Don't play no game I can't win.....

I've flown a tight flight path these past two years based on sanity rules......and now..I'm doing what I want to do........

As I review this past year......it's a rebirth of sorts....a re-sorting of what I wanted vs. what I did to myself because I felt I had to......I ran long and solo because of the past....but I've found...I still want to run.....I want to run far and long.....but for different reasons.  Have I always wanted to run....will I always want to run??????

During this time of questioning.....I slowed down....I stopped driving at multi-day excursions in solitude....I was tired of talking to myself, in the midst of cholla and antelope squirrels ....I was tired of the ruse....I sought something tangible......

....I found a reflection that repeated back the same thing I asked....and thus I realized I had found the end of what I had sought.....the culmination of all the questions I had asked.....found, in the spot where I began questioning it all......a perfect mirror of the strife I fought to counter.  All this time....I was looking in the mirror trying to counter what I saw as my life....when all I had to do was look within at my own image to find the truth.

A truth that was too ugly to view or comprehend, I sought out a reflection of the truth.....an optical illusion....but the truth, none the same.  And yet, I became detached from it.....living now in a parallel universe.....a universe that came crashing down.....when my heart was confronted with the dichotomy of life.....one that is seen here......the soft focus of the grass on the horizon is countered by the near focus and sharpness of the grasses......and in the motion of the rider, a smooth violence floats above it....a narrow track of bare earth pierces it all...

Once I accepted this realization....that I was the same.....that my horror was temporary and my reality the same, I opened my eyes to what was invisible before.....beauty in love.....

It's a possibility that I had ruled out, completely......I did not, was not, willing to face it....and yet it came....

In spite of this.....I kept on riding off into solitude.....I laid down in the desert, looking up at the sky for the same epiphany that had met me every ride in the past year......and I heard nothing.....the sky held the same beauty....but no message....I begged the monsoon to roll over me as it had done before....and it obliged but this time; only with a cold and wet drenching......

Every canyon I turned up into and sat down and pondered....I found beauty.....but the wisdom I once found flowing was now dry......it was frustrating to find the roaring spring now dry.......

For a time I became angry......after 2 years, the insight that flowed seamlessly everytime I ventured into the wilderness now was absent......I grew furious at the fact that wherever I looked....I found nothingness......where I focused my attention.....I only found what I already knew......

So I threw this thought out of my mind and embraced the new spirit that surrounded me....

I hunkered down with old friends and ventured outside of riding to experience the music that encircles all of us.....

.....but I still fought the stillness.....I kept throwing myself at the silence....even harder......and the harder I threw myself at it, the more silent the void became....here I find myself, completely shelled after riding 40 miles where I, in the past, should have felt fine......I had another 30 miles to go.....my reasons for being here started to crack.......this was the omega of the past and the alpha of the new.....

Moving on......I embraced the alpha......and followed my heart.....and it's taken me away from the bike and back into the kitchen......

....surrounded by folks that want to eat, eat and talk about wonderfull things......why should this not be part of the wholistic experience?

I long ago learned to stop questioning why.  Why things happened....why life sucked....why someone had to die....why others lived.....why is the question you ask when you're unable to find a reason to live.....and live, I did.  I don't know why I don't feel the muse as I once did.....why I don't feel the need to drive towards the horizon as I once did.....but I know that I smile, and find smiles along my path....just the same.....

......and yet as I sit in Terminal B at Dulles Airport......my mind boils over with the thought that I should be out there on a bike....or ski...........peeling back the fog of a snowy day and embracing the first rays of sun to angle down from the eastern ridge above me........

I don't play no game I can't win.....this is just a tactical pause.......

The Frosty End

I long for the swollen feel of fresh powder crunching beneath the base of my skis....a stacatto release of crystalline-induced failure and compression transmitted upwards past my bindings, boot and femur, entering my sensory system, reminding me that this is the only truth.....the path up the ridge that blows snow across the cornice into eternity somewhere over the mauve-peach-vermilion sunrise of the painted desert, melts all worries and gripes born inside walls....walls preferred by people who do not live but through vicarious inclinations, exploitative meanderings and armchair pontifications found in Entertainment TV and Facebook.

At this moment, nothing matters more...this stochastic analysis which has occurred since mankind became self-aware. Nothing will ever be as important than this feel and thought....a sharp run-down of risks vs. consequence....benefit begrudgingly relegated to third place.

I dream of the sharp end where I feel only the risk...and manage to find a path forward. I struggle with a world in which I see only benefits and force myself to temper my decisions....and I envision an outcome where the paradox is balanced...but it is just a dream...for any balance we may find is hoisted upon gossamer hopes and happenstance. We are all victims before the rules are fully explained...I was dead the day I was born and I'm a victim of my own prejudices......but when will the two become one?

