Prescott

I forgot to mention two stories from Tuesday. Shortly after I popped out on pavement at the bottom of Milagrosa, I heard a commotion in the desert to my right. An instant later, I'm knocked clear across the road trying to stay upright. Dust devil. Fortunately I was on a low traffic road and no cars where coming just then. The force very nearly slammed me to the pavement. Gravel the size of peas was flying through the air and hurt like hell. I was sweaty with sunscreen on. The dust devil left my looking like a powdered donut.

A couple hours later en route to Sedona, Cathy and I were heading into what looked like a thunderstorm. As we got closer, we realized the darkness was going up from the ground, not coming down from the sky. Uh-oh, that doesn't look good. It was wicked windy out. Just then a eardrum piercing screeching sound goes off in the car. We both about went through the roof. It was the emergency broadcasting system alarm tone. At first we thought the rental car did it, but no. It was my iPhone. Has that ever happened to anybody?

A message indicated a dust storm was brewing and to stay off the roads. Remember my drive over to Tucson Saturday night on I-10? I just can't win on that piece of highway. Traffic slowed to a crawl and the sun blackened out. I've never experienced a full-fledged dust storm before. Visibility was akin to blizzard conditions in Michigan. Just nuts. Tumbleweeds as big as small cars were aloft high in the sky. Other debris was blowing across the highway too. Eventually we drove through it, and just like a light switch, we went from dark brown sky to crystal clear blue sky.

It was even windier on Wednesday for my big ride in Prescott. No open farmland or flats around here, so the dust wasn't too bad. Just had to dodge tumble weeds on Rt 89 coming back from Prescott to Sedona.

I pulled a bunch of Strava tracks from guys and gals that do long rides in Prescott. I searched for 30 and 40+ mile loops. You tend to get more quality tracks that way, folks serious about doing long rides. I loaded the tracks into DeLorme Topo so I could see where there was the most overlap and which direction most people rode sections. From this, I cut and spliced GPX segments together to make a 40+ mile loop with some serious climbing.

It is a lot colder here than in Tucson. Prescott sits about a mile high. Driving over Mingus Mountain, the temp display in car dropped to 44F. And it was wicked windy. I did not throw any long layers in the car. Plus, I planned to climb even higher than the Rt 89A pass. I was just going to have to ride harder to stay warm.

I parked downtown. There was five miles of urban jungle before I hit the first singletrack. The trail was good, heading out towards Lynx Lake. Well maintained, nice flow, not too rocky nor too easy. I needed that after being punished on Milagrosa the day before.

Then the climbing started on Smith Ravine trail heading up Spruce Mtn. Doable, but why was I breathing so hard? Oh yeah, I'm at 6500ft. When you spend 99% of your life below 500ft, 6500ft feels like you're taking another 30 pounds up the mountain with you.

Then the grade got not only steeper, but loose. I had to drop tire pressure to keep from flinging large rocks out from under my rear tire. It seemed every time I looked at the GPS, it said 15% grade or higher. Sometimes over 20%. That was good for tired legs.

I managed to reach the fire tower up top without having to put on my light wind shell. I had the mountain to myself if seemed. Nice view from a rocky outcropping there.

The Prescott Valley from Spruce Mtn summit. Dusty haze in the air.

Peering over into the abyss. Was shivering by the time I headed down.

From the summit, I headed south along a ridgeline. It rolled some, losing just a little vertical. The surface was mostly chunder. As the trail dropped off the ridgeline, it became all chunder. Some readers may ask, what exactly is chunder? It is this.

Steep as heck and tires wanted nothing to do with staying under you.

It's nice to get a return on your vertical investment. But the initial descent was almost as painfully slow as the climb. When I reached the lower flanks, the trail cleaned up nicely. Despite the chunder, extensive maintenance was evident. It's just what the terrain consists of on Spruce Mtn.

Connecting over to Wolverton Mtn was some sweet, buffed out contouring material, Trail 396. You could really haul on it if you wanted. Sections were as smooth and hard as pavement. The Wolverton Trail was a much more manageable grade for tired legs. It appeared to meander through an area that may have burned many years ago, as there were no mature ponderosa pines there.

