This was Caroline's idea . . .

For the record, this was not my idea.  I had no intentions of racing the Tour Divide again this year. Zero. I had other plans for June involving some bike-powered exploration in southern Utah. This actually had me quite excited. Then in early March, some strange bug must have bitten Caroline.

This was Caroline's idea.

Downhill + tailwind = smiles  Photo by Walt Anderson

"What if we did the Divide on a tandem?" she asked one afternoon, seemingly completely out of the blue. Apparently she had been pondering this for some time.

"Um, we don't have a tandem," I replied. She had caught me very off guard in more ways than one. I'm sure at that moment, I was probably pondering about an upcoming field trip to Utah for one of my classes. And I had been training specifically for the Whiskey 50, a big event held right here in our little town. I had been doing intervals, and lots of them. Between that and work, long rides had been few and far between.

Oh yeah, and a tandem was not among our small fleet of bicycles. I should also point out that she had never ridden one, and I only had years ago while working at Blaine Velo Sports and occasionally assembling one.

Someone is skeptical

We discussed the idea a bit more over the following days. I recalled racing against JayP and Tracey in the 2009 Tour Divide and seeing both how much they suffered on the climbs and snow slogs and how much fun they were having on less demanding segments.

The logical questions were all raised, mostly by me: Would you actually want to race it? Do you think you will enjoy sitting behind me for two and a half weeks? Do you realize how bad I'm going to smell a week in, just inches from your nose? Oh yeah, and where are we going to get a tandem? And how would we pay for it?

Finally I was convinced to send out some emails to a few friends in the bike industry and see if I could come up with any leads. One of those emails was to Kid Riemer at Salsa. I didn't expect he'd have any good leads, but within minutes of clicking "Send," a reply popped up in my inbox.

"I'm on it," was all that Kid wrote.

When Kid says that, wheels soon begin to turn. I was struck by a passing wave of panic. Caroline had reached an agreement: If we could come up with tandem without having to open our wallets, we'd race the Divide in June. I honestly had not expected we'd be able to come up with a fully built rig, but Kid was on to something.

A week later, Kid informed me that Salsa had some prototype tandem frames, one of which might fit Caroline and me. He and the crew at Salsa took a couple weeks to iron out some details, and by early May, the frame known as Big Blue and several boxes of parts were on their way to Preskitt. And White Brothers had already sent us a tandem-specific version of their new LOOP fork. Uh oh.

The rest of the month was a whirlwind of getting the bike running, adjusting positions, swapping out different gearing options, and repeatedly increasing brake rotor sizes. We also had to figure out how to carry our bikepacking kits in a very unfamiliar configuration, and Eric Parsons at Revelate Designs came through hugely with four very light and beautifully constructed frame bags. All this was important, but we also had to figure out how to ride the dang thing! But that's another story in and of itself. (For those of you familiar with the local trails, let it be known that we railed down Smith Ravine to see if it was possible. It was, save the two tight uphill switchbacks and a log, it was both rideable and awesome.)

For readers curious about the component build, I'll give just a few details here and say this right up front - the parts we've gone with on this rig were chosen specifically for their combination of dependability, durability, and weight (none of these companies help us out in any way): a Rohloff internally geared rear hub (on a Rohloff-specific Alternator dropout!), Wipperman ConneX chains, SRAM X0 cranks on GXP bottom brackets, XT brakes with 203 mm rotors, DT Swiss 350 front hub, NoTubes Flow rims with discontinued Michelin Wilderac'r tires, XT pedals, Cane Creek 110 headset (ok, Cane Creek does help us out, but I wouldn't use anything else either way!), and then the correct bars, stems, and seatposts to put us in the correct positions.

We can't thank Salsa, White Brothers, and Revelate Designs enough for making this adventure possible. We're not at all sure what it's going to bring, but if it's anything like our recent rides on the bike, it's going to be a ton of fun and a hell of a lot of work. And I must say, I couldn't be happier to have Caroline sitting right behind me and cranking on the pedals. She's tough as nails and doesn't give up for anything.

Secret

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of having my parents pay a visit. They've spent very little time in Arizona, so it was easy to find some neat places to take them for some relaxed adventure. I was particularly tired after my failed time trial attempt on the Coconino Loop, which also helped to keep me from coming up with anything too ambitious. The result was a 3-day backpacking trip in the Wilderness above Sedona.

