The Second Half

Thumped by Thumper

At 6:15am, me and the boyz - C-dub, Sully, and JT - roll on down to infamous “Rottonwood”, AZ where there are more McCain/Palin stickers, assault rifles, and methe labs per capita than any other city in our glorious state. A scant 48 miles, and a 3,700 foot elevation drop from my front door, Cottonwood is the very last place you would ever consider wearing a lycra cycling costume, so we wisely chose to host this little event at a patrolled state park on choice singletrack – because people on Rottonwood don’t frequent trails you can’t use a Quad on. I’ve been cursed, and nearly flattened on my road bike down there and I’m not goin’ down that road again, so to speak.

Race rules: 6 hours. 7 mile loop. 8am start. 10 dudes. Whoever does the most laps…wins. 50 degrees at the start, 75 at the finish.

The Thumper loop is 2.5 miles up an old jeep road called Raptor with about 500 feet of climbing and plenty of ‘steps’ so you can haul ass in between pitches – if you got anything left. Then 2.5 miles down and across a fun as shit singletrack section called Thumper, and on down another 2 miles on the Lime Kiln trail that’s again, fun as shit.

7 laps won it. I finished five laps and was one lap from max….as in I could have done six, but, five other dudes had quit when I came around after five laps and had what looked like an ice cold 300 gallon cooler full of assorted cheap Mexican malt beverages. How do you keep riding when you know you’re going to finish 4th on the day regardless – and that cooler was fo’ reals! The sad part is that I was spent and could only put down one 99 cent can of Modelo. Next time, I’m not trying so hard. Five seven mile laps doesn’t seem like a lot, but Thumper is mean….steep, rocky, sandy, with loads of two and three foot drops which were doable on laps 1-4, but I started getting sloppy and weak on lap five and it was time to quit before I got a ticket to the Cottonwood ER which is short for a Veterinary Clinic.

My pal Sheck came by for a surprise visit from over the hill in Clarkdale. She rolls up in her air cooled (you always have to mention that to a VW junkie) Karmann Ghia that’s like 35 years old…..canary yellow. Sweet. All the guys were like – WHO DAT?! That’s my pal motherf*ckers, and she’ll kick yo’ ass.

24 hours later I wake up to 2” of snow in my back yard. And, I gotta go to work at the crack o’ smack. Weekends go entirely too fast.