i am tired. i did not want to ride much, but have to cram in whatever i can Tues and Wed cause we are traveling again this weekend. did i mention i was tired? and bloated and unmotivated and still possibly hungover, behind at work, behind on fixing things, i am even somehow behind on Heroes as it went from Season 2 Episode 1 to Episode 9 fuck fuck fuck!

i am determined to take advantage of the weather, my work locale while it lasts, and to break up horrible workdays with riding when i know the workday will be horrible. G helped me buff the scrapes in my fork stanchion this AM, and not much to her displeasure, so the Heckler was ready to go.

On the trail by 3:40 not bad, armored up because now i have em and feel like i gotta use em, and a bit ornery. i just didn’t exactly want to hit National again. after a ride where you take your falls but learn stuff, sometimes its better to fall somewhere else to let all the learning sink in. Up Javalina steadily and began to clear my head, at which point i decided what i really needed was to stretch myself on Geronimo. cool, some excitement and challenge to fire me up, put some of these skills to use and make baking in these pads worth the climb. What a great idea!

What a terrible idea! I hadn’t been on Geronimo in 2.5 years since coming back from Moab in ’05 all sharp and skilled. Yeah i knew on paper it was just a tad harder than National and i was a far better rider on a far better bike, but what kind of idiot feeling sluggish just on a lark rides a DH trail by himself in fading light when no one knows where he is going?

the kind of idiot needing motivation and a scare, to force himself into improving. So that was the theme for the next hour as I worked up Mormon and up National. I committed to my lifts, and got all but the very last tiny lift on the Upper Waterfall in one stretch (and i get that all the time, i was just tired and didn’t fight hard enough flush with my success thus far). I thought about calling Beckie or Byron so someone would know where i’m going, but that seemed annoying, and after a short stop at the saddle above BV to put my sunglasses away, too much effort to dig out the phone again.   the pressure was good.

So off i went, and it was not bad. It was easier than i remember, and while i was a far better rider on a far better bike, i tried to just get comfortable and not let fear even creep in. when the comfort zone expands, the fear stays out, and riding gets easy. but sometimes you have to fake it, and more importantly, sometimes you have to practice and earn it. this was good practice, and fun. i just rolled in control and stayed off the left brake if it killed me. though not as fun as National – it rolls and creeps, down mild slots and staircases, but nothing really ass-over-the-back-of-your-seat or freeride fun. its steady with some challenges and switchbacks, and at the end its a long stretch of rockface best not to stop let alone fall, as you will skid down the rock slots, but i handled it all well. i never really let it rip cause i was on a DH trail by myself in fading light when no one knew where i was going, but following someone would have been faster for sure — i was comfy! be cool honeybunny. I dabbed on several switchbacks, a combination of riding conservatively and not being sure what was around the next bend, but on the whole a very good job i should likely clean it all next time.

on the ride back i was inspired to work on my yurination:

yurination
— noun

1. stringing together ridiculously local sections of knowledge to avoid cars and have a great ride.
2. a route that assembles aforementioned sections.

Yuri and his pals likely have a better phrase for this, or more tease-worthy uses of this phrase. But until i am so enlightened, it is so dubbed in recognition to the still-warm feeling i have from that fun day and the fine gentleman who put it together, and its continuing mileage as a source of punnery. a back street through the Boy Scout Camp to South Mountain drive to 28th St., then a canal til about 42nd. There is better canaling to do cars were not on the north side near the office, and i think i can get back on Javalina at 46th St…another goal for the next time on this route!

The Heckler and i bonded today. we have bonded before, and surely we will bond again, but today was a big bond.