A year ago, Caroline and I took my parents on a 3-day backpacking trip in the Lost Creek Wilderness of Colorado. That reignited their interest in backpacking, something both had done quite a bit of in the past, including numerous trips when I was growing up. Since last year, they'd acquired some new gear that helped them travel lighter and faster, allowing for more time birding and admiring views.

It was refreshing to slow down from the normal rapid pace of pedaling and simply stroll up a canyon, through pine forests, and up stream beds, eyes darting about examining the colorful details and small, moving critters surrounding me. These things usually are amalgamated into a single beautiful blur as I pass by on my bike, but at a slower pace, these details become quite remarkable.

I must thank my parents once again for exposing me to this sort of thing when I was a young lad. I'm sure they had no idea at the time how it would shape my life, but it clearly had a major impact on most days since then.

Did I mention that I was tired? I sat down at every opportunity in order to conserve energy.

Our plans to get out to an isolated vista at the end of Secret Mountain were foiled when the trail degraded to a dense, nearly impenetrable manzanita forest. We bushwhacked for a while, but forward progress was tedious and painful enough that it just wasn't worth it, so we turned back and were forced to take in some other stunning views looking out over the Red Rock towers and cliffs. Too bad...

The morning after we returned to Prescott, my parents packed up and were off. Like my usual adventures, their trip was squeezed in between other commitments in the Midwest. I sent them home via a few of my favorite destinations in southeastern Utah, and apparently they enjoyed their two days of exploration there. It's hard not to enjoy that country. . .

Luckily for me, I'll be back to Minnesota in just a week for the world premier of Reveal the Path. If you're in the Twin Cities on May 31, check it out!

Eclipse

This past weekend was spent recovering, catching up on household chores, and planning for a few upcoming adventures. The highlight, however, was a brief foray up the hill to watch this:

Not bad, huh? Thumb butte, a partial annular eclipse, and sunset colors amplified by smoke from the Gladiator Fire in the southern Bradshaws. It would have been nice to escape up to Utah to see more of the Sun shielded by the Moon, but this will be a tough sunset to beat.

The elastic snaps: a lesson in slowing down

Fitness for endurance athletes is a fickle thing. Sometimes your body feels great and you fly. Sometimes your body feels tired and you still fly. Sometimes your body feels tired and you just plod along. And sometimes there's that uncommon but theoretically very predictable time when your body feels great just before the world comes crashing down. Then it takes the entirety of your willpower and self-motivation to simply achieve forward progress.
That latter scenario is where I found myself last week. It was an implosion of magnificent proportion, preceded by one of my more impressive climbing efforts. Not many miles down the hot, dusty trail, the curtain on my month of overdoing everything on the bike came down and my legs went on strike. Unfortunately, that left me barely 500' up a 5000' climb with nothing in sight except for two other idiots facing a strangely similar conundrum.

How the heck did this stupidity come about? It was purely our own doing. Aaron Gulley, Scott Morris, and I had all put in big, tough miles on the Arizona Trail just a scant few weeks before. Then I showed up for a few shorter XC events and had tired legs that somehow churned out some strong rides. With the fitness train chugging along with plenty of track left in sight, I decided to time trial the 250-mile Coconino/Cocomingobob/Cocopai Loop (its actual name remains contentious).

The Coconino Loop (from bikepacking.net)

My thought was to do this under Supermoon, but after exchanging a few emails with Scott and Aaron, we settled on a Thursday morning start so all of us could give it a go. Scott helped put the route together and has won the 4-day stage race held on the loop. Aaron holds the through-ride record. I had never ridden it, but I've stared at many of the major topographic features along the route every morning on my ride down the hill into town.

We all realized that we were tired, but why not try to squeeze out one more big ride before taking some time to recover? Thinking back after the fact, I realized that every time I've tried to do this, I've failed. Miserably. I think we all suffer from the problem that it's tough to know when to say when (and actually say when). Biking is just too much fun to exercise that much common-sensical restraint.

At 6:05 am, the three of us set off from downtown Sedona and almost immediately dove into techy singletrack. The air was cool, trails deserted, and we cruised at a brisk pace. The red rocks quickly disappeared behind us, giving way to the exhausting sandy descent toward the Verde River. Flowers of all colors stared blankly as we passed, but we were too focused on not being defeated by the soft sand to admire the flora.

