As is always the case in times like these, I pulled out my thermometers to test what was missing in my life. I keep a box of these meters to tell me where my levels of apathy, cynicism, angst, etc, sit. Everything was looking astonishingly normal until I pulled out my Bicycle Culture Related Themes Thermometer. At which point everything became clear. I was dangerously low on bicycle culture, not just riding but the culture that goes along with it. I got to checking and we haven’t opened the lounge since St. Patty’s Day, and we haven’t had an Alley Cat Related Cycling Event since the end of March as well. That leaves us sitting somewhere like two whole months without an MCA event.

So I put on my thinking cap and got down to planning the next installment in what has become known as a quick trip to the liquor store via bike and got the next Alley Cat all Facebook official and stuff.

As always the course is super secret so all I can tell you is that we will be meeting at the Main Street Garage at 8 pm. Bring your bike, something to cover your birthday suit and a smile. Oh, and plan on not riding to the liquor store.

Up to date details can be found here.

I go through waves.  This is no more evident than in my music listening choices. Many of you will remember that a few months back all I listened to was this,

And those of you who remember that have also probably realized that I now listen almost exclusively to this,

Obsessive? Absolutely, but when I find something I like I listen to it until I know every word, every drum pattern, every chord progression. I know there are many of you within the Alliance that can name a song, the artist and the album by the intro. So I know that I am not alone.

This boils over into many things in my life, including my hobbies. Just a few months ago the only riding I did was on the singlespeed going as fast as I could for as long as possible. Why? Because it seemed like riding TrueGrit would be fun and it was a challenge. Before that it was the Enduro on the Goose, didn’t touch the hardtail for months at a time. And going back even further….

I think you get the point.

I’ve been accused of not riding any more. Truth is, I haven’t. I’ve been pulling my way up rock faces and just thinking about getting back out to do it again brings a smile to my face. Many of the things I love about riding are amplified when I climb. I love bombing down a rock garden as fast as I can because my mind shuts down and my body reacts, complete concentration. The same thing happens as I go up a wall, my mind shuts off and my body goes to town.

I’ve often said that trails are like puzzles, you gotta figure ‘em out. I love finding a section of trail and sessioning it until I figure out how to get through it, one move at a time. Well, you guessed it, climbing is the same. It’s just one big puzzle that makes my brain move in different ways to figure out how to get my body to do what I want it to.

I haven’t been riding, big deal. I will be riding today if anyone wants to join me…

P. L. and R.

Behunin starts off of the West Rim meaning you climb up the Angel’s Landing trail to Scout Outlook and then continue to climb as you head up the West Rim. After a bit on the Rim trail you hang a left on what Super D described as a poo trail. And then you descend.

That pretty much sums it up. Once you start going down there isn’t much else to do but keep going down, a long way down.

Super D setting up the first rappel.

On the other side of that ledge is where the descending starts to get epic. The first drop is 90 feet and puts you on another ledge. Then you rappel 150 feet to another ledge which puts you into another 150 foot descent. All of this is finalized by 120 foot rappel to the canyon “floor.” I use floor here almost in jest. Yes it is as low as you can go at this point but there are still 5 more rappels before you are really done. And then you still have to hike down the Emerald Pool trail to get to the real canyon floor.

The first four rappels total out at 510 feet of descent. This means that where you see Super D standing in the above picture it is 510 feet before you can really move without a rope.

Everything went pretty smoothly until we came to these drops. When we arrived at the first rap, there was a group ahead of us. We waited at least 30 minutes before they had all gone down and pulled their ropes and moved on so we could drop without landing on top of them. I would estimate that we waited around 2-3 hours on these first four rappels for this group. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the canyon there wasn’t much space to pass…

Rebecca on the penultimate rappel to the canyon "floor"

When we hit the “floor” they had already moved on so we just continued on our merry way without any more waiting until the third to last rappel of the daynight. We then waited close to 1.5 hours as they tried and tried to set up a guided rappel to skip swimming. Once 7 pm hit, we knew we had to get moving. We basically absorbed them into our group and leapfrogged our way down the last three descents. Even with the rushed effort, Rebecca and Darrin made the last 165 foot drop in the dark.

Super D, Roller Coaster Kim and I were the first to hit the ground. Super D stayed to make sure that no one died on the descent and Kim and I busted ass to try and make the last shuttle. We made it back to the Grotto at 9:09, 21 minutes shy of a full 12 hours in the canyon. We caught the shuttle and made it to the cars.

