Beckie was asleep and G was awake, and she was hungry. The kitchen was clean, the food was prepared…for a rare change G and I could eat and have pleasant coversation with no distracitons. What fun was had. Eating, talking, playing, throwing, shaking your hands in the air and wavin um like you just dont care.
A fabulous meal! She let me know when she was finished.
Last week I rode Alta and Bajada, trails around “the other mountain” in the north west part of the South Mountain park. This was an mtbr ride, and while normally I dread going back down to Phoenix on a weekend this was looking to be a big ole group fun thing. Indeed, we had maybe 15 odd riders rolling by 5:30 am, from 2 miles into the Central Ave entrance. Not bad.
Alta did not fuck around, immediately up a staircase up up some more up and more up up up. Many tight switchbacks, lots of looseness, I might have gotten 3 of them. But I can push, and thusly I was as usual among the lead group to the top. Big views, but alas pre-monsoon not a goddamn bit of cool wind even at 6:30 in the morning. I padded up and we rode the very narrow, loose and jagged ridgeline for a few miles. The exposure and off-camber was pretty intense, and there were a number of scary trials. I was not really feeling in a good flow, maybe it was the newness of the trail or all the on-again\off-again, maybe it was genuinely hard and the Blur was bouncing around as bad as I thought…whatever, I kept it pretty conservative and didn’t hit a lot. Somewhere amongst a nasty shoot DurtGurl flopped over the side and boinged her way down like 15 feet. Its funny now that It was no big deal but a fractured butt bone, but wow it was scary in retrospect, as a little more flopping and she would have fallen a long way. Props to the girl she showed up at the end of the ridge like “la-di-dah no big deal, where is my peanut butter samich?”.
We rested at the top of the DH for a good while waiting for everyone to arrive in one piece; good times. I knew a lot of the people on this ride already, and so it was easy to get to know everyone else. Lots of fun hanging out and looking out over the big descent we were about to hit as it dropped to the green flat expanse of the West Valley. It looked steep! The day before, I dropped $500 on the deposit for a new 2007 Santa Cruz Heckler. That will, rest assured, merit several of its own entries, but this ride was so cool to remind me of exactly why I bought the new bike. Or at least what I hoped to get out of the new bike. I had been riding safely, but definitely felt that the stability of the thru axel and the bigger suspension would have been a good call today. Any shred of buyer’s remorse dropped off the cliff soon after we dropped into the gnar on the Alta downhill. The Heckler is going to become my friend. Meanwhile, the Blur and I were riding chilly at the back of the pack, certainly not my best ride but no blood and no damage, and worked my way down slowly to the bottom where it meets with the very west end of National.
We took off our pads and it felt like the temp dropped 10 degrees. wow that stuff is hot, but worth it for sure if you are gonna ride anything nasty. we then rode National for an xc stretch of a mile or 2, until it crossed San Juan road and linked up w. Bajada. A couple of the group bowed out and opted for the road back at this point. They said the trail was fun and rolling tech, but loose rocky and tiring. It was maybe 4 miles back around the mountain, so I figured I was in for an hour more and rolled on w. 4 others. 3 of those 4 others happened to be fast as shit, and I was quickly alone, without my music (antisocial) or my computer (put it away in the gnar), and suddenly wanting this ride to end. I guess the trail was good, but it was hard rolling and hot, so for me the trail was Blowjada. After riding most of it, we jumped out on the road maybe a mile before the end. none of us were having much fun at this point, it was hot, for one of the first times ever I really felt like I was heating up to a point that could be bad. And I probably was not even close to in trouble. We later heard that this same day a 15 year old kid from New York rented a bike from Cactus and went out alone, with one bottle, no partner parents stayed at the hotel, in pads and full face, and got lost somewhere on National — they found him just in time, almost naked half covered in sand in the wash near Fat Man’s Pass.
Back at the cars, some quick goodbyes before it was time to tag back in for baby-duty. On the ride home I concluded I will go with an air shock instead of coil — even on a nasty ride I am not doing big hits, so the Heckler can save a pound next time we hit this beast.
Some good videos and photos, and some different writeup, found here on my new bud Sam’s blog.
the other day I picked G up from daycare, which does not happen all that often. She was on the other side of the room and did not see me, one of the teachers was standing by the gate to her room. So I said, “better step back, she’s going to charge like a bull soon.” I called G, and it is so cute she knows her name and my voice she turned right away, her face lit up, and then it was full steam ahead! The teacher swung the gate open and I got bullrushed!!! where’s the clown when you need him?
Its everywhere! It can’t be stopped. I see your boop and I am zeroing in and will not be stopped. and when I connect I will push your boop like i need the elevator: firmly and with purpose, making sure that the boop actually depresses. Its particularly bad in summer. It was cute, it is cute, its obsessive. Its creepy and sweet. Its very invasive of my personal space. Its in the pool, in the kitchen, in the bath, at the gym, in the car, you got a belly-button i got a finger get the fuck out of my way. She booped Janna today! Soon she will boop a total stranger. She knows that you have a boop, and she knows you know she has a boop. and she knows that you know she knows it. its become viral, an evolutionary memory. boop! boop! its hard to turn down, I feel as though I am filling her with negative reinforcement regarding her natural curiosity and friendliness. So I accept the boop, i embrace the boop. again. and again. and again.
