I met Lee on the west side of town to help him install a fountain then go for a ride on the 50 year trail. Everything went well and according to plan until I realized that I left my helmet at the cafe on the west side.
It was about time to retire the helmet, and it did save me the trouble of having to retire it. Losing the Petzl light attached to it sucked, though. That helmet has seen some big rides and plenty of sunshine. Of course, it’s never actually done anything useful for me besides shade my eyes from the sun. 14 years of mountain biking and that’s all helmets have done for me — block the sun. It’s never something I really think about, I just have ingrained in my mind that if I’m riding I should be wearing a helmet.
Except when I leave it at a cafe on Prince Rd. Then I ride the upper 50 year trail helmetless and wimp out of drops I normally ride without a thought. But it was still a nice ride.
We had a tag-along for the start of the ride. A nice fellow named Jason from Vermont. He followed us until he broke his chain. We had to get back into town so we continued on up the upper loop. The trail never disappoints me. My performance on it usually does disappoint, especially without a helmet. But who cares? It was a warm day, I felt great and the riding could not have been better.
It was a short ride, but probably just enough.
Thoughts are turning more seriously towards two upcoming adventures/challenges. 1 – AZT. 2 – GDMBR. One leads to another, in my view. It is beginning to consume me, which I take as a good sign.
I ordered up a 29er from Airborne, after a somewhat frantic week of research including a few sleepless nights. I don’t know how I lucked out on the deal I got, since I have not kept up any sponsorship contacts as I might have done in years past. To get a super deal without the strings of sponsorship is about as good as it gets.
We’ll see how the big wheels go. The bike is only one small part of the preparations. The largest part being, of course, mental. I am starting to get my mind around what racing the Great Divide means. It is still overwhelming, but I now believe that I can do it and am ready for the challenge. I can’t imagine anything I’d rather do, actually. By this I mean that nothing is as exciting or as interesting. I would be quite pleased with myself if I were to successfully race it (that is, reach Antelope Wells [THE END]). It will be interesting to see what I learn about myself. Reaching/finding my limits will be only one small part of this. The suffering, no doubt, will be huge, and of quality.
Every few days I scan through the photos we took last summer. This is perhaps motivation enough.
Lee and I are set to continue AZT route finding and exploration soon. The next section is very unknown but looks very exciting. Pine, AZ here we come!
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