The rest of the group hit the Grotto closer to 10:30 making their trip closer to 13 hours. I went around all of the signs saying shuttles only and picked up Super D, Rebecca and Darin.

Needless to say we were all a little trashed and extremely tired.

The only way to see up is to look down.

This guy was having a hell of a party in the canyon. Mooseknuckle and all.

Super D gettin' RAD!

Airborne

Roller Coaster Kim on the drop to the canyon "floor"

P. L. and R.

Conquering demons? No just the top of Zen.

Ok. Ok. I’m up. You can stop yelling. I can feel your anger from here. So I will do what has to be done. Dig deep into the sleep-deprived pain cave and peck you out a post.

This week’s been a good one.

Tuesday consisted of a ride with the Moosekuckler Cycling Alliance Community Outreach Program on the upper Prospector. The trail is buffed out. Or was, as that was a few days ago. I’ve found this trail pretty much goes one way or the other. If you catch it in the right conditions, aka a day or two after a storm, it is fast and fun. Catch it when the horses have been up and down it and it has been dry and you will be cursing my name for sending you out there.

Needless to say again, the trail was in excellent condition. It was so fast that we finished class faster than I think any class has leaving us with plenty of time to do another lap. The students were non-plussed by this idea so we just came home.

After having such a fast ride on Prospector, it seemed only reasonable that we would slow things down and have a rest day on the UnZen.

Of course, by rest day I mean this hurts dig deep and bare it, type of a rest day.

The crew consisted of Super D, Roller Coaster Kim, KB, Jason and myself.

As you can see, when someone new comes and rides with the Alliance we make sure that they wear a shirt with their name on it so we don’t forget it. If there is one thing we pride ourselves on it’s ensuring everyone feels welcome.

In completely unrelated news, Bike Rumor actually dropped an article that piqued my interest. Partially because every morning when arise, I drop to my knees and pray to the Shimano Gods of Cycling that my day won’t get SRAMed. Also, because it is something that I aptly predicted was going to happen. Thanks to my perfect auditory recording memory, I present the conversation exactly the way it happened.

Andy, “I’ve been thinking about getting some Saint brakes.”

Me, “I would wait a bit. It only makes sense that they would apply the Ice technology rotors and pads to their downhill group so I would assume we will be seeing a revamp of the Saint brakes.”

So there goes Bike Rumor, all proving that I’m right and shit…

Not only did they revamp the entire Saint group but they introduced us to the new Hone group that they have aptly renamed Zee. Why? I don’t know. I assume it is an Americanization of some Japanese term that has to do with class warfare and the cause of being forced to dumb down their components so the “other half” can buy them. That’s just my take on it any way. Article can be found here.

Before you go and think I’m getting all soft up in here, let me point out another article I came across while trying to find the one above (I didn’t realize that Bike Rumor posted 15,032 times a day).

Apparently, Magura has taken to the streets and is now offering a conversion system so you can run their new hydraulic rim road brakes on any road bike.

Yup, you get to run the cable from your standard brake levers to the converter box. As you pull the cable it actuates the piston in the master cylinder and then your brakes. I’m just going to point out that this is probably not a good idea for carbon braking surfaces…

And since we are jumping all over the map today, I leave you with the following video that Shelby shared with us.

Shit Climbers Say from Louder Than Eleven on Vimeo.

P. L. and R.

I know exactly what you are thinking right now. The first thing that came to mind when you saw the picture to the left was damn those stanchions are dirty. When was the last time that thing saw some service? Well kids, it would be about ten days ago. It’s my wife’s bike and she didn’t wipe down the stanchions. If you have a problem with it, you can contact her.  She’s an adult and can handle things herself.

Second, you probably noticed that the sticker on that downtube is one of those elusive white Mooseknuckler Climbing/Cycling Alliance stickers. And you are probably right now wondering how you could get your grimy little hands on one or two of those. The answer to that is here. While you are there you might as well pick up a kick ass wallet as well…

High noon came and high noon went. I was left standing in the parking lot at the trailhead for Barrel Roll(s) with KB. I wasn’t about to have a duel with her so we started to make phone calls to the thousands five people who said they were to show. Apparently, high noon did not meen 12 o’clock it meant something more around the time of 12:23ish.

That is correct Sir Prattipus III was late to his own duel and I’m sure Andrew Jackson would have killed him for it.

