65 degrees, blue skies

And still small patches of snow in the shade. Today I doffed my wool long underwear top in favor of bare skin. The ground seems to have lost its cold, albeit freeze thaw mud still. Night time is just below freezing then warms up into upper 50s and well into the 60s like today.

Today’s ride was w/ MBH shop ride. Our route today was N of 89A where I had yet to venture this visit because of possible muddy trails. And yes, we encountered many too muddy to ride spots. Mescal was great as it is all slick rock. We rode part of new system trail, Aires, which had freeze thaw mud spots. System trail and it is a mud bog.

Mescal, find 3 riders

Yesterday Jason worked on my fork which he said on Friday that it wasn’t delivering up its full 5 ” of travel. He found that excessive oil was in the one leg. Some unknown wrench after PUSH tuning raised the level. Fork works better. SRAM’s web site does not list the correct amount of oil to put in so it became a trial and error effort to get it close. During the bike work my courage rock dropped out of my feed bag and is lost. I rode places today that the karma would have helped. Maybe I am like Dumbo the flying elephant who was given the magic flying feather and then lost it. He discovered he had the ability to fly all along.

Sat was a hang @ BnB for fork work. Afterwards i drove to W Sedona to Oak Creek Brewery tap room for a pint and a bit of Steelers /  Ravens playoff game then out to Deer Pass rd for the night.

Friday was a shower @ the hilton, the last for 2 weeks as the spa is to be renovated. A shower b4 a ride. Rode w/ Jimmy late in the afternoon. We rode Slim Shady which is a wash ride that uses bits of ground outside the wash. I had only ridden up it, going down was more fun as the tech features rode better w/ gravity assist.

Sat I am joining a Meetup Arizona ride group to ride one way 48 miles on Black Canyon trail (BCT). Trail is getting alot of buzz @ BnB. It is a pedaling trail that lacks the Sedona tech stuff. BCT is 54 miles s on I-17. Tomorrow is a long ride w/ several riders from BnB.

BnB is a great fun place to hang. The guys who work for Jimmy also choose to hang. Add in scattered local riders of which there are not many, a few dogs, girl friends, and keg beer and life is sociable. Big screen TV showing NFL playoffs is an attention holder. Business is just dead slow. People usually stay well passed closing time.

Been camping out @ Beaverhead Flats area which is documented as a gay pick up site. I ahve seen the same rigs many times.

Danny the window guy has a VW Vanagon Westfalia, synchro like my old one. He has put much $ in it netting an appraised value of $45,000 so he says. It is powered by a Subaru race engine that flat out gets down the road. He doesn’t trust it. I still have a soft spot for a VW Westy.