Cherry Tank

I met Cody this week at the Monday Mahvalous ride (Hank's theory for this ride: "Monday's always are the worst, so why not start the week out right with a +2-hour night ride." I love it.) Consider me a regular for Mondays.

Later in the week, Cody and I road from Catalina, Sutherland to Baby Jesus on Wednesday (my "long commute" from work).

Today, we rode from my house a sweet 3-hour loop: Upper 50-Cherry Tank-Around the Mountain-Gem.



Cherry Tank has its fill of rocks and Arizona Honeysuckles in bloom (not pictured).






We saw three gila monsters...

Photo by Cody

...and I somehow managed to clear Around the Mountain on the first try.






A great loop, especially when done from the house. Nonetheless, I would recommend waiting to go up Cherry Tank until some rain comes. It is pretty sandy. Although if you wait, you might miss some of the blooming that is happening up there. I will leave it up for you to decide....

Return of Tuesday Techy

Photos by Scott

After a few weeks of solo Tuesday Techy riding, Scott and Jonathan showed up for some tech and $1.50 tacos (prices went up $.25).

A few pictures by Scott and Jonathan below:








Some of my photos from the ride...

Bikepacking Lemmon

In no particular order, here are some pictures from this past weekend of bikepacking on Mt Lemmon. Pictures are from me or Maad (if I am in it, the picture credit goes to Maad). Check out James' blog here for more details about the trip.

Max: Grand Canyon

Max: Easter Update

45 miles force Max to wait another day before leaving Flagstaff. Listen to the above link for more info.

Max Update: Flagstaff

Click the above to listen to Max's call in while he does the AZ Trail Race.

Max Update: Highline and Beyond

The above is Max's recent call in for his AZ Trail Race ride. He just made it to pine. It is a 5 hour hike-a-bike to do the 10 miles before Pine. He is loading up on food before he climbs up the Mogollon Nightmare. He will give us another update with a bigger summary of the past 4-5 days the next time he calls.

Prescott MC 2011

Perhaps one of the best loops on the Arizona Endurance Series, the Prescott Monstercross went down last week. Although I brought a camera, I took very few pictures. Here are a few courtesy of DagN:






It has been awhile since I have raced this hard. I really tried to have a fast time, stopping for less than 10 minutes at White Spar. The 7 hours and 25 minutes was about 1.5 hours faster than last year. Seeing Scott continuing to get faster has made me start thinking about training a little bit. I even went out and did some speed training with him a few weeks ago. Ouch. I remember why I don't train. It might be time to get motivated, especially when you see a riding buddy like Scott tear up courses in 6 hours. Great job, Scott.

Results are up here.

Max's Voicemail from the AZ Trail Race

The following is a voice mail from Max as from the AZ Trail Race. You can also track him here.



If the following link does not work, you can also find the file here.

The sad, beautiful fact...

...that the vast majority of singletrack in the world we will never really be able to ride.

Of course, when you start to think about this, you can really respond in two different ways. The first is surrender, you understand that you cannot simply ride all the singletrack and that you must narrow it down to a select few hundred thousand miles. This is the preferred response. The other option is culling. Culling is simply the choosing you do for yourself. It's the how you sort out what is worth your time and what is not. For example: Is a trip to South Mountain worth my time? The AZT 300 is too hard for me. Sedona is not worth my time, so I am going to ride here instead.

What I've observed in recent years is far more culling than surrender. "All those non-technical trails are trash." I have even found myself saying, "Doubletrack? Blah, I prefer singletrack or nothing." You just simply reduce your surrender load by tossing out so much at once.

It's an effort, I think, to make the world smaller and easier to manage, to make the awareness of what we're missing less painful.

Culling is easy; it implies a huge amount of control and mastery. Surrender, on the other hand, is a little sad. That's the moment you realize you're separated from so much. That's your moment of understanding that you'll miss most of the riding out there.




It's sad, but it's also ... great, really. Imagine if you'd seen everything good, or if you ridden everything difficult. Imagine if you really got to ride all the singletrack out there. That would leave you empty, with nothing left to explore....



...it would be a failure, quite honestly.



The excitement of new singletrack would be lost, rocks would be ruled as "impossible" and never attempted. Even some big bikes would be left unbuilt, collecting dust in the garage. Laps and training would become the preferred biking method.



Luckily, this is not the case.

Photos by Kendall G. and Louis G., the Boulders and Area 52 respectively

Rather what we've seen and ridden is always going to be a very small cup dipped out of a very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean to stare into the cup can't change that.

Gila

The rain on Saturday was perfect timing. From the snow on the Pinals to blooming ocotillos, everything seemed to come into place for another trip to Area 52.













Cool, slight breeze out of the west...oh man, this is the kind of riding to follow a cold, white Saturday.





All the pictures are in this slideshow:




Post-ride swim at the Gila with some mandatory recovery drinks...Enjoy the weather this week!

Gila River Scramble II Day 2

If you did not ready Day 1, click here to see more.

That night, the wind was blowing just enough to keep me cool inside the sleeping bag. Stars were out, and beside a little rodent nibbling at my bag a few times, I slept so peacefully.



The next morning, we figured out our water source was just a few yards away from where we thought it was. We filled up and headed down to Ripsey.



We checked out another water source for future beta. The more you know about water in this area, the better your chances of riding more miles when the heat comes on.



In about a 20 square mile area, I can point you to (besides the silty Gila) about 6 places to get reliable (when filtered) water.





I have never ridden Ripsey on such fresh legs.



Could the switchbacks of doom be ridden on fresh legs?



Perhaps a bit of luck and the fresh legs, I managed to clean the entire section. Ripsey alone is reason enough to get happy, add in some riding like that and there is bound to be some shouting.



We saw two of these little guys while on Ripsey.







While we stopped, Scott had borrowed my camera to find where he had dropped his water bottle and tire. The former had been dropped at Area 52, while the later must have fell even before Area. We pondered where the tire fell?

Perhaps Trader Joe's had a hedgehog in mind when the made this delicious treat.



Do you see the resemblance?



We carved as much we could...



nailing the switchbacks along the way. It was (and always has been) a beautiful descent.



Riding up the Florence-Kelvin Highway has been getting a little old, this is my 3rd time in a little over 3 months. At least the views are nice.





Time to head back to Area 52

Picture by Scott

Redemption? Not quite. I managed not to break my frame while riding the Gila Scramble, but I fail a little short of cleaning the toilet tubes.




And alas, the missing tire, about 1/4 mile from the car.