Once the Mooseknucklers had gathered, we decided it best to leave the duel for another day and ride our bikes instead. And ride our bikes we did. The whole group headed up the Barrel Roll(s) with none other than Sassy Pants herself, Cameron leading the charge. Not only was she riding but she found her purple steed hopping from rock to rock. I guess that’s why they call them Rockhoppers.

Once the inconsiderate jerks decided that we could no longer wait for Sassy Pants, the group split leaving Super D and Roller Coaster Kim to enjoy Sassy Pants’ company while the rest of us headed around the roll(s).

And headed we did.

The dirt was tacky but still loose in some spots. Surprising, I know, seeing that the Japanese Gods of Cycling dumped all of Lake Bottom Bracket on us yesterday.  The desert just absorbed all that water and didn’t even burp.

Good times were had. While those good times were being had, someone (KB) suggested that the Alliance change its name. Blasphemy, I know. However, it has been proposed that we change it to the Mooseknuckler Cycling/Climbing Pack. There could be an Alpha male and an Alpha female. It could be easier to figure out who has the Mooseknuckle in their hearts and who doesn’t. I think we will leave it to a vote. We are very democratic here in the Mooseknuckler Cyling/Climbing Pack/Alliance.

Anyway, you should have all submitted your orders for white Mooseknuckler stickers by now and I know that every one of you has clicked a link to one of those stupid ads on the right of the screen. Just remember, all of these things help procure funds for the next opening of the Lounge.

Yup, it was one of those posts…

Out.

The weather is looking pretty nasty right now, but looks to break this evening leaving us with blue skies and 67 degree weather.

Be there!

http://www.facebook.com/events/303360129734089/

I fell in love with my current wife, not that first one that was a disaster, for a lot of reasons but there were two that were huge.

First and for most, she did not have a problem with my signature hair style that was a Krishna tail and bald head. I know she didn’t have a problem with it because that was the look I was rocking when I met her. Now she is forced to deal with my overzealous beard. Second, I quickly learned that she didn’t care too much about what everyone else was doing and kind of just did what made sense to her. This was appealing to me because it’s the way I have tried to live my life, living by my rules.

Well, as two people who are willing to go against the grain and in this case all sanity. KB and I set off for our first backpacking trip of the season. Most people would do something easy and close to home as a warm up for the season. Not us, we jumped in the Mooseknuckler-mobile and headed to Hole-in-the-Rock road. Once we were about 40 miles from anything paved, we unboarded said mobile and dawned our packs. Our goal, to make it to the Escalante River in one day. That’s 14 miles of hiking through sand, water and rock, but mostly just sand and water. If we were successful we would then have to turn around and walk all the way back out. Yup, all of those 14 miles making our round trip 28 miles in two days.

It seemed like a reasonable and good plan.

We had hoped to leave the MCA World Headquarters around 5 am Sunday morning. We left at 7. Then we stopped at the Escalanate Outfitters and then had to drive the hour or so on the dirt road to get to our starting point. All of this meant that we began hiking at about 11:30 on Sunday. Undeterred, we moved with as much quickness as possible. Anyone who has tried to carry a loaded pack through sand knows that this equates to about no miles an hour and a lot of frustration. Luckily the stream appears about a mile in and the sand became wet and easier to move on. But then of course we had to navigate stream crossings every couple of hundred yards.

This stream continues all the way to our end point, the confluence of Coyote Gulch and the Escalante River. The Gulch is a sandstone maze carved by this small stream. Most of the hike the walls are undercut leaving a towering sandstone pinnacle that blocks out the sun. The wind has cut several arches along the way and the river dug through one of these walls leaving a natural bridge. This bridge is aptly named, Natural Bridge. Of all the arches I saw and have seen, this one was just cool. Walking under the bridge was other-worldly. Most arches you just get to see, but this one we were forced to navigate.

Speaking of arches, we stopped for lunch after about three hours of hiking at the edge of Jacob Hamblin Arch. This one is wind created and the river goes all the way around it letting us see it from both sides. After three hours of solid trekking, we were pretty hungry. The Ramen Noodles tasted pretty damn good and we refilled our water bottles before loading our mules (us) and heading on. This arch is maybe a half mile past the confluence of Coyote Gulch and Hurricane Wash which was six miles into our 14 mile day. At this point, I had switched my hiking shoes for sandles and was beginning to question that decision.

We pushed on.

