THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS - I had to get something going, and will fill it in as I have more time to write. I don’t have any pics of the actual race, but hope to poach digital pics from the web. let me know if you/someone you know has some to share. cheers!
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oh boy, for the amount of time and fiscal resources i commit to traveling to race a few times a year, one would think that i’d get better at optimizing my probability for success in said event - finishing it, at least. this latest attempt had me traveling solo again (i must be a handful to roadtrip with), across the Basin and Range, across the Colorado Plateau, and over the Monarch Crest of the Rockies, into the headwaters of the Arkansas River. i knew it’d be more than a day’s ride, but hadn’t done the math. turns out it’s an even 1,000 miles from my abode in Reno to Salida, CO. with fuel typically $3/gal or more, and traveling solo, taking the motorbike was the only sensible option…
“one less car, bitch” Continue reading ‘2 thousand miles and the VT125′
until i have time to make up some true lies, here are a few highlights:
it was a late night packing the rig and 15+ hours of driving to Gunnison Valley, CO
Continue reading ‘24 Hours in the Sage’
TBS mobs the first annual Great Mount Rose Loop Race!
Riding up Calahan Ranch Road to TheRestlessApe’s house Saturday evening I saw the glow over Mt. Rose. 14 hours earlier, from the other side of the valley, I’d seen the alpenglow on the Carson Range through a smoky haze as I rode out to Verdi to meet V-Nasty. Continue reading ‘Team Bacon Strip Wins GMRLR!!’
Cranking over to Truckee last Friday, at least at first, made me think I couldn’t do it, but later, rocking a swing-bike at the park in Truckee, my legs felt great, my lungs spry, and I remembered a quote from a Ian Fleming novel I read years ago: “worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due,” thought in the adrenalin addled brain of James Bond himself.
Next Sunday is my birthday… Continue reading ‘The Great Mount Rose Loop Race 8-11-07′
Tour de Fat, Truckee, CA 2007
We filled up our bottles @ Stampede Campground and rolled on down towards Prosser right about moonrise with purple glow over Glenshire, our tires making that perfect white noise hum over the first of 13 more miles of dirt and Soma cruising along beside me, no PBR yet, but happy as can be as far as I could tell. It slowly got dark, despite the bright, nearly full moon. If I’d taken a picture, I’d post it, but I didn’t. Neither did I take one when I looked back @ Soma silouetted against the setting sun as we crossed Stampede dam. What can I do? Some moments are yours only while they last and won’t be revisited except when your brain decides to fire those neurons again some time late in life after the joints quit working when pudding and re-runs of Matlock are the highlight of your days. Trust me though, dirtbags are beautiful. Continue reading ‘Dirtbags are beautiful’
“I don’t know if you’re so tough cause you ride trails like these, or if you ride these trails because you’re so tough,” I wondered out loud towards Sean McGuinness as he waited at the top of a steep, loose, decomposed granite jeep trail at 8,500′. He laughed a little, fired back some words of encouragement to us and looked out across the terrain. As a backcountry ranger in areas west of the Pacific Crest, south of US88, Sean knows where the roads are, what trails we can ride and how best to link them up. He also knows a ton of human and natural history about the place - “Ooo, if I’d remembered, I could’ve pointed out grave sites from Mormon pioneers that we’d ridden past. Pretty much just a pile of rocks in a meadow now, but interesting.” Crazy to imagine wagon trains, families, oxen, and about everything they’d need to homestead coming over these hills. We were having too much fun just riding and pushing our bikes over the remnants of their wagon trails.
Continue reading ‘Moon Dust and Rolling Baby Heads’
“water, GU, on your left!” well meaning and dedicated aid station workers shouted to the riders as they streamed through Aid #2…
“bacon on the right!” clandestine crew taunted from the other side of the road. occasionally people acknowledged our offers, one fella shouted “bacon? i love it!” this good fella grabbed a strip and hit the trail all fired up.
Continue reading ‘Cascade Cream Puff 100 Mile mtn bike race’
whew, am i glad i’m sitting here in this 8′x20′ windowless box trailer in smoggy Riverside, CA for 10-14 hours a day, tweaking analytical equipment and crunchin’ numbers for field work. i mean, i might’ve found myself completely lost out on the Great Divide Race. as of the most recent post, 4 of the ~25 (?) riders have dropped out - logic ranging from broken bike parts to broken bodies. the rest are rolling along, strung out and trying to dry off from days of rain and snow. that’s cool, they’re definitely havin’ fun now! you can just hear it in their voices on the mtbcast pod casts.
other than the Cascade Cream Puff in Oakridge, OR in early July (20,000 feet of climbing and descending in 100 miles with loads of quintessential singletrack), the next big one on the calendar is the 24 Hours in the Sage. travelin’ to western CO, riding a bunch of trail up around the Monarch Crest, and partying down with the Gunni-folk was the highlight of last summer for me. this year’s a toss-up though, with conflicting dates and the 12 of 1 happening in Flagstaff. we’ll see which way we head, but with shinangans like the 24 hour solo townie wold championships, where this John Hurley fellow…
pulled a naked lap in broad daylight… the race in Gunnison suits my style.
I wonder if he’s travelin’ as light in the GDR right now…
note: images poached from the 24 Hours in the Sage race blog, linked to the right
From TBS contributor, Localcrew:
I signed up for this work at a time when special-interest-fueled politicians spout all variety of appalling solutions for energy independence, including petroleum extraction schemes in some of our country’s most remote and wild landscapes. With this in mind, it seemed to me the height of hypocrisy to burn gallon after gallon of gasoline in a highly motorized attempt to create wilderness—one of the last bastions of silent, motorless peace. That is why I decided to complete my survey work by bike.
Read more @ The Cleanest Line.
-M
For those of you who don’t know, the Great Divide Race is a “Race” from Port Of Roosevill Montana on the Canadian Border down the The Rocky Mountains to Mexico. No support, no press, no parade, no podium, no entry fee and only one rule: you’re on your own. Just a blog where you can track the progress of a bunch of random, no-name dirtbags, you’ve never met, yet still feel a definite kinship with for their vision to do something so dificult, and painfull for it’s own personal intangible rewards. But it is definitely cool to look out over a valley and know that every bit of road for as far as you can see is how far you have to ride today…
And I think there’s some intangible rewarding going on in this pic:
-M
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