tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29341245586148265932024-03-13T16:01:34.442-07:00Out ThereCacoethes scribendi and other photographic wanderings on dirt, snow and jam....maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.comBlogger213125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-7335547051198048762014-05-20T21:04:00.001-07:002014-05-21T10:21:51.317-07:00The camel, the lion and the child
Riding the AZT 300 has represented for me, a series of complex wanderings upon wonderings. It's much more than the ride...it's always been about something else.....perhaps one day, it will just be about the ride. After my second DNF ended in a heap of salted sweat, cramps and puke; something subtle happened.
What is this, this life we seek? Is it the defined path we find ourselves upon, maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-45217356598227786052014-02-05T22:24:00.001-07:002014-02-05T23:09:48.634-07:00Unplugged
Recovery takes on all forms....active recovery being the form I needed the most after a long and hard week of work on the bike. A slower form of movement and an appreciation for a different pace has provided for a venue fueled by Friday-night leftover pizza and Saturday-night baked goods. It's a wander through time and space that I've learned to love once again.....unplugged from the bike maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-75414235483896948022014-01-26T20:15:00.000-07:002014-01-28T11:00:45.793-07:00The Irrational Circumstance of Unwarranted FearI’ve been itching to get back out on a bikepack for a while. I've been consumed by a work/training/social schedule and have been neglecting the most crucial part of any training program for a multi-day ride….the mental mind-melt composed of frustration, demoralization, empty fuel stores, exhaustion and the inability to turn that frown up-side down. Given all of this, I carved two days out of my maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-27609331487973897062014-01-06T00:06:00.000-07:002014-01-06T07:00:40.474-07:00The movable veil
My mistress winter has taken me south to new trails. Trails seldom ridden and others familiar, yet new. With all that the festering neon distraction has to offer most of humanity, I am reminded that I am not the "most" part of that failed equation. I can't say "Never" when I say that I'll never live in Phoenix again, but my time away from the city has convinced me that it's a mass ofmaadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-56061698978451349412013-12-07T19:20:00.000-07:002013-12-07T20:07:42.391-07:00Succubus
I could not take any more....so I popped smoke and called for an evac out of the festering neon distraction. I had become combat ineffective, a shell of the person I'd spent so many miles building up. It's amazing to me that after a year of laying off the distance, the fire to go long never went out. It ate at me, clawing my insides until I wanted to scream from the angst of holding it in.maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-5773856994636011942013-10-28T19:34:00.003-07:002013-10-28T20:49:26.898-07:00The abyss of timeThe wind up here echos slow. It ebbs and flows like crashing waves upon the shore. To be here is acquiescence....sweat dripping down to the powdered dust at my feet and tire. I count the drops as they fall from my head....an impact that makes a juicy thud in between the next wave.
I look up at the peak above me, squinting at the sight of it. Grasses come into focus, the jojoba bushesmaadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-20801782413256567112013-09-29T12:50:00.003-07:002013-09-29T13:04:16.669-07:00AvalancheI found the following piece of writing a few winters back, pasted to a coffee can within a snow cave that BGR had set up....fully stocked with booze, food and a radio that received the Navajo station quite well.....Black Flag followed by Hank Williams Sr followed by Parliament Funkadelic....it was quite the happening, with a full kitchen, sleeping berths and view of the dawn that never quit. &maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-21983858658556058402013-08-10T00:42:00.000-07:002013-08-10T01:28:47.148-07:00The groundskeeper
the solitary solace i find in mind,
a noble fancy, the passage of time.
Windswept emotions cry foul before others,
mistaken in their magnitude they garner regret,
of the fun I have on wheels in spite of threat.
your sunrise comes blowing on whisper and glow,
scent of grass and pine, my pace slows.
but for a time when I breathe in the scene before me,
a calming of sorts, the quietmaadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-67379809625765068272013-07-31T02:54:00.000-07:002013-08-01T09:17:16.221-07:00CirclesI skipped a month....or was it a week....or was it a year.....I'm sorry, I've forgotten what was it that mattered......was it the blogging about my radness....or was it, to paraphrase a buddy, "I got busy gettin' to know a gal, so I started going on rides that ended in drinkin' beer and makin' out"? Yeah....it's something like that. Somewhere along the line, I became Ahab...and yet Ahab still maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-5834646437907430112013-05-29T21:57:00.000-07:002013-05-29T22:18:26.597-07:00Vicarious transformations
Through the eyes of the uninitiated, the ritual of summer can regain a luster since tarnished with the passing of time. Sharing an experience with someone for the first time is akin to taking someone on their first ride on singletrack....we can all identify with the newer perspective, and appreciate the finer details of what it means to be transformed all over again.
