Just after 1:00 PM Jimmy, Jason, Scott, & I headed out from BnB to ride Highline to transcept. Night time temps are rising to almost freezing and day times are in 60s to today’s 70 something. however, there is still patches of snow ice on Highline. And there is freeze thaw slippery goo. And ,yes, desert red sand. I rode the same trail last Tues on snow and frozen dirt. Encountered several groups of riders on Highline pushing their bikes. Transcept leaves Highline and traverses up & down within a 200′ contour band per the gps’d ride. Its a doozy. The mountains have bands of sandstone, some harder and newer than lower one sometimes creating a bench of sorts, most places it is a narrow ledge, the trail running close to the rock wall above. Skillful riding some of which I lack still. We all wear leg armor for cactus protection. Jason botched a move and in correcting he stepped off down slope into a prickly pear. he sat down and pulled spines from his below the armor ankle.

We finished our ride @ Verde valley School road for a road ride back to BnB.

Another ride was coming together @ BnB w/ some additional riders. Jeff, Jason, & Scott led the line w/ me 4th, well ahead of the others. I am getting more confident. We rode up Easy Sleezey which is mostly a wash ride. Jimmy and I rode down it last Fri. Riding up overcomes gravity rather than zooming down.

Back @ shop @ sundown Jimmy was pouring beer. He has New Belgium 1554 dark ale beer that I like. Hung out till dark thirty. Zack let me in the Agave for a shower then out to Beaverhead for the night.

Last Wed i was driving to Cottonwood. Traffic stopped for a red light. Approaching after the light change was a white Sprinter. I pay attention to the plane Janes thinking they might be a conversion. This one had a roof ladder on the driver’s side that i thought strange. It was a camper. I think he was checking me out also. Last night I get an email from the owner of that Sprinter. He saw the article about me in MBA then it clicked that he passed me. It turns out that the owner is a guy I knew from the Mountaineers back in Tacoma back in the mid 80s. He is a mtn biker now and lives in Phoenix. Be an interesting ride. Connection w/ my way past and before I really became consumed by biking. I lived near Gig Harbor across the Narrows from Tacoma back in the 80s where I was a back country telemark skier almost year round the corn snow was that good. Did some mountaineering, climbing the 6 majors and skiing from the summit of all but Rainier. This guy knows me from then. Wow.

Bought a 5 lb bag of right from the orchard fresh oranges that make my van smell like citrus safe.

Bed time

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.

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.

Today i meet Quentin & DJ from Over the Edge in Hurricane and their friend Bruce @ the OTE crash house in West Sedona @ 10:30. Met Ross Schnel, famous racer and owner of OTE in Fruita, CO. @ the house.

Our route would take us across oak creek 2x where I crossed yesterday to Highline and back. Our first leg was on Airport which elevation above the sandstone became volcanic ejecta and hurky jerky riding. Started cold on N face of the mesa. Rode down Windsurfer to Ridge out to secret slick rock then down to the creek. I carried a h2o crossing pair of wool socks to wear in the h2o. A small pool in the rocks was iced over. I call the crossing pink feet, not red rock. Made our way to Templeton climb and notorious switchback climb. Quentin rode a bunch of the climb but the sharp hairpin stopped him. Once above the 2 switchbacks i rode the rest all the way, a first for me. Templeton lead us to Made in the Shade which goes all the way to BnB. I had 2 nemisi (plural of nemesis) on the trail, places i had never ridden up. Quentin spotted me and I rode both. Whooohoo the courage rock and the Torch of Freedom are helping. Next was the junction w/ Highline going up a wash where I failed several moves because of lack of steam. Once on Highline we rode in frozen ridden in snow. I do not have pics to show the sharp end of the rope we rode. The trail is now a Sedona classic. Highline does a serious drop down to Baldwin. I don’t ride the upper switchbacks and Quentin nailed them. A quick fly down baldwin brought us back to Pink Feet crossing. Change into wet socks, ice my feet in the creek then change back to dry socks. A bit of road ride to Chavez road then up to Ridge trail that we came down on the way out. Short climb to junction w/ Sketch which is a difficult trail again hung on the side of the mtn. Desert riding means you get to see how far you are going to fall downhill. Sketch marked the last big climb and the start of mostly downhill trail. Except for the uphills coming out of the gulleys we crossed. Finally a short road ride back to the house. The ride was 18.8 miles in 3 hrs 26 min and climbed 2518′ Distance & time seem small but the trails extract much energy physically and mentally.

Bid Quentin & DJ till maybe next fall as they headed back to Hurricane.

Fixie Dave is bringing the Chris King bottom bracket grease tool from OTE to grease my bottom bracket as no one in town has the setup. My bike has some skretches that need addressing once I determine where they are. Riding here is hard on equipment. Compliments to manufactures because the stuff doesn’t fail on a ride, it just wears out. Compliments to riders also for not crashing leading to injury or mechanical situation.

Drove out to Deer Pass rd to score preferred spot there for the night.

I am a bit wrung out from 5 straight days of Sedona riding. Tomorrow is MBH shop ride that I will go on for day 6.

Highlight today was making the 2 moves and riding Highline covered w/ snow. Riding w/ Quentin & DJ.

Off to clean up, eat 2 vitamin I, then go to bed. Get up tomorrow and do it again.