Bikepacking: A Shakedown.

Apparently scraping my shoulder off wasn't enough.

So I've been wanting to get into more bikepacking/camping/touring-in-general for quite a while, since before my attempt at the Grand Canyon. What I know now, is I was doing it wrong then. Since then, I've been doing a lot of reading, scheming, plotting, and making. And this past weekend was the trial run for it all.

Josh and I packed up our gear, and headed down to Black Canyon City to camp out from Friday night to Sunday. After weeding out some bad directions, we made it to the trailhead and proceeded to get ready. The camping spot we had been told of was only a mile and a half away, all of 2 miles from I-17, and 3 miles from Black Canyon City. Extra water was in the truck if needed, and we had plenty of bailout options. Josh brought his dog Lucy, and would be hiking to the camp spot. I brought Tri, and would be riding.

Tri, all loaded down. The backpack on the tailgate is also mine.

I've never ridden this trail, let alone at night with a loaded down bike. Adventure!

All went well, and I wound up at the Agua Fria River in short order, where I waited for Josh. He made good time, and before too long, we found a spot to set up our tents.

Josh's on the left, mine on the right.

Testing my little alcohol stove to make breakfast.

After waking up and getting everything situated, we set off to do our different things for the day. I had seen pictures and read about the Black Canyon Trail System, and I've been wanting to ride it ever since I heard of it. It looked like an incredibly fun trail, with stunning views and well routed singletrack. So I set off to ride.

Looking back at camp.

South.

The trail has a very natural look and feel to it. It really is a part of the landscape, not an addition to it.

Bike sculpture at the top of one of the climbs.

Riding amongst the Saguaros. It's a lot different than dodging trees.

Black Canyon City.

I found Josh and Lucy at the bike sculpture on the way back, and had lunch, before heading back down to camp. I had ridden 7 miles out, and while I wasn't tired, I had limited water, and knew I had to either go to the truck for more, or boil water out of the river.

First thing's first, though...

Always wanted to chill with my feet in a stream after a ride.

Josh returned not too long after, and we spent the afternoon boiling water for drinking with our stoves, reading, and napping.

Sunday, we packed up, biked/hiked back to the truck, and headed back up the hill.

Overall, it was a fun and successful trip. I think I packed the perfect balance of gear and food, and had room for more, which I probably would (Should) use for more water. Everything worked, nothing failed, and while I do have a couple niggling changes to make to the setup, they're very minor and by no means necessary. I feel more confident in that bikepacking is entirely doable for me, and that it's fun.

So, now to do a real bike packing trip... once the weather warms up here a bit more.

Mileage: 4.5

That's gonna sting a little.

I'll start off by saying I'm all right, it's not that bad.

Foreboding, yes?

So I went into a turn a little fast, and hit a bump that sent me airborne unexpectedly. I landed in the decorative rock ground covering next to the paved trail, the front end washed out, lowsided, and STeve and I hit the asphalt doing about 18 miles an hour.

Normally, I swing pretty far to the inside of the turn to avoid said bump, but there was someone walking there, so instead I held my line. I probably should have scrubbed some speed, too.

Left forearm, knee and shoulder made initial contact with the ground, as far as myself, with the shoulder taking the brunt. Bike hit on the left side brake lever, bar, and pedal. As we slid to a stop, the wheel grabbed, and spun the bars a neat 180 degrees, ramming my frame pump and breaking one of the zip-ties on its mount.

After stopping, and groaning, I looked up at the person I was avoiding in the first place, who had turned, and was staring with a shocked look on her face. What else could I do? I smiled, and said: "Don't mind me, I'm just gonna crash here."

I don't blame her for walking away without a word.

Battle damage, the bike: Scrapes and scuffs on both brake levers and hoods, lightly torn bar tape, front brakes knocked out of adjustment, bars tweaked, one brake lever tweaked. Spedometer sensor acts a little funny, but still works. And a broken zip-tie.

Battle damage, the equipment: Put some holes in my t-shirt, tore the tip of the thumb on my right glove somehow, put some scuffs on the visor of my helmet, (No direct impact damage on the helmet.) and tore a little hole in the side of the tailbag.