I don't have a say in this final question...it is one of many things I can not control. My only hold on this process is that I might push out the inevitable until I am long worn from the struggle on the frosty end.

You're doing it all wrong

I did it all wrong on Saturday.  Muscle memory only goes so far...and mine just ran out.  I was solidly out of endurance shape after a 5 month eschewment (if there were ever a word) of solo riding for days on end.  I'm glad I spent the last 5 months doing what I wanted....but as the first AES event of the season proved....you're only as good as your last ride....and mine sucked.

I knew starting out that I was in for some form of self-flagellation, and I never batted an eyelash at the implication.  I can suck up just about any form of punishment and keep laughing...but do I really want to?  These thoughts were swept into the recesses of my mind as I drove north on I-17 under an awakening sky of peach, vermilion and baby blue.....

Arriving at the start...I was blown away at the parking lot...it was full with racers.  I knew from the night before that this event had hit its max of 74 riders...but it took a while for this to sink in.....just 2 years ago...this event had about 15 folks showing up....another sign of my spanking, just a warm glow on the horizon which represents my peachy and tilted optimism.....

Off the bat, this ride gives you 1,000 vertical feet of spankdown in the first 7 miles....tack on another 13 miles and you've gained 3,000 vertical feet.  As I contemplated this fact against what types of rides I do better at...I started awakening to the fact that it doesn't really matter.....I was sucking because of my gluttony.   Contrasting this were many of the folks that put some good time in since the AZT in the spring....J-Bake all smiles mid-way through the climb....

Topping out at the entrance to Antelope Canyon singletrack....I wanted to puke...and I'm not a puker.  I'm quite certain that it was because I was drinking from a 4-month old bottle of Carbo Rocket Half-Evil which I had left in the back of my fridge....it looked ok to me in the morning when I left.  Too bad I neglected to notice the black slime growing in it until I was deep in the climb....lightheadedness pursued through the rest of the ride....here I was only halfway into the event....and I was doing it all wrong.....lucky for me, the landscape provided a palliative course of action....

...and in this remedy, others shared in the joy of a hard earned descent.....

....a descent that turned former frowns, upside down.....

Many hours later....my upside down frown got turned over again as I found myself in the pain cave....cramping, light-headed, knee aching and bonking.....until I found this gem.  I had been doing math in my head since Bumble Bee Rd....figuring out bail points, mileage, time, elevation gained....all against remaining mileage, water and stats on route.  I hate the term DNF.... because it rhymes with quitter....but I was feeling the sweet relief in the possibility my suffering could end...until I found this.  I quickly bucked up and remembered why I was here.....life sucks....some moments more vidid than others.  The sweet relief and relish comes sometimes in the memory of the beautiful moments; moments which share only a flash within our consciousness as we labor to make it through the day.

The labor is what gets us to memory lane...and as I sit here remembering the ride....the views....the epic descents....and yes, the hell I inflicted upon myself to avoid three letters.....I see clearly in the usual suspects below, the reason we all do it.  Thanks to all my fellow riders for reminding me that joy in the greater things comes in the struggle.  In the vacuum of my nightmare, I had sought the struggle merely out of a sense of purpose.....I had long ago become numb to it and needed a break.  This ride has reminded me that my nightmare is over and that I now seek the struggle for all the right reasons....I want it.....

¡Viva la Revolución!

Revolution often times starts with the insistence that things ought to be done differently. Intellectuals, schemers and misanthropes alike coalesce into an unlikely group to effect a collective change that, for lack of a better term, gets the job done. It was this esprit de corps that I found myself driving Chollaball north on I-17 to pick up a Salsa Mukluk he just purchased from Revolution Bikes. It was a fat bike and we were going to take it out for a ride. As I banked my vehicle into the turns climbing the big hill, I listened to Cholla talk about the stresses of short-sales and pools which now were deemed to be a public health hazard by the City of Mesa. It was in this stream of stress-venting that he so often partakes in and that I’m willing to capture, that my mind drifted to the svelte Pivot 429 hitched to the back of the vehicle I was driving. It seemed to make no sense at all to plod along behind a fat bike on a bike made to fly. The revolution hinged on the realization that things don’t always have to go the way of the rabbit…..

Pulling onto Mikes Pike in Flagstaff and parking outside Revolution, we hung out for a while while things got sorted out. Change the gearing, adjust this, tug on that…..I lay in wait patient at first, trying my best to honor the shafts of light beaming down on the industrial space below from spacious skylights above.

