Despite the epic nature of the weekend, I’m feeling recovered and well. I wasn’t sure rolling out the door, but after a few minutes the groginess of the morning wore off.
I met Glick at the UofA campus, then we headed for TMP. Sentinel Ridge is always a treat, and we had a nice pace going. He’s a good rider but recent changes to his steed were throwing him off (65 PSI probably didn’t help either).
We climbed up through Shannon, around the Tucson Mountains through Starr Pass, then gave the John Krein trail a shot. I wasn’t sure if Glick was up for it, and he was on the border of whining, but in the end I think he enjoyed it. I told him it takes more than a few rides to adjust to the rock hell that Starr Pass is. I think it took more like a few years for me. There are still days that I come off a nasty section and think “what am I doing out here? is this fun?” Five seconds later my feet and hands stop aching, I look around at the forest of Saguaros, the blue sky and the maroon cliffs and the answer is clear.
How did the climb go? Not well–for both of us. I did far worse than last week, but I still cleared some difficult sections. The downhill went much better, except for Glick leading it out then promptly going off the trail (my fault, really).
I have got a lot of work on “Finding Trails” this week. But thoughts are jumping around in my head about what epic to ride this weekend in final preparation for the ride of soul. If Saturday’s epic doesn’t reduce me to a babbling idiot, I’ll be at the next session of AZT work (Oct 17th):
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