Battle damage, the Polarbear:
Plus a scrape on the left forearm, a bump on the knee, and some scrapes on my right thumbnail. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

As if all that weren't enough, STeve's rear tire went flat right when I got home.

All said and done, the damage to the bike is minimal, and I'll be riding it to work tomorrow morning. Damage to me is minimal, all things considered, but I'll be sore for a few days. This is yet another crash where my helmet didn't have an opportunity to act. I've been riding with helmets for 9 years now, and not a single crash I've had has involved a helmet. Doesn't mean I'm going to stop wearing mine, though, just an observation. However, this is the closest my helmet has come to hitting the ground in a crash. The next one may just make me glad I keep it around.

Mileage: 19

"Do your mothers know you're out here doing this?"

One of the better comments I've heard from hikers while on a ride.

So Code and I went for a ride in Sedona today.

Tri, ready to go.

Bikes, in Tuck prison.

The ride started out on the Airport Loop trail, which gives some awesome views of Sedona, where every rock has a name. (Find the one named Bob.)

The trail was very rocky and surrounded with cactus.

We were sick of rocky trail, and dropped off the Airport Mesa in search of some fast flowy singletrack. I see some!

Not a terribly long ride, but a hard one, with lots of rocks and climbing. Definitely a fun one, though.

Mileage: 9.1

Chill.

With a lot to do at work, and a lot on my mind, I'm itching for a good long bike ride. Fortunately, the snow from the last round of storms is melting off fairly quickly, and temps this weekend look to be between 50 and 60 degrees. The ride outlook is promising.

But I decided not to wait, and went on a bit of a ride after work. I rode out Route 66 a few miles to the Naval Observatory, and turned around and rode back. I saw a few other folks on bikes who had a similar idea, it seems.

It's melting fast, but there's still a lot on the ground in places.

It was also the first test of a tailbag I put together, in an effort to make it easier to put too much stuff on the bikes of mine that don't have racks. Amazingly, it worked out well, and the design is good. But, I need to do more with it, mainly figuring out how to pack it and get a routine down with it, so it's easy to cinch down and use. I'll have pictures soon, when I remember to snap a few of it. It's pretty slick for being home made.

Tomorrow: Friday Night Bike Night with TC!

Mileage: 15.8

Further Defining Adventure.

Adventure: 2. Huh. I wonder if all the trails are this muddy?

Friday was a (mostly) road ride... why not make Sunday a (mostly) mountain ride?

I'll tell you why. Mud. And snow.

So my plan for the day was to see how far out my usual Skunk/Walnut Canyon/Arizona/Loop Trail route I could go before I was chased back to tarmac by the mud. The answer was not far, as I braved some wet sections and a mostly dry trail into Skunk Canyon, where it promptly turned into a cold soupy mess, buried in spots with snow. Durnit. After trying a couple other options which ended in similar situations, I decided to cut across town straight to the base of Mt. Elden, and ride up Lower Oldham to the Forces of Nature trail, and head east.

Don't let the snow fool you... I was wearing shorts for this ride.

This time, the best bike for this ride. Have you hugged your mountain bike today?

Now, I'm sore, I'm tired, and quite happy with the ride. I'm glad the mud and the snow covering the trails on the west side of town sent me to the relatively dry trails north and east of town, as I've never hit the Forces of Nature trail with relatively fresh legs. It was a blast, and one I'll be adding to the growing list of trails I'd like to ride on more often.

So many trails, so little time.

Mileage: 36

Define: Adventure.

Adventure: Taking inappropriate equipment to out of the way places.

So, I woke up with a dull ache behind my right eye today, which is the herald of a migraine. Getting outside and doing something physical usually keeps the migraine monster at bay, so I packed up STeve and took off on what I had loosely planned on being a road ride "out 89 a ways."

I have a problem with plans.

About the time I was riding through the neighborhood where I grew up (Which is not exactly close to Highway 89) I detoured off the pavement onto a trail around Cave Hill, and followed that for about 3 miles, then some fire roads until I got back on 89 several miles later.

Flood control measures to try to manage runoff from the Schultz Fire burn area on the Peaks. What's hard to tell from the picture is that the channel is coated in ash from the fire that has been washed downstream.

