My summer is almost full, even before it’s begun. The last few days, though, have been slow and relaxed and wonderfully free of obligations of any sort. Perhaps a bit too wonderful, because I’ve neglected to retrieve my laundry from the cleaners for a few days. One of these days it will get picked up.
Last week was busy in a good kind of way. Friday afternoon I rode the bike down to Fort Tuthill and rode many of the mtb trails there, some of them twice. Saturday I loaded the Subaru and struck out for Sedona. I took a Jeep road from Flagstaff for some amazing views on the way down. I rode several trails there, but was a little discouraged because of the heat and difficulty of the riding. Sedona mountain bike trails are some of the most grueling I have ever ridden—even harder than Moab trails. I stopped at a few Sedona bike shops after I finished and asked about easier trails but the answers were all the same, Go to Flagstaff for nice bike trails. So I did.
Sunday I rode the Elden Mountain loop, which my guidebook lists as “Biblical” for effort required. I do better on rocky trails than Sedona’s short, steep ups and downs and nearly vertical slickrock and sand inclines. Ironically the guidebook lists the trails I rode in Sedona as easier than Elden loop trails. I guess I’m not cut out for the steep short Sedona grinds. The Flagstaff ride was a 21 miles long and I enjoyed every minute of it. There were upwards of a dozen stream crossings and snow at a few places but it was still a great ride. So about 45 miles of singletrack ridden last weekend and 1 hard crash. I had negotiated most of the 2 miles of Rocky Ridge rock garden without wobble and was feeling very confident of my abilities to ride in Moab and Sedona without crashing when my front tire hit a patch of loose volcanic cinders, turned sideways, and slammed into a boulder. I kept going, sliding down the trail on my elbows and knees. For those who have never been fortunate enough to survive a bike crash, they happen remarkably quick; one second you’re riding along, all poppies and peace in your world—the next you’re laying all misshapen several yards in front of your bike with no recollection of what happened during the interim. I console myself that bike crashes are seldom serious, and if they are, I won’t really have to worry about it anyway. Dealing with the stiffs in the following days is probably the longest lasting effect.
Sedona should get it’s own blog post. Not that it deserves it, but because there are so many negative things to write about it. The scenery is top-notch. The weather is good. The art galleries are nice. Even the tourist shops could be okay if they didn’t have, well, so many tourists. Sedona is a lot like Moab, Utah. In Moab, trucks roll through Main Street all day long, but otherwise traffic is practically non-existent. There is no road construction in Moab land because traffic is light and there are few roads. In Sedona there are not many roads, due to its canyon country location. In Sedona there are many, many cars because it is close to car-crazy Phoenix. Big SUVs chug up the hill from Phoenix to see the creek and to escape the blistering summer heat—heat that requires copious amounts of energy consumption, and food and water relocation, in order for humans to exist. All of these people think they are escaping the city, escaping other people, escaping crowded parking lots, escaping jerks—but they are wrong. I digress.
I’m working a lot at the furniture store these past few weeks. This is good but may be short-lived as the owner is getting ready to retire and is threatening to close the store soon. The other afternoons are spent playing Frisbee golf, biking, or assembling bike number two. This bike is another story. One of the by-products of leisure is increased discretionary spending, and this is how I got the bike. After a game of disc golf, we stopped at Bici-mundo bike shop and were digging through the piles of old bikes and bins of old bike parts in the yard looking for anything when a guy walked in pushing a wheelbarrow full of assorted bikes in various states of disassembly. At the bottom of the stack I spied a Cannondale with a headshock. I gave him $5 and loaded it into the Subaru. The back half of the bike was missing, including the rear wheel, rear shifter, and brake. It took another two hours for me to find all the necessary parts to rebuild this champ from assorted bins and piles in Bici’s yard. Since I have more time than money now, this is a good deal. It now runs on slicks and is set to become my commuting bike. This is official Bike to Work Week in Flagstaff, after all.
This weekend promises to be good again. There’s a mtb race on Saturday that tempts me because I know the route very well and absolutely pounded it on Sunday. I’m still taking dance lessons for the kicks… not sure how long this will last. Dancing seems outdated and timeless at the same time. These things intrigue me.