Rest and Recovery

Even when you can’t do that much, you can still do some cool things.

Looking back at my photos from the last ~month of ‘rest and recovery’ it sure seems like we’ve gotten out a lot. But there haven’t been any long rides. There haven’t been any bikepacks. No new trails explored. No big techy rides. No limits pushed.

But we sure did see some beautiful things.

Much of that was due to it being Autumn.

And our timing being good.

Not really a good sign when naps are called for less than an hour into an easy ride.

But the fleeting colors make me smile, and even when dead tired, so it’s well worth it to get out there.

In between time spent with our families in Boulder and SLC, we took some decompression time in Winter Park. We climbed some dirt roads and discovered new trails in all directions. Winter Park might finally start to live up to it’s big talk about being an MTB destination if they keep building (and signing) trails…

On to Utah!

We found some color up in Logan while visiting Alexis and her new hot pink Lenzsport.

This ride just about killed us. CDT bodies only know tour pace. Anything even slightly over that is trouble. Lesson learned.

Shoreline rides can be taken easier.

Out with my dad and brother, who could easily bury us. But we wimp out of the big climbs, content to just be outside in the beautiful October air.

Got my high school friend, Phong, out for a ride on his $70 thrift store special. He’s been getting out more since.

My Grandma has the largest collection of CDTbike post cards. We brought the laptop over to give her a slideshow from the trip since she doesn’t read blogs.

On the way to Arizona we popped over to a favorite ride and layover in Southern Utah.

Thunder Mountain!

If you haven’t ridden there… put it high on the list.

I can’t believe it took me so long to realize it’s the perfect way to break up the SLC<->Tucson drive. This time we camped in Red Canyon and regretted it. There’s a surprising amount of traffic on the highway to Bryce, and our CDT heads were not too keen on rolling around in sleeping bags again so soon. Oh well. The breakfast in Hatch got us going for the rest of the drive south.

Back in Tucson, it was so nice to finally be settled after five months of travel.

It was nice to be home.

The energy and enthusiasm was there to go ride and explore. Back in the desert!

It didn’t last too long. Once fully comfortable, the novelty of being settled wore off quickly.

That led to some good old post-trip blues. What do we do now that the excitement is over? The project is done. We’re back home.

Working for yourself doesn’t help this situation, since it is based on internal motivation. It almost would have been better to have a forced job to go back to. Something to constrain us into 9-5 or something. I’m a little better off than Eszter in that trackleaders has events that must go off and do bring constraints. But there’s still a large component of self-motivation to almost all the work I do. Building a tracker for a big sailing race is a project, but not a big and exciting project like planning, riding and surviving the CDT. Some amount of letdown is inevitable — it’s just the way our brains work. Once you get used to a certain level of ‘high’ and satisfaction, it can be hard to move on to smaller more mundane things. Sometimes the answer is another adventure. But the body can only take so much, sadly. And then there’s that word, ‘balance’.

These are issues I think everyone struggles with at some point, and there are no clear answers. That’s part of the greatness of life, in that there are never any clear answers to some things.

One thing is for sure, you can shut off the voice of meaning in your head a number of ways. One is to get a group of friends together and go ride hard.

Or at least go ride hard trails.

I’m not much of one for pedaling fast these days, but rocks are always fun.

never seen this little chunk ridden, well done J-bake

Too bad my skills are stuck in tour mode, too. My brain keeps saying, ‘no, I don’t ride stuff like that’ when I look down at something steep and rocky. Crashing was the last thing I wanted to do while out on the CDT, so I kept it *very* conservative. I’ve also trained my muscles to the movements and placement of the Spiderflex saddle, so it’s proving to be a bit of a rough transition back to the chunk of AZ.

No place to begin but where you are. I’m fine with walking down stuff I normally ride (and getting photographed while doing so, thanks J-bake!). I’m ok with skipping B-lines I’ve hit regularly. For now.

We’ve also picked up a new little obsession. Running!

At least it seems like it is approaching an obsession level. I have little doubt that wheels are my preferred way of seeing the world. But there’s something about the simplicity of keeping it on your feet. And there are many places bikes aren’t allowed. I have always been curious if I can do long trail runs in the mountains. Seems like now is as good a time to investigate that as any. It’ll give our hike-a-bike and general MTB brutality accounts some time to receive some deposits and return to near normal levels.

It’s a good thing I’d told myself in advance not to expect much out at the 50 year trail. But I couldn’t resist a day out there, even though I knew it was going to be rough.

Luckily Chad was sort of on the same page as me after the summer. We both came out of the ride feeling a bit like this cow — rough day for her too.

Not that the classics weren’t an absolute hoot, and not that it wasn’t an absolutely gorgeous evening.

We were just all over the place. Flubbing lines we usually nail. Skipping others. Getting nearly bucked off by tropical storm ruts. Or helmets ripped off by catclaw that have swallowed entire B-lines.

We can only go up from here! Trails will get better as people ride them, and people trim them. Our skills and confidence can’t get much worse…

Morning guys!

At least Ez and I aren’t sleeping 10 hours a night anymore. We were up early one morning and decided to hit the trail in the cool air.

Have you ever noticed that baby saguaros are difficult to find? I think that’s the new game of the winter — find the youngest/smallest saguaro you can. We’ve been looking hard, and finally found this little guy. Can you beat it?

I got the bright idea to head up Mt. Lemmon for a fall color run.

The execution of the timing was perfect. Colors are in their prime.

sorry, legs!

The execution of the logistics of the run was highly flawed and 100% my fault. We started out with a steep drop down 1918, without any warm up. Then we continued running/shuffling down Secret and Sunset to Marshall Gulch. That’s too much downhill for our little legs and with our lack of technique.

Starting out with downhill on a ride is OK. Not so on foot.

It was a beautiful run, and we suffered climbing back up, but it felt good.

The next day it did not feel good. Sore legs! 4 days later we are still feeling it and haven’t run. Lesson learned. Interestingly we are sore in completely different spots — calves for me and quads for Ez. We’re both doing something wrong, and apparently they are two different wrong somethings.

Good news is I think we are both itching to run now. And it’s getting to where we feel like moderate beginners. It’s not a struggle the entire time like all our other attempts at running have felt.

We’ll see where it takes us. Maybe to some ultra-running. Maybe to some Wilderness backpacking. Maybe to some quick injury and back to riding bikes. Never know.