I have long known that this day would come; too long have I escaped it. After almost four years of narrowly avoiding the sharp succulents of Arizona, my time has come. At least it happened on a hard trail: Brown Mountain. But it wasn’t at a particularly hard spot.
I’ve never had anything but a minor brush with a cholla or prickly pear, but today I fell straight off the trail, landing in the middle of a prickly pear. Yee-ouch. Hours after, I’m still full of needles.
The day started well: my parents and sister are in town. We took my father out for a tour of Tucson Mountain Park. Starting at Camino de Oeste, we hit yetman, tech pass, golden gate and then were heading to meet my mom and sister at the Desert Museum. My dad rode very well for his first ride on the loose, technical trails of TMP.
I looked to the left and saw the switchbacks of Brown Mountain and knew I had to ride it. Al and I hopped on the trail and reset our mental dab counters for the challenge. Drop to the wash, then grunt it out. Switchbacks left and right… hmm, I jones myself on one: dab #1. Climbing continues unfettered. I clean the first descent and begin climb #2. Ok, it’s getting hot, but I’m cleaning some of the hardest climbs. I’m halfway through Brown and only a single dab. I start trying a bit too hard…. A small ledge results in a pedal slam. My left foot unclips and hits the trail, but I don’t have nearly enough leverage to support my weight. Now I see the cactus. My right foot unclips but not in time to jump it. I’m upside down and right on top of it.
Lucky for me, Alan was right behind me. He ran up the trail to first get my bike out of the way, then he grabbed my free hand and pulled me back onto the trail. This avoided some serious collatoral damage since I was essentially stuck, upside down on a steep slope. It’s a good thing he is as strong as an ox. I don’t think I would have been able to pull him out of a similar predicament.
As soon as he pulled me up we looked at the trail where I fell. He says, “Is this supposed to be hard? . . . Where is the challenge?” He was right. “Yeah, I know.”
I tried pulling thorns for 5 or 10 minutes, and Al got the major ones with a pair of pliers. But the efforts were fruitless: they were all over. So I just hopped on, and full of adrenaline, starting riding again.
Dab #2 was the cactus calamity crash. 3 and 4 came on the continuation of the climb from there. Then 5 was a pathetic mis-slide on the ridgetop. I’ll blame it on the needles being dug ever deeper into my legs. The descent, sans gloves (full of needles), proceeded well. Switchbacking was spot on, but of course the toughest spots still threw me. Getting on and off the bike was the worst part, so I had extra motivation to keep riding. I also just wanted to get out of there. 3 dabs on the descent, which brings the total to 8. Respectable considering the known record is 5, but I could have done so much better.
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