Do Unnecessary Shit

I giggle a little.

I can hear the typical banter behind me. Mama Bear and Rocklicker are following Kenny and I around a mesa. As these things go, I rode something that wasn’t “on trail.” This used to be followed by me getting cursed and reminders to each other that you don’t have to follow Moose and you probably shouldn’t, at least blindly.

As the ladies have improved their skills and knowledge of the mesas, these cursings have become fewer and farther between. To be honest, I may be habituated and less likely to notice, but I can’t recall being blamed for a line choice in a while.

On this particular day, I don’t recall what the move was, but there it was the sound of someone not liking my line choice. This time, however, in place of the cursing me for them following my tire without thinking, Mama Bear just growls out, “That was totally unnecessary!”

Yup, kinda the point.

Unnecessary – Not needed.

99.9% of the shit we do here at the Alliance could be defined as unnecessary. To others, they are not only not needed but often looked at as things to avoid at all costs. I mean why the hell would you want to walk a bunch of miles with a bunch of shit on your back just to sleep on the ground and then repeat it the next day? or ride your bike instead of using a car? or running? or doing anything that actually requires you to be physically active when you could use a motor for that?

But then again, why wouldn’t you want to? It is impossible to know how far you can go until you go. Can you hike 20 miles a day with 30 pounds on your back for 2 weeks straight? I don’t know, but I’m willing to find out.

#tenonzen

It’s somewhere between 10 and 11 am. The temperature has finally risen to a tolerable degree and we are resting for a few moments at the top of Zen. As per the usual, arriving at the top of Zen is a moment of relief as most of the climbing is done and you get to enjoy the downhill. We are all starting to feel the effects of what we have set out to do and the chunky nature of the descent, at least for me, is taking it’s toll as my arms are starting to ache and my shoulders are reminding me that I have aged.

This is the 3rd trip we have made to the top and the plan is to make several more. In fact, the goal was to ride as many laps as possible on Zen in a ten hour period, or as it became known, Ten on Zen.

Why? Well, there are two answers for that. The first and most immediate is John Taylor. The second is why not?

To the first, John and I were toiling away at the bike shop and we were chuckling about that one time we went packrafting and ended up moving for almost 12 hours eliciting oaths from some to never do anything John planned again and that we should probably figure out another one of those. This moved on to doing a bunch of laps on something and I made the mistake of mentioning the fact that the BLM had loved our idea of a 24 hour race on Zen.

And thus Ten on Zen was born.

Do Unnecessary Shit

It was way back in 2013, Brendan Leonard wrote a blog post that kinda hit a nerve for me. It was titled Make Plans, Not Resolutions. I’ve never been the kind of person that makes a bunch of resolutions, but I am a person that self-evaluates on a regular basis. The idea of throwing down on a big plan for the New Year seems to hold a little more value than saying, “I’m gonna drink less this year.”

Plus, plans are essentially a way to accomplish a resolution. If your goal is to ride the Baja Divide, you start with picking the date you will start and then how much time you will have off of work. From there, you can extrapolate just about everything you need to know, when it needs to be done and how you are going to do it. The plan will hold you accountable, the goal is just the pie in the sky.

Well, 2020 has dropped and here we are almost two weeks into the decade. The Alliance would be remiss if we didn’t have a New Year’s post just like everyone else. And while everyone else is telling you to go forth and do epic shit, we here to tell you that is cliché and you should just do unnecessary shit. Full stop. Find those things that make no sense whatsoever, like riding as many laps on Zen in 10 or 8 hours, and then do them. Maybe riding every hard, techy trail in your area in one go, whilst fully loaded is your thing. Sweet! (Note this will be happening at the end of April) Go forth and do it for no other reason than to see if you can.

So Happy New Year! Here’s to a whole nother decade of doing unnecessary shit!

P. L. and R.