Last night this camp spot was a hotspot as is tonight. My favorite spot is populated by horse campers. Don’t bid the devil good day until you meet him but I sure hope they clean up.
Lower parking lot is cleared of most of the big rigs that camped there for many days. Big plush pushers. Can’t drive them to the grocery store.
Limped into town to Dave’s arriving b4 he opened for my appointment for him to bleed my Reverb seat dropper Dave is pretty sharp as he engaged me and wore me out in several how we can be better discussions. I learned a bit. Great stuff to add to the hopper, let it steep, then find it for recall. He replaced the hydraulic tubing that was incorrectly installed @ the factory then bleed the air out. Took it for a parking lot spin. The post rises so fast to jeopardize the jewels. Great working seat dropper.
Van limps along. I called the garage asking that if the part came in today could they put it on today. UPS didn’t deliver. Delivery promise was if ordered by a time it would arrive Thurs. Not so. Friday install after UPS delivery.
Bought some hardware to use to connect my bike stand to the jobox on back. Design is to cut off the post holding the jaws for gripping the bike from the rest of the stand then mount that piece to the box. Bob’s welding & fabrication cut the tube, drilled the mounting holes & welded a stop to hold the pipe from sliding out. Gave him the left over stand. Will work well in that I free up room in the box and putting it on the box will be so much easier than wrestling w/ the stand fittings to set it up.
Plan is to ride mid afternoon to let the heat go away and the light change. All previous rides were done in AM except for winter rides from BnB. Sun is different now, higher in the sky. Shadows are different than AM. I viewed the humidity for yesterday: 69% @ 4:59 AM, 13% @ 7:57PM. Parked @ MBH then rode to Dry creek road via neighborhood streets. Jumped on first piece of dirt, a system trail, that provided some warm up tech features from loose sharp edged red rock to small step ups and roll overs. My new Monarch rt3 PUSH tuned shock makes the bike ride some much smoother allowing me to keep the rear wheel on the ground while I pedal. The ride going down is so smooth. The seat dropper worked its function. My body delivered. My breathing is still affected by suspect bronchitis. I stayed seated working on my spin to match my breathing. Worked pretty well. There was only 1 short climb I walked but the others with a spin and the bike’s handling I just “motored” up and down. Solo and saw no one. I rode more tech features than previous rides. Earl’s cabin is ride name. It is a mtn bike made trail that goes into the wilderness. Because it was an unofficial trail it was never mapped and bikers had been riding into the wilderness where bikes are not allowed. Here in Sedona an arbitrarily contour elevation of 4,500 feet was chosen as the boundary. FS “discovered” the trail and then placed a wilderness boundary carsonite marker where the trail entered. I turned around & retraced my route going down the ups and up the downs. Trail is more tech and challenging and BETTER built than the system trails.
Late afternoon ride. Heat gone. Drove down to spa for quick shower. Fighting darkness and end of day & possible no sleep spots. Made the Deer pass rd site. same crowd. Nosed into patch of junipers separating me from another ride and then just 25′ off the road. This road dead ends down @ Dry Creek @ Angel ranch(?) site of sweat lodge ordeal that is blamed for deaths of 3 people. Ray is on trial.
Tomorrow is busy w/ do laundry & be @ garage by 11:00. As soon as they are done I dash up Canyon to Cave Springs XG to score a site for Spokane folks then spend the night there. May the van part arrive. If not, I don’t want to drive up canyon on my ill van.