AzMikey, Cactusjoe, myself, byron and alex. good ride, nothing exceptional, National Up National Down, other than like a blue pill it gives me the great feeling into a great weekend. Mike led most of the way, i enjoyed learning some new lines from him, JB learned about king hubs, my boy byron can do things i will never do, alex endo’d. good times. beers at Doc & Eddys where Byron and i treated JB to some congrats-on-fatherhood Kiltlifter. Byron as always showed class stepping up for a guy whom he had only just met but took on my word.

while i cleaned little, the Heckler and i bonded today. We committed, all-fucking-in committed, to the lift just past the spur with Morman and the lift at the bottom of the Upper Waterfall and the lift going back up from BV. I was up and over all of them comfortably, and simply continuing to spin is the next hurdle. i have cleaned them all, and i have crashed backwards horribly on them all. i can do this, i need to remember to believe, the Heckler will care for me if i can fight off the mind fuck and commit.

tday is my favorite holiday, i am thankful for my bike.

I PEEd this past Saturday. Like most people on the ride, i have been feeling quite punny about this. Stats on the day:

• 9 hrs 11 min
• 89.79 miles
• 7900 feet of climbing

My stats may be a bit messed up, as my forerunner cut off the first ~4 hrs of the ride and i had to cobble the route together by editing the gpx files. Turns out there is a bug (or maybe a feature) in the forerunner software that limits a single track to 3000 data points. I stumbled onto this bug when the same thing happened to my stats at the Prescott Monstercross, and coincidentally it too only contained about 6.5 hrs of info. Odds of Garmin fixing this problem are slim as the unit is no longer a big seller for them, even though I forwarded them a perfectly clear bug report. I declined to include my title and resume, figuring why bother…but i digress.

It was the longest day of riding i have done, and for hours i was simply moving onward without much joy or inspiration, knowing that the fastest way back was forward. I prepared well, and packed well, but the day was simply an ass-kicker.

Got up about 4:30 and drove to the 6am start at 22nd Ave & Bethany Home road, Yuri’s house. I knew a few folks this time, and combined with the neutral 5 mile start it was a good opportunity to socialize a little with the ~15 other riders. the “race” started at T100, it was a good initial burst for ~40 minutes, but we all stayed pretty close together. It was just dawning, and i was still waking up and pacing myself, so not much of note other than one old grumpy man sitting at the top of the HAB on T100 (i think people call it Lava Lane?) insulting all of us pushing our bikes up the trail. It was weird!!! Not funny, not even good heckling, just kinda abusive and uncalled for. “hey that guy made it, how come you’re not riding? hey get on your bike,” but with a nasty edge to it. i was really close to saying “shut the fuck up you crotchety old deuchebag” but couldn’t quite believe it was actually happening, and was in such a marathon-mindset already i just couldn’t muster the energy.

I managed to follow Yuri out of the park and onto the beginning of 20 miles of paths and bikeways that would lead us to the McDowells. My goal was to follow someone through this stretch, and save myself from navigating off the cue sheet. I suck at navigation, and always slow way down and stress myself out. It seemed most of the group was of like-mind, as there were about 10 of us riding together during this stretch. It was fun and social, and we kept a good pace. The route already displayed a few hidden little bits that only someone who’s been riding them for years would have strung together – at one point we cut across a school lot back onto a bikeway. The most interesting part, ride-wise, was an pedestrian bridge with a silly number of unneeded switchbacks at the bottom.

Photos poached shamelessly from Yuri’s blog

Not too long after this, I flatted the front tire on some little bit of nothing. GRRRRRR….of course. I was pissed, and pissed at the bike shop for not finishing my wheels. Not only would I lose 10 minutes changing the flat, but my navigation and draft were gone, along with what would likely be my last chance to have some conversation for the next 8 hrs.

I got rolling again and made my way to what should have been the start of a trail through the Reach 11 park, but found the entrance off the bikeway blocked by construction and plywood. My sucky navigation managed to flumble me in the right direction with only a few minutes lost scratching my ass, and a short while into Reach 11 I popped out on a trail right behind John and Gordon – two others in the race. They had passed me while I was changing the tire, but turned out they stopped for a bit, enabling me to catch them. I rode with them for about 10 miles, both of them keeping a good pace that I had to work to maintain. I knew these guys did a lot of cross-type riding, and their bikes were better suited for speed on the mild terrain and hardpack, but I manage to hang with them until they stopped at the Bashas near the entrance to the McDowells. Alone again.

