There was one simple goal – Ride bikes with rad peeps in the desert. I think everyone agrees that the goal was accomplished.
Before we get too into the details, the Alliance would like to congratulate Ryan Miller on his SSST win. You earned it.
It’s 4:45ish PM Friday. KB and I are hauling ass on the dirt road headed toward the Gooseberry Yurts. I’m a bit of a stickler for time and we are probably going to be a few minutes late. The Mooseknuckler Adventure Mobile 3.0 is weighed down with a ton of water, more beer, a little whiskey, three dogs and two bikes that sport, go ahead and count ’em, one gear each.
My phone rings and Jamon is rightly wondering where the hell we are. I inform him that we are right around the corner. He informs me that if we don’t hurry they will get drunk without us. I press the accelerator a little farther down toward the floor. The dust blows up from the back coating our bikes and the back window, but with the load we have in the car, I can’t tell and more, I don’t really care.
We roll up looking something like a jalopy out of the Crick. Jamon and Chelsea are there sipping on a cocktail and a beer. No one else is to be seen. Strange.
We park the MAM 3.0, pull out some beers for ourselves and reconvene at the Whitehead’s chosen campsite. About half way through that first beer, Frank shows up. Soon the 5 of us are feeling a bit loose but still wondering where everyone is. As 6 PM, the official starting time of this circus rolls around, we get a text from Greg saying he is running late and not to wait. Still wondering where CasaZen is, we begin to ready ourselves for the LIT.
I’m now concerned, not only are Kenny and Heather missing, but Fixie Dave who left my house Friday morning around 10 AM, has also not arrived. I text Heather to see if she is still planning on completing her obligations as Monkey Master, she is and they are about there. Sounds like we are going to have ourselves a party. Fixie is in their van.
The ice chests appear around the start/finish line. Heather informs us there are rules, she just hasn’t decided what they are yet. Half of us have our beers open already, half of us are still not sure what is about to happen. And then everyone but myself chugs a beer (I am physically incapable of chugging anything, it’s my handicap). Fixie goes full send and starts the race with a Detour. Within seconds, everyone is off but me and KB as we try to make the Pacifico we are now sharing disappear. After a few minutes, I just set it down and begin to chase the leaders.
For those uninitiated, a LIT is a dirt crit where you chug a beer to start, between each lap and to finish your race. There was some debate about how many laps the official rules called for until we remembered that there weren’t any official rules and Kenny only had 5 LIT beers so that meant 4 laps. The Monkey Master then determines who won anyway so it really doesn’t matter how fast you ride or how quickly you chug the beer, you just have to impress the MM or in this case, Heather.
When it was all said and done Fixie took the LIT win. Things are understandably a bit fuzzy about the race, but from what I can recall the win was determined by the fact that he chugged not one, but two Detours and finished the event on a fixed gear bike. Just as Fixie was celebrating his win, Greg rolled up to cheers and beers being handed out. When you start an event with a LIT things are probably going to keep rolling pretty good.
After, only god knows how many beers, we all retreated to our lairs and hoped the next day was just as fun.
Saturday’s scheduled event was the “race” which was to consist of two laps around Gander starting at 11. We had more or less decided that 11 was going to be a bit late based on the warmth of the evening, so everyone agreed to move up the start time to 10.
Morning broke and surprisingly enough, everyone came stumbling around in pretty good time. It was more than evident that brains were a bit fuzzy. A few breakfast beers were had along with some breakfast and we nailed the 10 AM start.
Seeing that the course was not marked and not everyone knew exactly where it went, it was decided that the first lap would be a neutral roll out. This was about perfect as it let us keep the good vibes from the evening before going. We regrouped multiple times, took photos, high fived ourselves for being rad and had a nice ride.
Our leisurely pace dropped us back at camp as lunch time popped up in our bellies. It was also apparent that there were some fuzzy brains and there were some that were not just fuzzy but in full struggle mode. A couple of “racers” retreated to their sleeping spots not to be seen for a couple of hours. Some of us ate lunch and headed out for lap 2 and others grabbed some cake and went out immediately.
Being one of those that did a second lap, I was glad that I had. Things got a little warm, but it just felt good to ride and even when we ran out of water as we finished the dirt road, there was still a smile on my face.
Goal accomplished again.
We had not made an official itinerary for food cause I in no way shape or form want to be responsible for that kind of stuff. However, Kenny and Heather got us all excited about the brewery in the Crick. Yes, there is a brewery in the crick. After some sitting around on the yurt deck drinking beers, we all decided to head that direction. The biggest obstacle was what vehicle to take. We only had one DD so we needed to fit as many of us as possible in one car.
Photo by Heather Gilbert.
Saturday ended like you would expect, beers and sitting around shooting the shit.
By the time Sunday rolled around, legs were starting to feel the weekend’s rides but the stoke level was still pretty high. I, for one, was ecstatic to be heading out on Goose proper. It doesn’t matter how many years I’ve been riding that mesa, it is still my favorite place in the world to spin some pedals.
Sunday’s ride was the No Dabs Contest. Some folks set their goal at hitting 100 points, others of us kept the traditional objective of a perfect score of zero. Most of the conversation during this ride was a combination of questioning all the millions of possible combinations of an event to determine proper No Dabs scoring and confessions of what had happened to cause the dab.
For those curious, scoring is as follows:
- Foot down is one dab or one point.
- If you have to stop and you walk an obstacle,that’s 7 points.
- If you dab and try again and clean it, that’s one point for the initial dab.
- If you dab and try 3 times and can’t clean it and then walk, that’s five points.
- And due to the almost endless pedal strikes on the rocks, those count as half a point.
We didn’t declare a winner for the “race” or the No Dabs Contest. You might be wondering how the winner was determined. Well, we were sitting around on the yurt Sunday afternoon, sipping on our sippy cups and enjoying the amazing views, it dawned on me that we didn’t have a winner. A few ideas were thrown out on how to determine this, and well, I think there was consensus.
I’m not sure what it is about removing one’s derailleurs, dangly bits, shifters, whatever you want to call them, but it lends itself to a great time. Maybe it’s too easy to take yourself too seriously when you spend a bunch of money on parts to make you go faster (they won’t) or that it’s impossible to take yourself seriously when you have decided to eliminate the ability to shift. I don’t know. All I know, is the people who came to the desert without their gears and rode bikes this past weekend were some of the best peeps I know.
P. L. and R.