We left from our lunch spot at 3:50. This left us about four hours of daylight left, plenty to hit the Escalante. Unfortunately our pace slowed.

One of the things I like to do that goes against that crowd, is listen to punk rock and go to punk rock shows. About 9 months ago, we attended the Dropkick Murphys show in Vegas. After said concert, I could barely walk. My right foot swelled up like a tomato and limping forward in lunges of pain became my method of pedestrian travel. After putting on my Chacos it took about an hour before my feet began to feel tired. And then my heels really started to hurt. At about 4:30 my right foot started to have pains reminiscent of that punk rock show’s aftermath. I continued not wanting to slow KB’s pace and keep her from her goal.

At about 4:50 KB got sick. Sick enough for her to start wanting to stop. At this point I was hobbling along like a senior citizen trying to make queu at Golden Corral. My limping caught her attention and by 5 we were anxiously looking for a place to camp.

Once stopped, we both just crashed onto the sand. After a few minutes, I hobbled over and unloaded our sleeping pads. Then we fell asleep. After our quick power nap, we ate. At this point, hobbling was a fast verb for what I was doing. Nonetheless, we ate, filled the bottles and relaxed. We took in our surroundings while bathing in the shade of the cottonwoods we were resting under. Around 7 pm we felt rested enough to explore our surrounding a bit. We hiked up the side of the canyon so we could see where we were. It happens we were about 100 yards from Cliff Arch and the waterfalls at the base. Two things we had been hoping to see. We saw them from above and then retreated back to our sleeping pads were we remained until the next morning.

I woke up with the sun. Lying in the comfort of my sleeping bag, my feet felt fine. And then I stood up. The hike out was going to be a long and arduous one. I had two options, hike out or somehow die. Walking out seemed like the better of the options so I pulled my boots on, snugged ‘em up real tight and proceeded to spend the next two hours pretending my foot didn’t kill me every time I stepped on it. By the time we made it back to the Hurricane Wash, I broke down and took some Advil. I didn’t want to do drugs but my foot made me.

It took about 15 minutes for the drugs to kick in. My right foot stopped hurting and my left thought, what the hell why don’t I try this for a while. So I spent the rest of the trip pretending that my left foot didn’t hurt as bad as my right. I guess that’s one way to keep your mind off of the pain.

We climbed out of the desolate wash and to our mobile at about 2 pm. We didn’t meet anyone who had recently lost their girlfriend. However, we stumbled upon a man running in the opposite direction with a sheepish look on his face. When he couldn’t ignore our looks of worry any more, he finally said, “I got walking and forgot my pack.”

And even better, there was no crowd of middle-schoolers rushing down the hill as we tried to climb it. There was only a family of five that looked really out of place and who were concerned with how desolate the wash was…

I have a photographic memory so here are the photographs of the trip in gallery form.

This month’s issue arrived at the same time as my Dirt Rag. As is not my custom, I read the bike mag first. Mostly to see if they had improved their game, which they had. Despite a few typographical errors, they are at least at an acceptable level at this point.

When I got around to reading the Nati I quickly found the content to be, as always, stimulating. One of my newly revived passions is climbing, and they rocked that one out of the park by covering the final ascent needed for the first woman mountaineer to climb all 8,000 meter peaks without oxygen. It was a kick ass story. And then I hit the story about the Titanic.

I am intrigued by the story of this ship. The flamboyant expectations of the design of the ship and the absolute failure in reality of those designs reminds me of how flawed we humans are. I have to laugh. Much in the same way I laugh at most natural disasters. I’m cynical by nature.

James Cameron, the dude that filmed the move, The Titanic wrote a story for the magazine detailing his exploits exploring the wreckage with his robots amongst other shit. Interesting? absolutely (not so much his story as the whole coverage of the wreck).

I bring this up only because of what that film signifies for me. 

The film came out when I was in high school. As you all remember I’m sure, before the film came out we were all tortured by the theme song played over and over and over and over again. And then played again and again and again and again. I can’t be sure, but I think Sunny 93.5 played that damn song every hour for at least 18 months. After a few months of this torture, I couldn’t take it any more and I took a vow. I would not see the movie in protest over how overplayed that song was.

I cannot hear Celine Dion’s voice without beginning to twitch. It takes at least three psychologists and a shit load of medication to bring me back.

I have never seen that movie. And I will never see that fucking movie.

