still managed a 2:10 moving on her second lap.   *golf clap*

Beer was drunk and snacks were had, but regretably, we mostly packed up and left, rather than chill out and find ourselves not wanting to get back up.   Damn! and just as the day got nice   too We’d put the girls through enough abuse for one weekend.   G was very excited to make one last trip to the barn to get a belt buckle for coming in under the cut-off, bragging how fast she rode her bike.   As we loaded the girls into the car Kila for the first time all weekend disappeared; we searched for 10 minutes until we found her begging at the BBQ tent.   Can’t blame her, she too was bummed to leave after the day brightened up.