Diary of Scott Morris

I took Keri and David out for a tour of the west side of Tucson Mountain Park. They are the latest Coloradans to flee the snow for warm temps and dry trails.

First was Golden Gate techy fun. Not the best trail for an introduction to Sonoran desert riding. I think they learned some quick lessons in cactus avoidance.

We rolled over Prospector Trail, along the “Rock ‘n Road” course, followed by much flowy trail out in the west desert. We went out towards Justin’s Water World, on little trails I haven’t ridden for years. Fun stuff out there.

We debated about Brown Mtn after coming up the Well Road, but decided on a shorter loop on Cougar Trail.

More cactus avoidance (holy crap is that trail overgrown). We rolled back into the campground on the trail Fred showed Chad and I last weekend. Keri and David also have a Westfalia camper, and were camped one spot south of Fred’s spot.

It was great to meet them and head out for a casual 4.5 hour ride.

Who’s next?

January 4th, 2009 | Category: Mountain Biking | Leave a comment

Paula and I met Fred and Susan out at the Old Pueblo course. Couldn’t postulate any particular reason that Fred would want to ride here, can you?

I rarely get out to ride the course. I did the race (on teams) years ago, but the bonus lap on the Antelope Peak Challenge last year was my first time on the course in ~5 years. Why? It is a bit of a drive, sure, but I’m also just a “ride in circles” snob.

The course is “new” to me, and quite fun to ride.

June clued us into some of the SAMBO [sic] trails off the OP course, and straightaway we went looking. We spun up ‘Painter Boy’ for a bit before deciding it wasn’t going to tie in well for our purposes. Little did we know.

So we continued rounding out one “circle.”

I love the multi-color cholla forests out there!

That’s one smart barrel cactus, brain bursting out of its head.

“His / Hers” trail has ridden in well. One of the best parts of the course, I’d say.

Fred and I continued out for another lap, this time looking in more detail for the eastern end of Painter Boy. June’s directions were right on, and we soon found ourselves on faint but followable trail, heading north.

Who’s head is that? (Note the tusk)

We followed the trail to just below the “blinky” tower, which conveniently has a dirt road that ties into Willow Springs Road. I think it’s going into this year’s APC course and should serve to break up the monotony of dirt road. Trail sense required.

Antelope Peak is in the distance there, near where we turned around. We took the western fork on the way back, guessing it would take us back to the boneyard where Paula modeled the mask. It looked doubtful for a bit, and we saw other trails branching off to destinations unknown. But sure enough, I watched the stem of our GPS track on my little screen get closer and closer.

We rounded out the half lap by returning on His / Hers.

January 4th, 2009 | Category: Mountain Biking | Leave a comment

GPS Stats

According to my TopoFusion logbook, these are my year end stats:

5669.22 mi (1954.64 mi uphill, 2020.32 mi downhill, 1628.15 mi flat)
681,078 ft total ascent (679,717 ft descent) - 8.8 % avg uphill grade, 11.0 % avg downhill grade
31 days 5:33:06 moving time (60 days 12:45:38 total time)
8.3 mph average speed
3167.098 difficulty, 9188.656 effort

I’m missing a few rides, since I don’t GPS everything, but that’s the bulk of it.

Compared to last year, I rode 650 more miles, but climbed 40,000 less feet. Miles are not very meaningful for a mountain biker (IMO), so the lack of climbing must mean I’m getting soft. Total difficulty index is also significantly lower, confirming my wimpiness (as if anyone needed to confirm that, least of all me).

Still, I spent about a tenth of my total time alive physically moving on a bicycle (or, heaven forbid, hiking along side it), and almost 20% of the time “out on the bike.”

8.3 mph for an overall average seems really low considering how much pavement and dirt road riding is in there. Plenty of slow (aka fun) riding in there, I guess.

Photos

I took 5,715 different pictures in 2008, or about 15 per day. 902 of them were posted on this diary.

Words

103 posts on the diary, totaling 58,155 words (359,337 characters). Yikes.

Scott Traces

My 2008 GPS data looks like this (Tucson detail):

You can probably guess about where I live. Things are pretty much connected, but I see some critical missing links, meaning that I didn’t ride to places like the 50 year trail (from home) a single time in ‘08. For shame, for shame.

All my GPS data (~2002 - 2008) in Tucson looks like this:

The darker and thicker the lines, the more I’ve been there. Definitely a few new additions in there for 08, and some coloring of lines that used to be faint.

Those lines are my lifeblood, the central nervous system of my psyche.

I was quite happy to see TopoFusion only take about one minute to load all my GPS data, and though it isn’t smooth/fast at crunching through all 2.5 million points, it was definitely usable.

Zoomed way out, it looks like this:

Again, faint lines are less traveled. A lot of that is well connected in 2008, thanks to the Grand Enchantment Trail which brought AZ and CO together (via the Divide Route). Still quite a few islands to reel in and connect to ‘the Network.’ I’ve got some riding to do (and routes to figure out)…

Weather (from NWS)

THE RESIDENTS OF THE TUCSON METRO AREA EXPERIENCED YET ANOTHER WARM
AND DRY YEAR…

…14TH WARMEST AND 23RD DRIEST YEAR ON RECORD…
…10TH STRAIGHT YEAR OF ABOVE NORMAL TEMPERATURES…
…8TH STRAIGHT YEAR OF BELOW NORMAL RAINFALL…
…1ST RECORD LOW TEMPERATURE SET IN OCTOBER SINCE 1971…

Hmm.

January 2nd, 2009 | Category: Mountain Biking, Multiday race reports | Comments (6)

Another year full of memories, full of life. Suffering and bliss, darkness and light. Attempts at making the highs higher and the lows lower.

Another year of not really knowing what I’m doing, but a happy contentment with the direction I’m pointing. Just don’t ask me to describe what direction that is–I cannot, and it is anything but static. If I knew where I was going, I’d already know. I may as well have already been there. Life is full of potential, and I see it every day. I see many paths, and all of them are good.

Happiness is the road.

Thank you, 2008. And to everyone that’s been a part of mine.

A few 2008 highlights:

Completing the first Antelope Peak Challenge, followed by a faster race.

RATS - Ride around the Santa Ritas with Chad Brown, Dave Chenault and Max Morris.

Bicycle canyoneering / bikepacking with Lee Blackwell on the Grand Enchantment Trail.

Ripsey Flowers, meeting Grand Enchantment Trail mastermind Brett Tucker on the trail.

Speed touring the AZT 300 with Fred Wilkinson, Pete Basigner and Mike Curiak.

Bikepacking another big chunk of the Grand Enchantment Trail in New Mexico, with Lee Blackwell.

Snow bridge surfing in Alaska with Mark Elfstrom and Adam Johnson.

10 days of Oregon bikepack singletrack bliss with Paula.

Bikepacking the Continental Divide Trail in Montana with Mike Curiak.

Cloud magic on yet another mellow “suburban assault” ride.

Launch of bikepacking.net.

Bikepacking the AZT to Patagonia with Paula, from the house.

Wrapping up the Grand Enchantment Trail to Albuquerque, with Lee Blackwell.

Area 52 freeriding with Louis Gomez.

Exploring the Gila River / White Canyon, along the Arizona Trail, with Lee Blackwell.

Simply cannot wait for everything 2009 has in store.

December 31st, 2008 | Category: Mountain Biking | Comments (1)