Well... STeve is technically a crossbike. Tame singletrack is well within his capabilities.

But I brought the wrong bike for soft cinders.

By the time I got home, I still had that dull ache behind my right eye, but it had faded out and back in, having been forgotten for the majority of the ride. It will be gone soon. Add to that that, for my first long ride of the year, I feel pretty good about it. I'm not sore, my arms and back didn't hurt at any point, I kept good speed on most of the hills I encountered, and my legs have that happy post-ride twitchy thing going on.

Good stuff.

Mileage: 52.8

Bike Vision

We're getting back into the normal Flagstaff weather trend that we all have a love-hate relationship with. You know, when it's 45 or more degrees outside, light breeze, sunny one day, then below freezing and windy the next day.

I've been trying to make the best of the warm days when they come, but what I've been lacking is a long ride. The type of ride that makes me feel good, like all my problems are so much easier because I just spent the last 8 hours kicking my own butt on a bike. Mountain or road, at this point it doesn't matter, I just need to get out and lose a day to spinning the cranks on a bike.

Anyways.

One of the things I love about riding my bikes everywhere is the things I see. Arguably, you see the same things from a car, but everything seems so much closer and real on a bike, and I feel like I see more, verses a car. It's also so much easier to stop and take in a scene, maybe pull out the camera and take a picture, without being in someone's way.

Food by bike: grocery store run from a couple weeks ago. Go go Surlys!

Define Irony. (Yes, it was on and grilling.)

I saw the last one at the store today, and had to share. Personally, I think it's awesome and ingenious, and I can't say anything bad about it.

Ride on, and see you some stuff.

Mileage: 6

Get a little mud on the tires.

There comes a time when you just have to say "Screw the mud and the snow, I'm going for a ride!" and do just that.

That moment came today for me. I finished Tri's new wheels yesterday, it was 50 degrees out, and I had an itch to go for an off-road type ride. I knew everything was going to be muddy and wet, so I stayed off the single track and stuck to forest roads, which were already pretty torn up.

Tri rocking the new wheels. I think they look much better than the old ones. They definitely ride better.

For the first few miles, it wasn't bad, as the ground was still pretty firmly frozen, and the snow was firm in the shade, letting me ride in tire tracks. But then I wandered into the areas where they've been doing some thinning, and things started to get muddy.

Saying "Hi" to a snowman.

By the time we made it back to the road to head home, having ruled the test ride a success, I was pedaling through mud 3 inches deep, with another inch or more of water on that. Normally I don't like mud that much, but this wasn't that sticky gumbo-mud that binds wheels. By the time I got home, there was one thought in my head:

Most trucks around town only dream of doing what Tri and I did, and bringing home the mud coat we did.

Mileage: 10.4

Blah Blah Blah Cold Blah Blah Wheels

This post was supposed to start out with me ranting about how the cold has been sapping my motivation to go on any sort of ride, what with spending between 5 and 10 minutes judging how cold it is, equipping enough cold weather gear to keep me just warm enough to be comfortable, but not be too warm, then feeling like I'm pedaling through corn syrup because of the cold.

Miserable, eh?

But, this is Flagstaff. The past few days, the temperature has risen about 25 degrees, with today being the nicest day in more than a month. So I got off work early to do a little riding around. I'll take it.

But I've still been riding despite the cold. Friday, TC and I caught a sunset:


In other news, I decided that Tri has been so good to me this past year, I decided to rebuild his wheels with new rims. The wheels I got for Tri were the cheapest ones I could find, since I built him on a pretty tight budget.The rims are intended to be road rims, not mountain bike rims, and are a bit narrower than I'd like, as well as the braking surface isn't even, so the brakes are very grabby and unpredictable. (Someday I may even upgrade to disc brakes...) I figured all that and nearly 1,000 miles of pretty rough riding warranted some attention:

Yeah. Really rough riding.

The plan was to lace some Sun Rhino Lite rims to the existing hubs. That was before I discovered how badly chewed up the cones in the hubs were. Then I found out that no one has any replacement cones for those hubs.

Ahh, plans. They never pan out.