A great way to walk into to the house, after a stop at Trader Joe’s and picking up G from daycare.
We’re In This Together – Nine Inch Nails
I did the Usery Loop today on the roadie. I was looking forward to this ride all day, planning to be fucking gone gone gone from the office before 6 so I could manage the whole ride in the last hour of daylight and capture a little bit of cool and shade. the speed and rhythm would help pull the soul-draining hairshirt of monday off me. plus it would help cure my residual hangover from a weekend of drinking heavily and eating wrong in Rocky Point. I was hammering pretty hard from the get-go, the short ride and the day’s anticipation driving me to a strong start. i’ve felt slower than I used to be on the roadie and its been eating at me, since…like since the Tour de Phoenix about 15 months ago when I trained pretty hard and just managed to break the platinum group at 3 hrs 14 min. sucking on the roadie shouldn’t bother me because I have not been putting in the road miles plain-and-simple, I have done Tortilla Flats once this year compared to about once-a-month in times past. but it does bother me, because I hate to suck just on general principle. there is also a social MTBR road ride coming up in 2 weeks, and while I’m not worried about being slow, its always fun to feel strong in a group ride. So, I was hammering, and realizing I had a good split at the 4-way stop sign, pushed myself along up Usery Pass.
hit the climb up Hawes at 48 min, which means i’m right on pace for my strong times for this ride. i was feeling it all over…back, quads, arms…but whatever there was only 15 min left, and short hard rides like this are the perfect way to get stronger. so i dug in for the 6 minute-long final climb. then Nine Inch Nail’s “We’re In this Together” comes on my player. sweeeet, this is exactly what i needed, this song will give me at least 3-4 minutes of motivation before the fatigue overtakes me, and by then i’ll be close enough to the top to shoot my wad and then the climb will be over. the grinding angry pounding rhythm totally matches the rumbling in my core as I launch into the climb, and i’m pushing strong smooth strokes and feeling good and feeling just the right amount aggressive and just the right amount content.
then the battery on my player dies.
G’s voice now in my head “nooooooooooooooooo”.
Genevieve sings! Ok, not really, but she does love music (particularly reggae and ska, but that’s another story). On the singing front, she is pretty much a one-hit-wonder. On radio Genevieve, it’s old MacDonald, all the time. I dont know if it’s a sign of our horrendously neglectful habit of parking her in front of baby einstien or if its something she gets at day care, but she loves that damn farmer and she walks around singing e-i-e-i-o all day long. She has a set of animal-related literature that she relates to Mac D, and she walks around clutching these various tomes and singing until someone sits with her and sings the song. We do the song as a duet, with her supplying the e-i-e-i’s and naming the animals and me handling the rest. The only problem with this approach is that G’s farm contains only dogs, as this seems to be the only animal’s name she can remember. I think she may be figuring out “cow”, but for now, it’s a “moo” in Genespeak. I think she may also be on the verge of getting “horse”, but she seems to have a little difficulty determining which is the horse and which is the cow. Her plight is not helped by the fact that she destroyed her “Snappy Little Farm Animals” pop-up book so that the duck has no head, the horse has no nose, and the rooster is completely MIA. Cruel, cruel baby. She’s never going to win the 4-H competeition at this rate. Maybe I should call the humane society. That poor duck.
the all-mountain rider can’t suck by himself, he needs a bike to help him with that, preferably an expensive one that sucks just like him.
he needs a bike that can do a little bit of everything and a lot more at the boundaries, to compensate for his boundaries. unfortunately, bikes are at their best when they are specialized. so in the quest to overcome every boundary, he buys a bike that will suck at the common, or at least most of the common, or pretty much everything but a few things, which is guaranteed to be the exact terrain on any particular ride. 6/6 is great for everything but more work than 4/4, except for when you need 8/8, except for the hadtail spin home. the bike climbs like a hungry goat but its timid descending, its point and shoot down but a truck going up, the pedal bob going up is what makes is stable going down, its too light for DH and too heavy for XC, it is tight in the trees but too snappy on a long straight descent, switch to a longer bike that is like a train on rails in the descent but too sluggish in the trees, it cant do a goddam thing, but it can do everything! why do i need a new bike?!?!?!
Its marketing!
The marketing wizards have titillated the compulsion and the shame of the all-mountain rider by promising a cure-all to his woes. tapped into the desire to get better by promising the “One Bike.” What is the One Bike? It does not and can not exist, but we get drawn to its bold promise. here are a few snippets from the Santa Cruz website:
The Nomad: “If the VP-Free and the Blur LT spent a dirty weekend together in Whistler, chances are that nine months later there’d be a little Nomad running around. “
The Heckler: “If bikes could be thought of in human athletic terms, some could be compared to marathon runners, and some could be thought of more like wrestlers. Somewhere in the middle, you’d find the Heckler. A damn good rugby player. Even got a built-in bottle opener…
what the fuck does this have to do with a bike?!?! Its no wonder I can’t find a bike to test ride, let alone decide what to “build up to be what I want”. I don’t know what I want because what I want does not exist and can not exist, how am I supposed to build it? woe, the ride of the all-mountain rider.