The Company You Keep...

One goal for this trip was contact.  Contact with with our environment, with each other, and with our guides. That's why we avoided some interesting hotel based trips. The restaurants, bars, TVs, and cell phones would be an unwelcome distraction. This trip required FULL IMMERSION. meals around a campfire, showers under a tree. A sleeping bag and a tent.

The Hermosa trip format and in particular the guides ensured we got the full contact experience without having to compromise. Camp was setup and the fire lit when we arrived at camp each evening. Expert preparation and fresh ingredients meant our meals were first rate.  And helpings were healthy, we never went hungry.

But the guides were really the secret sauce.

Matt McFee is the mastermind of the operation and has assembled a winning format and a great team of guides. His navigational skills and lunchtime stories of the Continental Divide Race were eclipsed only by his performance in the Angelina Jolie game and his expert chamois cleaning tips.

We only had a few minutes with Peter Basinger as he shuttled us to the start on day one, but he had some great stories of racing in the Iditarodtrail invitational, a 24hr mountain bike race in Alaska where he found a racer who had been mauled by a grizzly (she survived), and the trip to NYC to be interviewed by one of the morning talk shows about the bear incident.

Apple Cobbler, yum!

Lisa Lieb ("Angie")added a high energy feminine touch to the adventure without upsetting the dynamics of eight guys on a "guys trip." At first I was dubious about the mixed gender dynamic, but she mixed it up expertly. She ran a fantastic kitchen, tended to some gnarly injuries, and put some guys in their place when they needed it. She walked the line expertly. Oh and she is a kick ass rider.

Glenn Shoemaker ("Glenn.P.R") was our cowboy poet. He was knowledgeable about everything from the lifecycle of the desert gnat and herbal remedies to chiropracty and fine whiskeys. He was a wealth of excellent advice, never preachy, gently offered in prosaic fashion. We learned to listen attentively when he offered wise advice about "building monuments" and being careful about places where "someone might get your stuff." And he was ALWAYS there if someone was suffering and falling off the back of the group, distracting them and keeping them positive.

And finally, Delila the black and tan coonhound and Arthur the newfoundland were a great touch. Originally they did not plan to be on the trip but we insisted that they join us because we think dogs are awesome.

"That bike chick sort of digs you but is not looking for a beginner"

      -- unknown


"RIDE HARD, live easy"
     -- unknown

Size Doesn't Matter...

...at least it didn't tonight.

I took the Turner Burner out for tonight's ride. First time since Colorado. This is a legendary XC bike but the 3.6" of travel didn't seem like much as I bounced on the bike in the driveway. Not after riding that big 5" RumbleFish  in Colorado. But it was just the ticket on the twisty buffed-out singletrack of MCSP.

Might be a different story at French Creek or Wissahickon...

...but tonight three point six inches was plenty.

"If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle."
     -- Rita Mae Brown

Groovin'

Our Groover had a view and a two drop maximum.

The view was of the snow-capped La Sal mountain range in the distance. Unobstructed by houses, trees, or even window glass. It was straight up. A big money view.

The two drop maximum meant you had a 50% chance of having to empty The Groover. Very high stakes. Add eight competitive guys, and you've got yourself a sideshow of epic proportions.  Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer type of stuff. "Who just went?" "Did he really go?" "Where is 'so-and-so'?" Head fakes. Guys sneaking to the Groover at four in the morning.

In the end I was 0 for 2.  I would have liked another go at it to improve my percentage, but on the last day we raised the maximum from two drops to three. In my mind the price of failure was too high, so I held out for modern facilities on night #4.

But (a small) part of me still misses that Groover and that money view.

Know Thy Route

Trip data from Andy's GPS unit (includes a map track) is available online. For guys who were on the trip, if you zoom in on the map track I swear you will remember every rock and switchback as if it were yesterday.

Total elevation gain for the trip was 17,732ft and total loss was 22,642ft. Don't interpret this to mean it was a downhill ride. We did a LOT of climbing on every day except #5 (see elevation graphic). It takes many hours of hard work to climb a few thousand feet, but only a few minutes of high speed descent to burn it all up. So even though we netted -4,910 ft of elevation this trip was totally dominated by climbing.

I believe the dip around mile 65 was lunch on day #3, the steep climb out is the beginning of the infamous afternoon "shit show" grind-fest. I'm still studying topo maps to determine how steep was the climb-out for that afternoon sojourn.

Elevation over mileage

The 38.5mph max speed is from day#2 descent to the reservoir. If you've ever gone over 35 on a bike then you know 38.5mph is wicked fast. It can leave a pretty good rug burn if anything goes wrong. It focuses the mind in a hurry.

Some possible gaps in the data due to a battery issue on day #3.

Enjoy.

"Know then thy route, presume not signs to scan; The proper study of mankind is maps."
     -- Albert Augustus Pope

Little Dots and Spots

These spots itch like crazy

That's the back of my heel/calf area. It itches like a SOB. Just about everyone who went on the D2M trip has them. And today I found out what they are.

Chiggers.

Damn chiggers.

They are some sort of minuscule larvae that attach to you and liquefy your flesh so they can drink it. I thought my dog was disgusting when she ate horse manure. That's nothing compared to chiggers.

Damn chiggers.


"All I see is little dots, some are smeared and some are spots."
--David Byrne

Sleeping With Your Junk

My feet in the
White Clay parking lot
without cycling shoes

I slept with my junk all week in Colorado. Every time I woke up, it was right there. So I'd pack my tent and sleeping bag, put on my junk, climb on the bike, and ride. Day after day.

Simplicity.

Except today at 6:00am when I had to load my junk in a car and drive an hour to White Clay...only to find I forgot some important junk. Like, my cycling shoes.

It was so pathetic even Mike and Andy didn't have the heart to abuse me.

So instead of riding the sweet flowy singletrack of White Clay I ran errands at Walmart and Home Depot.

"Go Big or Go Home"
     -- unknown

Big Five Inch

Took the Rig for my first ride since Moab. Just to loosen up.

The big five inch...

Impressions:

• Too many hikers. I don't think we saw anyone on the trails the first four days of riding in Colorado and Utah. I like that.
• Really good air. There is 4x the oxygen (per volume) here than at the top of Bolam Pass. We were not acclimatized for Bolam Pass. Big difference.
• Didn't miss the gears really, but did reach for the shifter out of habit.
• Pucker factor. Didn't register at MCSP. 
• No rear suspension was weird. Not much front either since I filled the Reba with too much oil. I got used to the RumbleFish with 5" of plush travel front and back. Not that I needed it today, but I missed it. I started hopping up and down on the Rig and nothing much happened. 

I really do miss that big five inch.

"29 and single"
     -- saw it on a t-shirt once