Rain, rain, and more rain

Well I have been back from Durango for a few days now and it has rained every day since returning. It is all good though because the trails are all in excellent shape and super tacky. The only downside to the trails being awesome is that I have a cold and it feels pretty miserable to put out a hard effort. It is really hard to dial it back until my head and chest are feeling like they are going to explode. I snapped a few photos with my phone in the Dry Lakes area after riding Upper Brookbank the other day. Enjoy.

The past week

Sunday I arrived back in town from a trip to Cortez for the 12 Hours of Mesa Verde which was a great race but a mediocre showing for me. I finished with 5 laps which equaled about 84 miles. I had plenty of time for more riding and even had the legs for it but what I was lacking was the ass and feet for more. I settled for some food, beer and socializing instead. This week I spent a fair amount of time riding due to the incredible weather here in Flagstaff. I took the Ibis out on a preride of the MBAA Flagstaff Frenzy course, then the Turner up Sunset and down Upper Brookbank where there is a pretty amazing little clearing with a nice view up to Agassiz. Anne and I took in a Jimmy Buffett concert down in the valley on Thursday night which didn't do anything for my beer avoidance attempts for midweek but was pretty fun. No riding yesterday but a well needed shopping spree at Trader Joes and some Chipotle burritos before heading back up the hill. Today I headed out for the race despite being up most of the night with foot pain and wound up pulling away from my closest rival on the climb up Wild and Wooly and holding him off to the end to finish first in the Novice SS class. I was fortunate to have won a free race entry for this race and to find a pair of gloves in the prize bin that had not been taken already. The gloves are an older version of some Fox gloves that I assume people thought were a bit too gross looking for them. I say perfect for me!

Some photos from yesterday

Just thought I would post a few photos from a pretty good mountain bike ride yesterday. I made it a little way up the Waterline Road until I deemed it silly to keep getting off the bike to climb over fallen trees. I then went a few random places before heading back home.

Back from the Mogollon Rim

Anne and I left on Friday morning for the Mogollon Rim to race in the Mogollon Masher mountain bike race. We loaded up Yampa and some camping stuff and headed out. Anne had decided that she was interested in trying a beginner women category race and I was going to race the novice singlespeed class again. The area on the rim between Woods Canyon Lake and Bear Canyon Lake was our destination. When we got there we were amazed at how beautiful the scenery was and the views looking south off the rim were endless. Anne got a bad start but began passing people right away. She then took a minor detour and lost a place but wound up with a great showing finishing third. The big smile on her face at the end tells me that she had a good time. I lined up a few hours later and had two simple tactics. The first was to make the initial turn onto the singletrack in as close to the lead as possible and the second was to go as hard as possible for as long as possible. Tactics are easier to come up with when the people in the race are people that you've race against recently. The Prescott race a few weeks ago had the same cast of characters partaking in it minus the guy who beat me. Knowing this I figured I had a good chance of taking the win so I came up with the two simple tactics. Some of the photos are a bit blurry but there the best we have. Yampa had a great time with what seemed like hundreds of other dogs and is pretty worn out today. She woke up this morning and ate breakfast, went outside to do her business, and then came back in and went into the bedroom to her bed and fell back asleep and remains there now.

Another broken piece of aluminum

I went out for a ride today on the Coconino and had a good day combining Rocky Ridge, Schultz Creek, Secret, Hot Shot and then home via Buffalo Park. Unfortunately on my way into Buffalo Park I felt a snap and that was all for my seat post. I rode home standing up with my seat and the remainder of the post in my hand. The post is not something that is very exciting to me to have to replace. As a matter of fact I can think of many other good uses for the money.

Back from Washington

We arrived back in Flag yesterday after a great 6 day trip to Washington. We planned this trip around the Wenatchee Marathon. Anne ran a PR and finished 3rd in her age group which was outstanding. I had rented a mediocre mountain bike and hit up the local single track which was named Sage Hill. It was pretty sweet with big yellow flowers all over and awesome views of the Columbia River. During the marathon I rode around and saw Anne at various places and took some photos. I snapped a photo of the bike I rented under a tree with a gigantic trunk that looked like a bunch of trees that grew together into one. We left Wenatchee on Sunday and headed to Seattle for some city time. We got lucky as it was sunny and 70+ degrees for the two full days we were there so we walked and walked checking stuff out. We went up to the top of the Space Needle and got a good look at Mt. Rainer, checked out some shops, ate some good food and drank some beer not found here in Northern Arizona. It was strange that I had to go to Seattle to find a beer that I wanted to try that is brewed in Colorado. Besides the Oskar Blues TenFidy the rest of the beers we drank were from Washington and not a single one of them was bad. We also found a cool bike shop on Bainbridge Island that had a ton of old racing bicycles names Classic Bicycles. I had to take a photo of one with a massive chainring on the front. When we woke up in Seattle yesterday and it was grey and rainy we realized that vacation must be over and that is was time to head out. It is good to be back home for a while though especially since the weather is turning so nice.

A bit of catching up

The past week has been filled with a bunch of riding, one race and and some red rock. I have been trying to get some long rides under the belt lately. I got a loop in on the Arizona Trail out to Fisher Point and down one of my favorite descents around Flagstaff. The photo that shows singletrack coming from the right side is the bottom of the descent. The photo is taken from Fisher Point which is the top. Yampa (our dog) still enjoys diving under the bed to hide or play. Apparently 65 pounds properly dispersed makes a slim and trim dog. Yesterday I hoped on the Coconino and headed out to ride to Sedona via the Old Munds Highway and Schnedbly Hill Road. It is about 49 miles from here and Anne was going for a run down there so we met up for lunch and I got a ride home. I posted some random photos from the trip. I was excited to find very little snow and mud along the route. Old Munds Highway is still closed to motor vehicles so I was not sure what I would find back there. When I got to the lower part of Schnebly Hill I found out that is was being graded and was really nasty with soft dirt and huge rocks all over the place. Apparently this is improving the road but I would tend to disagree. I was taking it pretty easy but managed to roll into the Wildflower Bakery parking lot right at 4 hours. Good stuff, next time I will leave earlier and turn around and ride home.