Is it a good movie? I couldn’t tell you and I don’t care. To quote one Captain Sparrow, “There are things a man can do and things a man can’t do.” Well, I can’t watch that movie.

In college, I even turned down a girl and her promises of many physical pleasures if only I would watch that movie with her. I don’t recall her name and I never watched the movie.

Sometimes a man has to take a stand. There are things that are more important than simply doing or not doing, but are a protest of everything that is good and right in the world. These things, these protests are few and far between, but they are worthy of our attention and worthy of our adoration. My protest is against that damn song. I tell you it is a worthy cause.

Sir Prattipus has coined a new Alliance.

As I mentioned above, I have found a revived passion for climbing in the past few months. My arms don’t work any more and all I can think about is getting back on the rock as soon as possible.

There is a moment when a perfectly ridden rock garden takes on a quality of Zen. Your mind is not thinking. Rather, your instinct takes over and you simply react to your surroundings, guiding, bouncing and steering around and over the rocks. This is a feeling that I love about riding. That connection to one’s surroundings. Knowing that if it goes wrong, you are fucked beyond belief and then to let go and watch as your body simply does what you hoped it would. It’s that same feeling that makes me love night riding.

Climbing is this at almost every moment. I found that I had a growing fear of heights, something that took me by surprise this past year. I’ve never been woozy or experience vertigo before, but I’ve had nightmares that keep me awake for hours on end because I keep falling off ledges that I didn’t fall off. If I watch a video of a big wall climb, my palms are sweaty and I can hardly control my anxiety.

Yet recently when I’ve climbed, that anxiety doesn’t exist. It’s like cleaning a rock garden. My mind takes over and I focus so intently on the task at hand that there is nothing else. Just me and the move that takes me up.

The Mooseknuckler Climbing Alliance. As Shelby said, there are plenty of mooseknuckles involved when you put a harness on. I like it.

P. L. and R.

He's just a little guy.

What has become known as the Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance Community Outreach Program occurred this past Tuesday. For those of you unaware of the program, it consists of me getting paid to ride my bike while college students follow me around on the “beginner” trails in SG. This Tuesday’s trail was Stucki Springs via the Navajo Drive trailhead. We saw the little guy to the left on our first pitstop heading up the Microloop wash. He is the smallest tortoise I have personally seen having a shell that was about 2″ across.

This is where you now go, “Ah, so cute!” If this were that type of blog and the people reading it weren’t a bunch of cynical bastards. Most of you are probably now questioning why I would post the picture and state where it was taken. I have my reasons. But as usual, I am completely off subject.

One of the students in my class happens to work at a local bike shop that isn’t the same one  where I labor. He obviously isn’t taking the class in hopes of learning how to mountain bike.   Rather, he stated that he had the day off and was hoping to force himself to ride. I noticed a few rides ago that his new bike was completely outfitted with ScRAM. Yup, everything except the fork and shock are branded under that umbrella. You all know my thoughts on that company…

As is normal in the cycling industry, I took to some all-in-good-fun ribbing about his chosen parts. His comeback was, “They’re lighter. You know that SRAM stuff is lighter.” Me, “OK.” We had our back and forth and then continued to smile as we came back down Stucki and hit the Poppy trail.

This got me to thinkin’ bout lots of stuff, like who cares? and the reasons I have chosen to throw my flag behind the Japanese Cycling Gods. Well, to answer the first question no one should. It should make absolutely no difference what brand or bike you ride, as long as you ride it. I may give you a bit of a ribbing but I’m happy if you are riding your bike. Second, I support Shimano because of my personal experience.

The shop where I labor is a Shimano Service Center meaning we can do in house warranties. As such, you would think that I would have their number memorized and not the other guy’s. But no, 312.664.8800 is scorched into my brain after having had to call so many times in the past few years. Does SRAM make some good stuff? Absolutely. My Reba is still going strong despite my best efforts to neglect it for the past couple of years. Most of their derailleurs work and as long as you don’t get a first production run shifter, they work as well. It’s all the other stuff and the in-betweens that have forced me to only ride Shimano. I don’t want to be worried about my shifter breaking mid ride simply because it did.

After only God knows how many derailleur adjustments, brake bleeds and full frame-up builds I love Shimano. It’s easy, straight forward, well thought out and it works. That’s it. My reason.

You can have yours for riding ScRAM and I will stick with mine.