It was just past 9am. The 30 miles in the McDowells began with what should have been an innocuous little climb up the Levee trail. Like much of the McDowells, Levee was covered in loose rock and scree – not technical by any means, but enough to make for slow rolling. It was a bad sign that i was feeling a little tired just rolling up this section. When i hit Paradise Wash, a slightly downhill and usually-fun rocky stretch, i realized that after 3 hrs i really did not have a lot of pop left in my legs. Not good. I marched on through the deceptively difficult Scottsdale side of the McDowells where you gain about 1000 rocky chummy feet in 5-6 miles. As I was slowly spinning up one of the little approach climbs on Ringtail, i noticed a friggin gaggle of old people hiking…well, hiking in that senior way of shuffling, shaking, and taking up the entire trail. Etiquette said I would have to dismount and work my way slowly through this mess, but fortunately they were gathering en masse at a small overlook while someone appeared to be lecturing. WHEW!!! 5 minutes saved right there. I got about 20 yards past them and pulled out my cue sheet, and within 5 seconds an eager volunteer asked me if I needed directions. Slightly cranky and tired after 4 hrs out, i couldn’t help but laugh at this quintessentially Scottsdale moment. On the cell phone in their shiny SUV this person might not even see me on a bike, or might ignore me if i was standing by the side of a Whole Foods Market bleeding, but would not hesitate to be overly-helpful in the  preserve. So I smiled back and said politely, “no thanks, I know where I’m going, i just don’t know where i am” and rode off while she tried to figure it out.

I took a quick breather a few minutes up Sunrise to put on my player, and noticed my rear had gone flat. figures, except this time i didn’t even waste the energy being mad. i just didn’t feel like changing it, and figured a break in another few minutes would be in order, so pumped it up and rode on for 10-15 more min until it was too flat to continue. I was getting bitter now…at the shop, at my fatigue, and at the prospects of how long the McDowells were obviously going to take me. A few weeks ago i rode Sunrise where we started the ride with this climb, and I cleaned it all in just over 35 min. I had ridden it several times prior, and done similarly well. but not today. the last time i felt this tired going up a hill was on this same climb about 3 hrs into the Quadruple Bypass last January, and while i was stronger now and deeper into the ride, the empty feeling in my legs was the same. i realized that i had entered survival mode – my mind was firm and my pace steadily forward, but i was no longer looking to make time as much as to just keep going. DAMN! I had hoped to at least make it to Dixie Mine before i got to this point.

I found a wide stretch in a switchback, and doggedly went to work changing the tire. At some point while pumping up my tire, another hiker asked me if i had all i needed — weird to hear that from a hiker, but friendly. i said yes thank you, while continuing to work on my bike, and he then said “just making a few repairs?” It was surely the crankiness and frustration and heat talking, but here is where i decided all hikers in Scottsdale are idiots. He was the one-too-many morons to make an inane and pointless comment to me during this stretch. I try, really really i do, to be polite on the trail and say thank you to all hikers; its been a long long time since i have had anything even approaching a conflict with a hiker. I hear all the time on MTBR how people have issues with hikers and dogs and whatnot, and i never seem to get caught up in that. And, today would be no different, i was on the outside a perfectly polite trail-sharer. But gawdamn it just fucking sticks in my craw when people say pointless inane shit just to hear their thingsayers say things. Can’t two strangers just tactfully pass each other and move on with their lives? Is silence and quiet courtesy some kind of crime? What you friggin nimrod, you never saw a biker pumping up a flat before? You didnt see the other 10 riders who surely passed you within the last 30 min up here? Do you wanna swap spit and take long walks in the moonlight? My silence surely told him all i was thinking, and he moved on. Somo is crowded and the hikers are mean, but much like sometimes I long for the direct fuck-you of the East Coast instead of the too-neighborly Midwesterness of Arizona, these Scottsdale dipshits were beyond my last nerve. Back on the bike, back to the climb, another quintet of women each of whom had their own mindless bit of blather to say to me while I pushed my bike past them and each of which i ignored mumbling simply “thank you” as I passed.