So, instead of rebuilt wheels, Tri is getting brand new wheels, hand built by myself. A pair of Shimano XT hubs is on order from Absolute. I have to thank Exe for helping make that decision easier to make. Hopefully the new wheels will be built up and ready to roll this weekend. Then, all I need are some dry trails to test it out on.

Do I wait for spring, or hitch a ride to Sedona? Decisions, decisions...

Mileage: 14.5

Oh wait... it's 2011 already?

Or is it "Finally! 2011!" I'm not entirely sure. Regardless, it has been a year since my last mileage tally, which means it's time for.... another mileage tally! *Applause!* Fashionably late, as seems to be the trend.

What, I've been distracted.

Somewhat.

Anyways, in the tried and true format, the numbers for the past year:

Bi:..........1416.4
Henry:...787.06
Tri:.........831
STeve:....1000

Total: 4034.46 miles.

This is significant. Why?

Well, the last week of September, I tallied up my miles for the year so far, and found I was dangerously close to 3,000 miles. So, Exe convinced me that I should try to hit that by the last day of September, thus riding 3,000 miles in the first three quarters of the year. Achieving that, I should then try to break 4,000 miles by the end of the year.

Lofty goals. So I pushed for 3k. And I made it. Then, after that, I sort of let it go. I did lots of riding, but I wasn't pushing myself to go out and put in miles towards breaking 4k. I rode for the same reasons I always did, to have fun, and see stuff, and relax. I tallied every now and then, to see how close I was, to see if I could figure out which mile it would be on which bike, so I could take a picture of where I was when I hit it.

With that goal met, and discussed, what of the other three I set at the beginning of last year?

1: Ride a full century. This mainly is just a round about way of saying I want to build up my endurance further. DONE!

2: Do a short weekend camping tour. Pack my tent, sleeping bag, and foodstuffs on Henry, ride somewhere far-ish away, camp for a night or two, and ride home. I wanted to do this in '09, but I wasn't ready, or set on it. DONE! Sorta.

3: Enter in a mountain bike race. Preferably the Crazy 88, but we'll see. This one is highly uncertain, but we'll see. Amazingly, DONE!

So... with those met... I'm sort of at a loss for goals for this year. There are some things I'd like to do bike-wise, but they are fairly specific, and not so much general goals. I'd like to actually make it to the Grand Canyon. I'd like to ride down to Sedona and actually ride back. I'd like to ride more centuries. I'd like to take a week to bike camp around Northern Arizona. Things like that. Personally, I feel like all those things are well within my realm of possibility, having done the riding I've done in the past year. They're not so much something I need to work up to now, so much as just get past the mental block that keeps me close to home.

On the flip side, there's also quite a few things I'd like to do this year that don't involve pedaling my crazy rear all over Arizona, too. I have some ideas for woodworking that may end up on my poor little neglected crafting blog, eventually. (Give it a click, it's lonely.) I also have two motorcycles that saw very few miles this year, and I'm starting to miss riding them around.

All said and done, I probably won't turn out so many miles this year... and I'm fine with that. The important thing is that I enjoy whatever I chose to do.

May '11 be a good year for all.

Mileage: 4.5

Winter Riding on Holiday Streets

We got our first decent snowstorm of the season (Decent in my mind meaning 4 or more inches of snow.) on Wednesday night on into Thursday. I was one of the few crazies on his bike out playing in the snow:

That elusive arctic snow snake is back.

However, it is Flagstaff, and with snow comes... well... typical Flagstaff weather. By today, a lot of it had melted off. I decided it was a good idea to ride Bi out to meet up with family for dinner, when I saw one of the coolest light and cloud shows over Mt. Elden.

You don't see something like that every day... I wonder what that looked like from space?

After dinner, I rode home via the airport, though not from the place where dinner was. (It's sort of a long story.) It was truly a nice ride. It wasn't too cold, just cool enough to make me work to keep warm, but not cold enough to ice up the roads. Cars were out there, but scarce. By the time I got home, I felt like I could have easily kept going, all night if I wanted to.

Tomorrow, the roads ought to be nearly empty.

I'm looking forward to that.

Mileage: 20.4