I had not expected to be standing on the side of I-17 waiting for a Uhaul to be opened. To be honest, if you had asked me what it was that I was driving 6 hours to attend, I would have told you I wasn’t exactly sure. I didn’t expect “real” racing. I did expect that there would be lots of partying, pretty much sun up to sun down, and I knew it was going to rain, probably a lot.
But the Uhaul was definitely not expected.
There was somewhere around 100 singlespeeders standing around just off of I-17. Luckily, they just took this opportunity to party. As soon as someone would roll up, a beer, flask or joint would be pulled out of a frame bag or backpack and pretty soon, the pack of mountain bikers was a party on the side of the road waiting to go somewhere. No one seemed to know where, but we were putting our bikes on a Uhaul and getting on a bus. This could only end in cheers at the end of a great day or us in Mexico without a kidney.
Of course, as per MCA standard operating procedure, I have started in the middle of the story so let’s back up a bit.
Sometime after Mexico, my mother-in-law asked if we would be willing to let our nephew be baptized in our jacuzzi. Sure, whatever. And that was the details we were given. I had SSAZ on my radar for a while and it was getting close, I realized that the date actually did work out for me and the checking account had recovered sufficiently for it to be a thing.
Mama Bear and I discussed it, it sounded fun so I went to sign us up. From night to morning, they had closed registration. Bummer, but this is a singlespeed thing so I shot a message out to see if there was any way we could still jump on the burning band wagon. Brian responded with a yes cuz you took care of our AZ crew a few years ago, just send me some money via paypal. OK.
Excited. Stoked to party. Then MIL calls and gives us the dates for this baptism, same day. That would have been important information to know, YESTERDAY! Mama Bear was now no longer my road trip partner as she felt obligated to host. I now had 2 entries to an event that I didn’t really know much about and no one to go with. So I asked ProZac. He was interested. The Mrs. said yes. We were set.
Stage 1
ProZac and I had no idea when/where/what was going to be happening. Someone yells out over a bull horn that roll out is at 9. Cool.
We find ourselves amidst a crowd of bikers who know little about what is going to be happening. We have a start time, that’s about it. As 9 approaches we are given a few instructions. Roll out, ride the Black Canyon Trail for about 4 miles and when you hit pavement turn left and ride up to I-17. That’s all we are going to tell you now.
Oh yea, and we will be at Cleator’s at some point.
The 100 or so cyclists pedal out the two track and then hit rough single-ish track. The bottle necks start almost immediately. The first half hour or so goes something like this; pedal, trackstand as the crowd bobbles ahead of you, pedal, wait for someone to move, pedal. And then, as things thinned out, we were able to ride.
As instructed, we end up next to I-17. There are two charter buses and a Uhaul. They tell us to take off our front wheels and that someone had lost the key. Party on.
Stage 2
The buses and Uhaul eventually are loaded and we are “shuttled” to the other end of the BCT. Again, details are purposefully scant. Stay on the trail till you see the water tank. Stop there. Ok.
And you don’t know me.
This time, ProZac and I jumped in with the lead group. The pace was brisk and the bottle necking kept to a minimum. The BCT is a trail I dig the shit out of, but we had never ridden the very top few miles. The pace was a bit more than what I wanted. I let Zac go and stopped to let the fast people go by. I did this several times until I was somewhere between the fast kids and the slow kids more or less pedaling by myself. Perfect.
I make it to the water tank. Mr. Paul of Paul Components is there with snacks, drinks, shots of whiskey. I find Zac and we chill. I drink a Utah beer in Arizona.
Stage 3
Stage 3 – go that way to Cleator’s Bar and Yacht Club.
We headed up the hill as people were still partying and rolling into the party. The group was spread out and the climb wasn’t that bad, but you could feel it at this point in the day. We hit the bar around 2 or 3. I can’t say I was paying much attention to the time.
The guy in front of me tries to order a beer. He is told he has to take a bucket and 5 beers. No exceptions. It’s on the tab. He didn’t want 5 beers and neither did I. ProZac was the only sober person there, so we shared a bucket. Riders continued to trickle in and pretty soon the bar and yacht club was overflowing with bikes, bikers and the sidebyside crowd wasn’t quite sure what to do with us. It was the perfect juxtaposition of cultures and a blast to watch.
Once Tom bought us beers and then couldn’t remember why he was telling his story or that Zac didn’t want to drink, we decided it was time to head back to camp.
“I saw you ride on rocks!”
We went out front and waited for the bus.
Stage 4
The bus never showed up, but the people inside were drunk enough that the joke took long enough to sink in that they thought one was coming for a few minutes.
We didn’t get instructions for the last stage. Maybe we left before that happened, but we just assumed we had to get back to camp. The BCT would take us right there or we could pedal the road. We opted for the former. The sun was setting, the wind was rippin’ and that trail was bitchin!
We rolled up to camp and immediately went for the snacks, another beer. I set down and watched everyone else rolling in and doing the exact same thing. No one complained. No one got upset. Over 100 cyclists spent the day with no real plan or idea of what they were supposed to be doing and everyone, as far as I could tell, had a damn good time.
The Alliance would like to thank the whole of the SSAZ gang for a killer time. It was definitely a trip.
P. L. and R.