I didn’t rest at the summit and plunged into the downhill off Sunrise into Fountain Hills, and it did put a smile back on my face.

I reloaded the camelback at the bottom, 44 miles, about 5 hours out, and 3 litters of gatorade gone. Slogged up the jeep road to Dixie Mine, slogged through Dixie Mine, more hikers leaping fearfully off the trail Scottsdale-style (at least they willingly yield…) while i was still 20 yards away and approaching slowly, more silly comments. One guy got all gym-teacher on me “go! go! keep pushing! you’re doing great!” Next time i will have to say that to a hiker in my best Matt Westfield voice: “Great hike man, great job, that is the best job i have ever seen of putting one foot in front of the other!!!”

I ran into 2 other riders, Dara and Troy, near the intersection with Coachwhip trail. It was nice to see some other people as it had been just me for about 3 hrs, and it was very inspiring to realize i was not as far into DFL as i had thought i was. We chatted for a few minutes, and Troy gave me some chain lube. I couldn’t help them with their tire and sidewall issues, but as i had helped a rider Chris this morning with a shock pump, felt that i was still on the right side of karma. i wished them well as i moved on, figuring they would pass me soon enough — they were from Flagstaff after all.

I rode the few miles to the base of Windgate, and then really just gave up on the climb. It was only about a mile, and like the Quad Bypass where i pushed up to the summit, knew it was only another 20 minutes or so of suffering til the climb at least was finished. Dara and Troy passed me on the way up, and I saw them fly down the other side while i sat and let a dizzy spell pass.

The descent off Windgate is not easy. Its hardly challenging like National, but you have to work and be on your game with all the loose rocks and wheel-swallowing ruts. I was very aware that it was a crash-waiting-to-happen if i got lazy. I was going maddeningly slow, but it was better than crashing. Somehow i ended up on a wrong spur that took me too far north, down a boulder strewn wash in the middle of a golf course, where i center-punched a rock and went otb. no injuries worse than a bruised palm and further diminished mojo, but it was enough to make me ready to just trespass onto the golf-cart path to get back on the pavement. Fortunately i soon saw a street which dumped me out onto Thompson Peak Parkway. I was about 1.5 miles north of where I should have been, but it was downhill and i avoided panicking long enough to get myself back on track.

More navigational patheticness as i missed one of the cues “a yellow gate under the overpass, leading onto a dirt road” and went a few minutes in the wrong direction. The route here went south, which made sense, and east, which made me sad. I desperately wanted to be heading west and to the finish. I made my way through a golf course, poured some icewater over my head from a cooler on one of the greens, then across a few streets, and into an equestrian park where i saw an really hot girl on a white horse. some people think women on horses are a turn-on; i think they are dusty and smell like horse crap, not-really-attractive in the same way Hooters waitresses may look good from 20 yards but reek of wing sauce and blue cheese dressing and grease. but the horsebacking does encourage a lot of tank tops and tight pants, so i approve from a safe olfactory distance. Its proper etiquette to approach a horse slowly when you are on a bike, and i was really shocked and kinda psyched at how hot this girl was, so was in no hurry to pass. i kinda thought i was hallucinating, and maybe she’d hang out with me for a few miles, be intrigued by my epic day, and then who knows what next?!?! so i figured i’d say hello, and if it was a fantasy things would work out great. but reality was still with me, she said hi and moved to the side of the trail. DAMN!

A few miles down a path between the Salt River Res to the south and Scottsdale to the north dropped me at mile 70. I had been moving since mile 55 at Windgate, and really hadn’t taken any breaks all day, and was at the point of starting to hate my bike. so decided this quiet shady spot (cue sheet said “tree-lined path”, how sylvan) would be the place i would prepare for the final push. some ibus, some inosine, some chapstick, some eyedrops, a powerbar, a call home, some canal-riding weed, and i was ready to go.

