The Second Half

I met Sully at Buffalo Park at 7:00am on Sunday and we headed out on what I would call an end of summer blowout ride. My boy Sully – I call him boy because he’s a 20something semi-pro MTB racer – had e-mailed me the night before saying “I’m out, I’m hurtin’ too bad”. Unfortunately for him, I didn’t check my e-mail on Sat, and he had to show up or risk being ripped for blowing me off. What he was referring to was our scheduled ride up and around the San Francisco Peaks, often called the Soulstice loop. 50+ miles, ridiculous amounts of climbing and descending – but – well worth the suffering. Sully was feeling the effect of a crash on fresh chip-seal at a road race two weeks back. A 30 mph crash that filleted his midsection. He was still leaking pus from a couple of holes in his abdomen, and he was not at his best at the start of the ride. We talked briefly about cutting it short, but once the testosterone started flowing there was no way that would happen. Without a word we just rode at a pretty fast tempo and never talked about it again. I like guys like Sully, who ride smart and don’t have anything to prove – yet won’t give up in spite of suffering. Fortunately for me, his road crash slowed him down a notch or two so I was able to hang with him all day.

The first 30 minutes featured a good steady climb for warm up. Then we came upon the first serious climb – a 12% gradient for 1.5 miles of technical shredded dirt and rocks that always force a dab, or two, or four. As I got near the top, my back tire caught the edge of a rock and pfffffp! I burped out about 10psi on the tubeless setup and had to hit it with Co2 – considering I run 24psi, that tire was nearly flat – a quick one minute fill and we were off again. The next climb, the Weatherford Trail, was not nearly as steep, but it is 3 miles long, and probably the most trashed/rutted two track in Flagstaff. Just think of cris-crossing a rut a couple of hundred times just to find a good line through the babyhead rocks. I was working hard, but the lure of the scenery was keeping me from going into mental overload, and suddenly it was over and we were on our way down.

A bomber descent down Friedlein Prairie led to the third climb - Snowbowl Road – a steep paved road climb that D and I had ridden up on our road bikes the day before. It felt pretty easy considering the technical stuff we had been on to that point. We topped out at 9,000 feet, and then rode back down to the base of the mountain range and around to the north side of the peaks on FR151 and FR418. You get dramatic views out here of the painted desert, and you can even see the lip of the Grand Canyon close to 55 miles away. After about another 45 minutes of hard work on the dirt roads trying to hold Sully’s wheel on the ups, we were at the base of the north side of the peaks. Dana once had to use a Clif Bar wrapper here to………….no way, I’m not even getting into that story or I’ll be sleeping in a tent in the yard for a week.

What loomed ahead was the granny gear climb to Lockett Meadow followed by an old connector trail to Waterline Road. 2,500 vertical feet of climbing over four and a half miles of beat up dirt/rocks/roots. For me, it was granny ring in the front and my second or third smallest cog in the back for well over an hour. We were passing hikers on the upper portion, but barely, at a 2.5 to 3.5 mph clip the whole freakin’ way. At the top is Waterline Road – , 50 degree temps compared to 70’s at the base, a bottle refill from a natural spring and a huge f*ckin’ sigh of relief. Now at 9,500 feet, we were looking at about a 15 mile gradual downhill all the way to my driveway. 50 minutes later, the bike was on the rack, and I was in the shower with a strong cup o’ joe just to stay awake until 8pm.

Broken down: 6 hours. 55 miles. 6,200 feet of climbing. 120 ounces of water/Nuun/Accelerade, 4 bars, 4 gels, and a chocolate chip cookie.