During the varying transactions going on, I convinced myself that I was going to rent a Mukluk as well…in for a penny……

As my bike was checked out, I ogled the new 2013 Mukluks and pondered how well they would handle a fully loaded rider on a snowy approach up Forest Road 418; transporting me more quickly to the more isolated lines on the peaks……for better or worse, I’m game to figure it out.

Hanging out in bike shops for extended periods of time is never a good idea for a lush like me. I started looking at the antithesis of the fat bike and started convincing myself that I needed one as well…

Knowing how much a fat tire costs these days….the skinny tire approach starts to make a bit more sense….

This line of reasoning was abandoned as soon as we hit gold…..I don’t think I can ever give up on a ride that takes me to places like this, away from the claustrophobic neon distraction some call civilization.

Pulling up ahead to snap shots of Cholla on his new ride, I crouched across from a rising switchback, hidden in crispy bracken land-forms which had given over her beauty to the third act of the season……

…..a season that beams a champagne supernova out from a canvas of blue....

As we rode north I realized that my face was hurting from smiling so much. The bike was so much fun, requiring a slower pace and more deliberate steering than I was used to

But now in the forced hindsight that is 39,000 ft up, eastbound to a business conference in seat 6A; I realize that my grin was not just a product of the bike….but in the short-lived revolution of fall...

Every color has its time….and when the gold gives up the shortest season, mistress winter will return with her white cloak to rule the long season…

Abandoning my bike in a turn, I hike into a clearing and cast my gaze upwards. The afternoon light angles down against bare trunks holding gold leaves up high; a light breeze creating that rustling sound that only a copse of Aspen can make…..

The breeze picks up, rocking the tops of the trees which issue a flurry of golden leaves from above……flitting too and fro like fat snowflakes of sunshine; they make their way down onto us and the loamy forest below. I stand there, transfixed at the beauty of it all, holding out my tongue in hopes that the fallen pedals of sunshine will land on my tongue. I don’t want to leave……

I recall all of this now as I fly in the darkness of night towards Orlando….surrounded my many who through either ignorance or will, know not the awe and beauty to be had where the pavement ends. When I started this blog 5 years ago, I was undergoing a revolution to free myself from the geographic and mental corporate boundaries which I had shackled myself to. I would never have been able to predict the earth-shattering change that would occur in my life over the past few years. But within that time, the revolution has gone on. It’s a fight to keep alive and fresh, the thoughts, feelings and emotions elicited when I put myself, Out There.  Viva la Revoluction!

Why?

Folks....look away...there is nothing to see here....this is just another, run of the mill bikepack on the AZT. These pictures are rather un-extraordinary in that they're just my normal routine, my normal pace and my normal expectations for another weekend on the bike. I apologize if this post fails to offer up any insight, epiphany or any other realization.  What once was extrodinary to me is now matter of fact....but I keep coming back.  To me, this is just another boring bikepack post.....and still I ask the question why I keep coming back.....Do you know?  If not....perhaps you should ask too.....and if you do know, I'd sure like to hear from you why you keep coming back.

Running the Crazy 88 route in reverse, I set out from the command center on west Route 66 and head out to Fisher Point.  The golden tops of grass growing below Fisher Point reach higher than usual obscuring most of my ride......flowing through the fields at speed, the soft gentle brush of grass with every pedel stroke a gentle reminder of something....but what?

Climbing up to the rim of Walnut Canyon; the southern facing, north rim welcomed me with the warm expressions of plants with a singular purpose....to aim their barbs south towards the suns arcing path...and by ridiculous circumstance......towards me....

Riding on to the east....seemingly towards Winslow....the rim became more arid and chocky. The colors of a second spring rising up around me, growing upwards and away from the bone-like expanse of limestone, kept me limber in the saddle.  Listening to a new Panic show, the song 'Stop-Go' serendipitously played in my ears during my drive-and-pause pace of exploration....

.....how apropos this all is....it's often like this on these rides which last for days....a piece of music will fit into the scenery and experience like a keyhole, opening up a world that transcends what I feel, see, smell and taste.  I detour at at every viewpoint to explore the rim, peering down at the incised lower canyon which was framed in eolian forms left long ago.....my fingertips feeling at the grainy edge of the cliff as I crawl nearer to peer below....my toes firmly planted into the chunky limestone searching for a positve purchase as I look deeper and deeper......

As I transitioned off the rim and head lower into Pinon Country, the pleasant smell of spring filled my nose.....the bountiful monsoon this year has blessed us with a prodigal resurgence of wildflowers.  I'm amazed at how the land smells....this part of the ride makes me feel as if I'm riding in May and not mid-September.....