A few miles of pavement and speeds in the high teens were a much-needed refresher, as the worst was yet to come. 10 miles of boring, sandy, slow-rolling canal. There was really very little redeeming about this stretch. On the map, I was looking forward to it, thinking it would just be a quiet spin where i could stop worrying about navigation. Instead, it was mindless and maddening, constantly looking at the forerunner as the seconds ticked by and i forced myself to maintain a sustainable pace of about 13 mph. Every mile or so I had to stop and cross a road, and being downtown there were no crosswalks or lights – just me dodging cars trying to balance the risk of killing myself with losing my momentum. Near Drinkwater and Camelback we had to cross right in the middle of the crazy Scottsdale mall area — yeah!!! good times dodging Scottsdale shoppers!! One road crossing i sorta tuned out and sailed across without looking, and that re-focused me quickly. For the next few minutes i daydreamed about lying on the road, hit by a car, phoning Beckie and telling her how sorry i was G was going to have to grow up without a daddy. that depressed me way too much, so i tried to think about the beer i was only about 30 minutes from. My quads were empty, my triceps ached, and my sit bones were on fire. I couldn’t stay in the same position for more than about a minute, and the road crossings became something i looked forward to since they would give me an excuse to break my cadence and stretch. At one stretch I thought i saw pavement on one side of the canal, of course it was the side i wasn’t on. I crossed at the next opportunity, and the pavement quickly disappeared only to be replaced by pavement back on the other side. ARGH!!! Fuck it no more turns, just plunge onward. 50 minutes never lasted so long.

Finally down to the last few miles of road, and I passed Gordon going the other way. Except he was clean, and wearing a different jersey. GZUS!!! I really suck!!” i thought. Then he told me he had come back early, and that there were still a few people behind me. I couldn’t believe it, but it gave me all the motivation I needed. I flew down Maryland Ave with all I had left – it started at 18th Street, then 16th, then 12th. I counted the lights, and was delighted to note that they each got further apart. finally the psychology of this route was going faster and not slower. When i got riding again after 70 miles, i set a goal to finish by 5pm, and i just made it with about 5 min to spare.

me crossing the finish, it doesn’t look nearly as bad as i felt.

Yuri graciously supplied lasagna and some snacks, and my cooler was full of beer. After some stomach cramps and spasms and a quick wash down, a Mackeson’s Stout and lasagna were a wonderful reward. I was very very drained and very flat, but mentally held up well and never cracked. a new PR!

I am doing another underground race next week called the Phoenix Endurance Experience. It is hosted by YuriB, who I do not know. I will know a few folks this time around, and be on some familiar terrain. The route is about 5 miles of T100 and 30 miles of canal out of Central Phoenix, then a double Bypass up Windgate (ugh…as if it wasn’t hard enough that we could do Bell), then 30 miles back on canals. The route is neat in how Yuri strung together almost 90 miles of trail and canals and back alleys and footpaths to have very little road time while crossing Phoenix and back. I reckon I will spend a fair amount of time looking for landmarks like “the corner with red paint on the curb”, but it will be cool to bisect the Valley like a coyote.

this will, statistically, be about as hard a ride as I have done. The Prescott Monstercross, Quad Bypass, and TOWN ’06 were about equal in the effort level. But this will combine a lot of miles with an enormous climb in the middle and likely few breaks. On paper its the same challenge, but the climb in the middle has me very scared about breaking and caving. the Double Bypass really has 5 climbs, each in the general neighborhood of 1000 feet: the foothills on the Scottsdale side, Sunrise, the climb up through Fountain Hills, Dixie Mine and Windgate. i can’t imagine i will be in anything other than survival mode once I get to the climb up Windgate with still like 3+ hrs of riding to go.

I did about 6 miles of canal today on the Blur, to see my pace, and it was about 12mph with easy just riding along. So I figure that means about 3 hrs ride time to get to the Bypass, 3 while there, and another 3 home. Allowing for breaks and whatnot, it will be 9-11 hrs if all goes well. We leave at 6, back at 5. It will be the longest day of saddle time I have done.

I am a bit nervous.