Aaron, Scott, and I looking naively confident

A quick stop at a gas station left us heavily laden with filled bottles and bladders as we began the 5000' climb up Mingus Mountain. The ice cream sandwich melting in my hand as we left town was the last thing that would descend easily into my stomach for the rest of the day. The climb turned to dirt, kicked skyward, and I picked up the pace. My recent foray into riding fast for just a few hours, combined with the intense heat of the late morning sun, clouded my judgment as I rode away from Aaron and Scott. My legs felt great, so I cranked out a steady pace all the way to the route transition to mostly hike-a-bike up the cliffs at the top of the mountain.

Somehow I reached the top in a bit over two hours. That was my undoing. My legs still felt good, but they were deceiving me. Over the next few hours, they rapidly degraded into a very tired state, my entire body became encrusted in salt crystallizing out of my sweat, and my stomach went south. I stopped for a few minutes at the Verde River to refill on water, but my legs felt even worse when I continued.

A whirlwind of pain was on its way to our legs

The route climbed steadily for many miles past the river, climbing to the top of the Mogollon Rim. The sun baked the road, and there was nowhere to hide from it. After crawling up the lower part of the climb, I stopped along the road and sat back against a rusted oil drum and contemplated as I watched my leg muscles quivering precariously on the verge of cramping.

The first collapse

Before long, Scott and Aaron rounded the bend below and gradually climbed toward me. Neither looked good as they rode past. I joined them, not saying too much. Aaron was battling bad cramps. Scott's legs were nowhere to be seen. As the track steepened, we slowed and eventually sputtered to a stop. My legs had started cramping, and I had zero energy since I had not been able to eat much. We all collapsed to the ground in the shade of a bushy juniper, our bodies and bikes scattered across the road.

The idea of getting a motel room in Williams was mentioned at that point. None of us had packed bivy gear, hoping to push straight through the night. We all seemed to recognize the sorry states of our bodies. At the next collapse-in-the-middle-of-the-road break, the idea of bailing on the "race" was raised. It sounded reasonable. I had to be back home the following evening since my parents were arriving for a visit, so I had limited time to cover the 250 miles. It was also at this point that the comedy of the situation became evident. Lucky for us, laughter helps soften misery.

At the third collapse-in-the-middle-of-the-road break, simply making it to Williams was seeming more and more daunting. We nixed the extra 1000' climb over Bill Williams Mountain and decided to just try to make it to town. I've bonked before. I've run out of steam many times. But this time my body was on the brink of refusing to function! I think I've only ever reached that point on one other occasion when I was so exhausted that I was unable to even walk up a steep hill.

By this time there was nothing to do but joke...

... especially when Aaron's legs cramped (photo by Scott Morris)

And we did, sometime after the sun set. A greasy fast food meal was glorious. The motel room was fantastic. The continental breakfast the following morning was an appropriate prelude to the incredible meal we got at a restaurant a few blocks up the street. By 10 am, we were finally rolling east. The pace was slow and surprisingly difficult, but after a few hours, my legs came around and started to feel mediocre. We stuck to the route until near Flagstaff, enjoying the sections of singletrack and each others' company before taking pavement back down to Sedona. Strangely, the three of us have raced together quite a bit, but we've done virtually no relaxing riding with one another, so it was fun to share stories and experiences.

 

 An hour into day two and no one was smiling

But some rocky singletrack brought out Scott's smile...

... and sliced yet another sidewall on Aaron's bike

Days like these really serve as a much-needed reminder to me for how enjoyable it is to move at an easy pace and enjoy the little things. Stop and take in the views, but not for 30 seconds. Maybe five or ten minutes. Set your bike down and recline in the shade, but not for a minute or two. Maybe ten or fifteen. When exhausted, collapse in the road for as long as you need. Sleep all night until your body is ready to rise, not until your alarm clock sounds.

 

Climbing through tornado damage on Wing Mountain

 

The last bit of trail on our 2-day ride

Many of my adventures, on or off the bike, involve covering big miles, often within very rigid time constraints. Days are long. Nights are short. While this is often necessary to maximize the ground covered, it leaves little time for relaxation along the way. I'm sure I'll continue to push my limits with challenges for years to come, but I think I'll have to make more time for slower-paced endeavors.

Enjoying the shade (photo by Aaron Gulley)