From what I remember from Sunday, KB and I left in the morning for a dirty ride and didn’t get home till late afternoon. Everything is a little blurry in between.
The plan was to ride the TFL which is short for the Turkey Farm Loop, which would have been a lot shorter to just say Turkey Farm Loop, but whatever.
The forecaster called for 30% chance of rains. With the way things have been going around here it made sense to pack a rain jacket. Especially considering we would be at the foot of my mountain. Along with that rain jacket, we were carrying lots of food (or so we thought) plenty of water, a water filter and the regular hob nob of repairing stuff (yes I actually carried my multi-tool AND the leatherman). We were prepared.
After about five miles my butt was not feeling so comfy. I was cursing my choice of riding shorts and seriously considering a saddle swap when I got back. That is until KB mentioned things were not feeling too comfy for her either. That’s when we both agreed that the riding gear that we see LW and Fixie Dave use on their long rides to be logical and an investment we will be making in the future.
We chose to persevere and deal with throbbing deary airs and continued up the Turkey Farm road. We stopped at mile ten for some grub. I thought it would be a good idea to eat every ten miles so we wouldn’t bonk. We stopped at mile 14 as well… Seems those first ten miles were not good indicators of how fast we would be moving. I was hungry pretty much all day long. And come to think of it, I’m still kind of hungry.
We made it to the top of the first climb, the one that started when we left the house, and headed down into our first ravine. I was quite surprised to see another cyclist coming up the road toward me. It was one of the many people who I have ridden with and remembers my name but who, regardless of how many times I see them or interact with them am completely incapable of remembering their name. Yes, I do feel bad about it. No, I don’t think there is anything that I can do. So deal with it.
Anyway, stopped and discussed the ride and had a nice little break on our descent. As we continued down, I couldn’t help but think that I will never do this loop the opposite direction. That has got to be one hard fucking climb.
KB and I were both anticipating the climb back out of the ravine we were bombing down into. We were not in a hurry to get there, but it felt good to watch the mileage tick away so quickly.
We stopped for some water.
Notice the large boulder in the upper right hand corner of the Fotog. There must have been a lot of water coming down to get that thing to move like that, just saying. After eating, again, and refilling the reservoirs. We packed it up and continued.
It was a only a bit farther down the road that I saw a bobcat or a mountain lion cub. I pointed and all KB did was yell at me for slowing down and giving me a quizzical look. After we had stopped and I explained that I was pointing out something awesome, she kind of got it.
Wildlife speaking, we also saw this guy.
He wasn’t too lively. The most we could get him to do was flicker his tongue. We left him undisturbed…
When we finally reached the top of our climb and looked down into Silver Reef we felt pretty cool. And then we had to ride back to SG. KB was done once we made it to Red Cliffs. I felt good until we made it to Cottonwood. Needless to say the last five miles or so were challenging. But we made it.
I then took a nap. And it felt really good.
The ride made me want to do some more exploring, maybe head south. We have always had that elusive Toroweap touring trip that still hasn’t happened. Maybe that will be next. Who knows?
Out.
The Pictographic Evidence
