John’s ahead of me as we roll into the timing tent.
As promised, there are beer handups. John snags one and pedals off. As I roll in, Stan has nothing in his hand as JT just appropriated it. He grabs a beer and pops it open, but the timing is all off. I’m about a half a pedal stroke out of reach. He attempts the exchange but can’t reach me. Then tries again. No luck. I’m now rolling back out onto the course without a beer. With a heroic effort, he sprints the 30 feet to make the hand off and I roll back onto the course in the awkward position of now trying to ride a singlespeed on dirt with an open beer in my hand.
At any real race, this would be the worst possible position to be in. If you’ve never tried to ride with one hand, it can be incredibly difficult if you are trying to go fast, there are obstacles or you’re slightly inebriated. I was all three. To top it off, the beer was open which takes another level of concentration to continue without spilling. Luckily, this was a singlespeed race and as far as I’m concerned, if you show up to a singlespeed race ready to win, you have already lost.
I catch back up to JT and we both roll to a stop so we can drink our beers.
Welcome to Beatty, SSNV.
We rolled up about an hour before the start of the race that I was sure wasn’t really a race.
Once parked, I walked across the grassy field and found my way to what seems like the logical place for a check in. Troy Rarick is sitting at a table across from concession stand and Stan is in the concession stand with a clipboard. I say hi to Troy and then get the scoop from Stan. Race does in fact start in an hour. I sign myself and Mama Bear up. He hands me 2 handmade number plates and points to where the start line will be. Troy and Stan are clearly intoxicated. Upon attempting to hand me pipe cleaners to attach said number plates, Stan just gives up and hands me the bowl to sort it out on my own.
So far, a pretty normal start for a singlespeed event. I saunter back and start getting ready for the “race.”
I’m not entirely sure how I came to know that SSNV was a thing and a thing about to happen. Somewhere I saw a post with dates. OK. Cool. A little digging and I found a Facebook group and event. Progress. I mentioned all of this to JT and then more or less forgot about it. Luckily, he did not and reminded me with enough lead time to still make it happen.
Saturday morning, we rolled out into the Nevadan desert not entirely sure what to expect or even why we were going.
Rolling back into the timing tent after the 2nd lap, we just stopped. The handups were less likely to happen as everyone was just hanging out and drinking. Plus, the last one hadn’t gone that well and we ended up stopping anyway, so we just stopped, grabbed a beer and shot the shit.
Mama Bear was a bit under the weather and tired. She and Shalena decided to call it. John and I finished up the beers and then went out for another lap.
John is cruising in front of me. We roll up onto a section of trail that cuts across the skinny top of a dike and he suddenly stops in front of me and jumps off his bike. The yellow ribbon that is strung across the trail directing traffic is clearly pointing people in the right way but in the wrong direction. So John moves it to send people off into the desert. While some folks are pretty drunk at this point, getting lost would be pretty hard to do. Back on the bikes we hammer across the dike and begin the descent. This scene repeats itself a couple times as we ride the backside of the course.
Rolling back into the timing tent, the vibe is chill and everyone is just mulling about drinking beers, high fiving and talking about that sick turn where they almost lost it.
Spicer Ranch
All of this is taking place at an oasis in the middle of the desert. Beatty, Nevada isn’t within the Death Valley National Park, but it might as well be. The landscape, vegetation or lack thereof and its juxtaposition to the park mean you are essentially riding in Death Valley, including the heat. SSNV took place the last weekend in October starting at 3 pm. Standing around, the temperature was nice but stomping on the pedals, it felt pretty damn hot. And then, as you would expect, once the sun set, the thermometer plummeted making a puffy jacket and campfire things to be desired.
This oasis of green grass and trails sits just outside of the town of Beatty on Spicer Ranch. Dave Spicer, a long-time mountain biker, began tooling around and having trails built on his property quite some time ago. At this point, there are multiple trails on his property that also link up to burro trails that stretch for miles out into the desert. The ranch has hosted festivals, cyclocross races and even the Tinker Classic, a gravel race promoted by Tinker Juarez. The trails are certainly a draw for this small community in middle of nowhere Nevada.
Of course, this was the venue for SSNV as well. There is camping on site with bathrooms and showers, a nice grassy area and a firepit that is perfect for a bomb fire to warm a bunch of dirty singlespeeders.
The trails at Spicer Ranch are fun. They tend to be narrow singletrack across gravelly desert. There isn’t much technical riding, but one can certainly pedal out a bunch of miles. The most difficult piece is the loose nature of the trail tread that can making negotiating switchbacks and even sweeping turns a bit nerve wracking. You are also likely to see the infamous Death Valley burrows milling about doing jack ass stuff.
The fire is going. We can see it and the shadows of a few people sitting around. The occasional burst of laughter is begging for us to make our way to the party.
Once the race was completed, most folks dispersed. We headed back to our camp and made short order of cleaning up the bed that Jesus had decided to obliterate while we were out riding and getting dinner ready. The sunset was on point, as you would expect in the autumnal desert. We popped a couple more adult beverages and enjoyed the fading light of the day. Once the cold started to creep in, it was too much to not walk over to the fire.
Stan had the stage set. There were prizes laid out everywhere fronted by a mic and amp. More riders gathered as the “Awards Ceremony” was started.
Seeing that this was a free event that included camping and beer handups, my expectations of anything past that were nil. I considered SSNV to be an organized group ride that was passing as an unsanctioned state championship. The load of goodies presented was impressive. There was swag from Paul Components, Pit Viper, Wren Components had a fork for the winner of a drawing, plus a bunch of other stuff that I don’t have a solid recollection of. Seeing that there were somewhere around 20ish people, the prize table was big enough to ensure that everyone that finished the race got something.
John finished 11th and scored some swag and I grabbed a set of Pit Viper sunnies for the Mama Bear.
There was a tramp stamp painting ceremony, a cow that played the guitar and sang, Troy told a joke, then tried to explain the joke and was escorted off the stage whilst being heckled by pretty much everyone. The night peaked and then started to get blurry. There were folks from all over and we chatted them up. I didn’t exactly get names, but there was Rum Guy, LA Guy, Stan, of course, and a bunch of other folks that drunkenly committed to SSST although I’m guessing they don’t remember.
And then we retired back to camp cuz we’re old and were tired.
Sunday. Mama Bear and I awoke early like we usually do. The sun was lighting up the sky, but it was obvious that there wouldn’t be sun on our backs for a while. We took Jesus for a walk through the ranch noticing details that were missed the day before. We walked until I couldn’t feel my toes and then made our way back to camp just as the sun was beginning to roll over the top of the surrounding hills.
Soon there was a fire raging and laughter coming from it. We opted to hang out in the sun enjoying a lazy breakfast.
There weren’t any organized rides and most folks were packing up to head home.
The Alliance waited till it was warm and headed out for a couple of laps taking turns as we felt appropriate. The dogs were with us for the first 6 miles or so but couldn’t hang. We circled back to camp and penned them up before heading out for another lap. We made it up the “techy” trail to the top and checked out the view. We saw some burros and more or less had a great ending to the weekend.
Huge thanks to Spicer Ranch, Stan and of course, everyone who sent swag for a bunch of dirty singlespeeders. We’ll keep you posted on when the next gathering in Nevada happens.
Embrace chaos. Seek discomfort.
Amazing. Thanks for coming and sharing.