The cycle that maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-2608667888946427472013-05-19T15:49:00.000-07:002013-05-19T15:49:18.717-07:00Red Submission
What can I say.....I stared at you for hours in in the beautiful quiet of day....watching as the sun drew shadows across your face.
In spite of your sabotage of a friends ride, I still marveled at your beauty.......
The tears that streamed down your cheeks, leaving your mascara streaked, reminded me of how vulnerable we all are to the forces of time.
Sometimes you make me feelmaadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-17427759509671736342013-04-01T22:52:00.002-07:002013-04-04T12:29:13.311-07:00When I stopped countingThe shift started slowly; a move away from the past with only one direction, something different. I've been riding for the past 3 months without a gps. In the run-up to Strava, Stravassholes and Strava lawsuits.....I dropped the electronic tracking for all my rides. I wanted to erase any sense of time holding my mind....a place polluted with Outlook color codes for meetings, flights and maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-47669787647811665092013-03-05T23:05:00.000-07:002013-08-14T23:06:26.897-07:00Atonement for the MuseSea Change.....Pardigm Shift......Shit Happens. As a writer, I've benefited from a force that was everpresent and seemingly everlasting....until it was, no longer. I benefited in a strange way, from the pain and turmoil that roiled below the surface for nearly 3 years.....and then it stopped. What has torn me as a writer is that the source of this inspiration was pain, angst and dark visions maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-49312217712167763082013-01-29T23:59:00.001-07:002013-01-30T00:04:05.282-07:00A fearful paradox
I find myself fearful at the thoughts of those who dare not explore beyond what they can not see. I am wary of a world where a person does not feel free to explore beyond what they already know. I have an idea of what to expect on my next ride: the turns are familiar as are the climbs up the hills. The trees I bank around with green foliage scratching at my leaning body maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-48712999298923889622013-01-10T20:15:00.001-07:002013-01-10T20:27:57.373-07:00ArcComing down from the full effect of a week off is never easy....especially if one spends it eating and drinking their way through Paris over New Years.
From the colorful flower shops on the street corner selling spring buds.....
.....the locks above the river Seine symbolizing a love locked away.....
....the luthier shop passed every night on our way out into the city, lit brightly maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-43595666782856751382012-12-28T23:15:00.000-07:002013-01-06T00:15:14.232-07:00Don'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 maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-44774444565254643562012-12-18T19:47:00.000-07:002012-12-18T20:00:03.908-07:00The Frosty EndI 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 maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-25050322956544466962012-11-04T17:44:00.001-07:002012-11-04T18:42:41.634-07:00You're doing it all wrongI 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.
Imaadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-22854270615201037222012-10-09T12:37:00.001-07:002012-10-09T19:34:00.930-07:00¡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 maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-27169155803097007642012-09-18T23:11:00.000-07:002012-09-19T08:13:20.644-07:00Why?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 maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-29482537927573856142012-09-11T17:43:00.000-07:002012-09-11T18:14:24.750-07:00Chiens 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 maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-71976069374271909482012-08-08T16:39:00.001-07:002012-08-08T18:59:27.462-07:00Perfection
As I follow the sinuous
curves of her, dropping away and out of my immediate focus; I let go of the handlebars and
float for a time. Precariously balanced between grace and disaster, I release myself back to the only force that truly controls me....that controls all of us. I've wrestled with these concepts but have so far been unable to put them into practice. I finally maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-62467725525289156252012-06-30T17:18:00.001-07:002012-07-02T00:09:26.036-07:00A beautiful distractionWhen you focus on a goal for so long you can develop what experts call "target fixation". Blindly focusing in on a single object, all other things around that object fade out of existence until the goal is reached, or failure.....with failure being the most likely endstate. Tunnel vision takes over....all dangers and concerns are ignored save for the single object of fixation. The past few maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-57382830444203721912012-06-18T21:16:00.000-07:002012-06-18T21:19:42.609-07:00ResonanceI met up with J-Bake for a ride up on Mt. Lemmon...reminiscing of failed attempts at the 300 and fun rides in the past. J-Bake tore it up and provided a good subject for my lens....me, learning new things that resonate from the past...stronger than before, doubling in effect and propelling me forward into a new world.
This ride all feels so familiar....as if it has happened before, and it maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2934124558614826593.post-65355640183570081582012-06-11T00:17:00.000-07:002012-06-17T07:41:15.842-07:00Walk Beside MeFor all the rides I do, I remember the summer rides on the Coco the most. After a solid month of working with no time off but to interview, I was sorely in need of some head space. Combine that with a healthy recovery from endurance riding over the winter....I was itching. Setting out from the command center off of west Route 66....I set out with a singular plan....ride without maadjurguerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05590011130177500077noreply@blogger.com3