Skipping gears, I happened upon a website this morning that made my head twitch in dismay. The site was Slam that Stem. I came upon this site via Drunk Cyclist who had pretty much the same thoughts as I with a big variation in that I don’t like the way a slammed stem looks. To me, it looks like someone screwed up (namely the douche mechanic who didn’t measure twice) and cut the steerer too short. It also makes me cringe because I also perform bicycle fits on a regular basis.

Luckily for me, there haven’t been too many Slam that Stem aficionados come through the fit studio, but the ones I have dealt with were difficult. I took one rider who could not find a saddle that fit well, even after years of searching. Raised his handlebars about 7″. At this point his saddle suddenly became comfortable. Unfortunately, he couldn’t handle the raised look of the stem and after a few weeks of feeling comfy on his seat he took the stem off and slammed her back down. Only then to begin to have the same discomfort he was experiencing before.

In my opinion, it is much more important to have a bike that you can ride because it is comfortable than to look like someone cut your steerer too short. Trust me, your bike will be more fun if you are riding on your ischial tuberosities instead of the soft tissue also known as your taint. If you can’t put both hands on the ground when bending over, you probably need at least a few spacers under your stem and chances are you will be faster by flipping that stem up so your body can properly support itself on your saddle.

Just my thoughts. And on this one I’ve got to say that if you slam your stem I’m probably not going to ride with you. You probably think your fast and I think I’m slow, so it just wouldn’t be fun for either of us.

My road bike also has a short stubby stem about the length of that tortoise’s shell. It is supported by about 40mm of spacers and points to the sky. Does it look super awesome? It does to me because it makes it so I can ride my bike without losing all feeling in the places where I happen to like to feel. But you Slam that Stem guys would be embarrassed to be seen in public with it.

So here’s to Shimano and riding with your stem to the sky, as long as you ride… Now time to go play with my new pet tortoise.

P. L. and R.

We awoke to a little sunshine with clouds surrounding us. I dropped Prattipus a line to find out what the plan was for the day. He replied that it was raining at his house and they were kind of waiting to see what the weather did. I continued to get ready. About the time that I was prepared to go, it started to rain. I quickly rushed the bikes back into the shed and closed up the Mooseknuckler-mobile. As I was walking into the house, Pratt called to say it had stopped raining at his house and they were hitting the road with a direction toward the Creek that is Little.

I turned around and dragged the steeds back out of their corral and loaded the kids as it was pouring, spritzing and pouring. At this point the clouds that were threatening to siege Washington had closed in and the party was getting rowdy. We boarded our transport and headed to Adventure’s First Stop to refill with dead dinosaurs.

The rain was off. And then on. And then off. As we rolled past the Apple Valley gas station the sun broke through for a second and things looked good. As soon as we crossed onto the dirt road, the clouds opened up a bit and hail began to fall. Then it began to fall harder. By the time that KB and I had made it to the trailhead it was freezing and it looked like it had snowed. The hailstones were small and it wasn’t coming down as quickly.

We waited about 15 minutes for the rest of the group to show up at which time the sun broke through the clouds and everything dried up. There was a breeze that when it hit you felt like the witch’s nipples people are always talking about but for our pedaling time, the weather was actually pretty damn good.

As can be seen in the above photo. The sky was blue and the clouds were pretty amazing as they swirled around our mesa.

Due to the caustic weather, we chose to ride the inner loops to avoid putting some serious tire tracks on the outer loop’s singletrack. Yea, we roll all ethical and stuff. It was Jamon and Andrew’s first time out so we showed them the rock, a couple of bridges and the waterfall. We didn’t lose anyone and no one died. It was a succesful journey out to the Creek (or crick if you happen to be from around these parts). It was worrisome to be headed to the cursed mesa with a couple of riders who had never been there with the weather being nasty and it being April Fools. Luckily for us, the joke was the weather and not the rock swallowing us whole.

I must admit that I enjoy riding in my usual places with people who haven’t been there yet. It renews a bit of that wonderment that I felt so many years ago when I first started to hit the mesas.

I did notice a few more small signs that have been put up to help people navigate around the mesa. It’s still a shit show for first timers but it does at least point you in the right direction. Which is exemplified well by this map, that happens to not be what we rode on Sunday.

Anywayssss, it was a good time. I hope the weather changes back to nice so we can all go do it again sometime soon.

Yes, this looks familiar. I got two pictures of two different people in one place. Sue me.

Yup, it was April Fools and that rock didn’t crumble as we all rode across it. Thank God for the weather.

P. L. and R.