Similar scenes make me drunk with adulation.....and in my solo state, I loose my lens cap.  Wandering about forever trying to find the thing I recently lost.....I later realize what I just lost would never be regained.....so I left it out there in the beauty of the field, tied my arm warmers into a lens cap and moved on.  The peaks in the background were calling me as they always do......but they remind me that there are a lot of hard miles between now and then....I move on....

Hours later.....I start to crack....I realize that I started to bonk when I lost my lens cap....but the physical manifestations have just now reared their ugly heads....an evil hydra of physical exhaustion, mental malaise and dehydration have turned my emotional and logical mind into a cold-hard lump of HTFU.....I press on.....in the absence of counteractive stimulation I become obstinate.....

Obstinate has drawn me from the depths of the pit and brought me home....Obstinate is why I'm still here....Obstinate is my savior....I am become Obstinate.  An hour later after the first of two major pitches.....I realize that my bonk is not going away despite a 30 minute rest in the pines and well wishes from those that love me......so I take out of reserve a weapon I rarely use.....Red Vines......downing two at a time, I ride....a vine every 5 minutes or so...mainlining the corn syrup, I catch momentary glimpses of a rally......but I lag on in between.......painfully slow I climb into the late afternoon..... curmudgeonly and obstinate......

Making my way to camp via a tepee constructed of sticks signling a turn after an aspen grove west into a non-descript fern forest by a friend who might no longer be there....I make my way to a smiling group of friends who offer me a beer and a chair......a rare treat and respite from the normal bikepacking days end.....but a planned one at that since we have night pictures to take....

I normally crawl into my pack soon after the light fades from the horizon and spend the rest of the night admiring the sky until I fall asleep....this time, I stayed outside and admired the sky until I had to retreat to my bag.....asking my friend DurtGurl to capture a scene for me.....I retired to my bivy below my bike and fell asleep to the stars as I often do....dreaming of the future and asking a critical question....Why?

Photo by Kathleen Kingma

The next day I did it all over again.....am I obstinate because I do it, or do I do it because I'm obstinate?

Chiens retraite dans les montagnes

Not all progress is defined by forward movement.  A sore knee after continuous forward progress on the bike occasionally forces me to slow down and stop all together. This is a lesson I'm still painfully learning years after I first realized it....I'm just slow to fully accepting it.  By slowing down, we sometimes make more progress.  We get to take in the world in ways we don't normally see and at a pace we are unaccustomed to moving.  One such way of moving and seeing is through the eyes of a dog...1 foot off the ground, looking up and out in wonder and curiosity, full of joy in the simple beauty of it all.  A moments view from another vantage point is often all that is needed to completely change your perspective on what otherwise feels like a forced retreat.......

Stooping down to view things, we still wonder and count how many years have passed before us...this was the year we did this, this was the year we did that...what about now....what about tomorrow?

I've climbed on my bike by this spot hundreds of times, usually in an anaerobic state, and have failed to notice the beautiful moss growing in the indescribable luminosity of late-afternoon...

The colors of transition are beginning to show at ground level.

Even though the future will shower the path ahead of us with countless transitions...we carry the one we last experienced as a reminder of things to come in the future....

No longer confined to the singletrack which only goes in one of two directions; we roam directionless in fields awash in colors of late summer....

Colors which fight to carry on after the bracken has turned to rust....late bloomers will always stand out....

With the days end coming sooner and sooner, our dinner of El Serrano and Bean Burritos is met by a moonless night where the stars appear between bony tree trunks......

Peering overhead to the southeast where the dog star Cyrus will soon appear....an appearance heralding the season of snow....our wonder focuses on the visible arms of the milky way.  The next spiral out from where we are is far beyond us and most often times out of sight...until the moment we fix our gaze on it and decide for ourselves that we will continue to grow, to learn and to move beyond where we are now....

Waking up to another beautiful day, our footsteps are deadened by a cool dew in the forest as we sniff around for this years harvest of Lobster Mushrooms....these will make some fine ravioli....

Breaking camp, we transition to the sub-alpine fields off of the AZT.....

 ......and lounge in a spot with full command of the terrain around us.

Saying hello to friendly strangers who also come to enjoy this place, shortcuts are taken at will......

....play is had..................

....and butterflies are chased from flower to flower.

The sunny fields of late summer inspire many emotions.....wonder in beauty.....

.....joy and laughter......................

...contentment and peace.

This time of year is when I often look past the waning summer in anticipation of falling snow....but days like this make me want to stay put....and like a dog, roll in the rays of sun for the pure joy of it all.  My mistress winter will come soon enough, but for now....I don't want summer to end.