Wolverton on outskirts of town

Higher up on Wolverton

The initial plummet off Wolverton was doubletrack. Nice return on climbing investment here. Just had be careful to not overcook a turn. The descending continued on mint singletrack. I reached my connection back into town and was bummed. The singletrack continued, and I did't really want to "waste" the remaining vertical on gravel and paved roads back into town. But I was cooked and needed to get back to Sedona.

SPF-50 and still getting burned

I finished with 43.5mi in 4.9hrs riding time and 6600ft vertical on the Garmin. The wheel sensor died, so distance is short. Due to the punchy nature of climbing in this loop, I was pretty thoroughly destroyed. Have to reassess what to do on Thursday now. This ride was a tiny sampling of what is available in Prescott. I suspect there are as many miles of singletrack around Prescott as there are around Durango. I'd love to spend more time riding here on another trip.

La Milagrosa

A trail on Tucson's east side I've always had a morbid curiosity to check out is La Milagrosa, or The Miracle. It starts high above the city and descends initially on a ridge line, then later along the lip of Milagrosa Canyon. I've seen the photos and GoPro videos. I had no business riding it. But it can be used to close a nice loop and I felt compelled to at least check out a Tucson riding reference standard.

The day's loop started out up dirt Reddington Rd. About 15 miles in and 1700ft up, the Arizona Trail is picked up near where it comes out of the Rincon Wilderness. I rode this once before with Dave, and I remembered it as buff. Parts were not - pretty chunky, with punchy climbing sections. Guess I remembered only the easy parts.  The AZT crosses over Reddington Rd much further in and climbs some more. There were periodic skill checks along the way, and I failed several of the tests. Great riding though. It was cooler up there, and the trail had a seriously remote vibe to it. No body around and miles from town.  It seemed this section of the AZT doesn't get ridden much.

After many miles of contouring trail (term used loosely, frequent VOmax efforts were required), I got to the Milagrosa trail junction. After not seeing a soul for 2+ hours, a backpacker headed down Milagrosa just as I got there. I took a break to eat. The hiker told me to give a good yell out when I caught up to him. His hearing was that good anymore.

The trail started innocuous enough. A couple dismounts here and there. Then I caught the hiker on a section that forced a dismount. He commented "this is really nice here, wait until you get a little further down." Hmmm, I thought I was already getting into trouble.

Then I hit the section referred to a "The Gauntlet." Yeah. Guys (and gals) actually ride this? I was pretty sure I was going to break a leg hike-a-biking down it. My progression was more like a semi-controlled slide down loose rocks. It took a good while to get past that section.

There was more somewhat leveled off ridge riding with amazing views into canyons on either side of the trail. No fear of death stuff, just brutally rugged terrain. This was clearly a hiking trail that hard core riders test their mettle on. In between frequent dismounts, I managed to scare myself good on sections I went for. I even dropped my seat, a foreign concept to Hill Junky. Whacked, riding this alone.

I made it to the bottom with no crashes but several oh-f's! A couple miles of pavement closed the loop. I was surprised to finish the 36mi, 4hr ride with close to 9mph avg. Milagrosa took me an hour, something like 3mph average down hill! I can check that one of my list and not have to do it again.

Relatively short riding day. Headed up to Sedona in the afternoon. Looking forward to hitting more new terrain in and nearby Sedona over the rest of the week.

Looking down Reddington Rd with Tucson in distance

AZT grasslands at around 4500ft

A hotter, more deserty looking part of the AZT

AZT heading toward Milagrosa. Cathy was checking out the sights in the Santa

Catalinas in the distance.

More AZT contour

La Milagrosa Trail

A snippet of "The Gauntlet." Way steeper than it looks. Folks ride this stuff.

I think this is Agua Caliente Canyon

Riding along lip of La Milagrosa Canyon

Many sections of extremely steep granite

Tortolitas, Baby!

Hit a new riding destination today, the Tortolita Mountains northwest of Tucson. The trail network has been growing steadily for over 10 years now. Some of the new trails are getting rave reviews. Even though many of the trails in the Tortolitas are extremely technical, it was time I checked this area out.

I had a modest 34mi loop planned. I didn't want to go bigger than this, fearing even 34mi could go over four hours moving time. I also avoided some of the trails whose Strava segments have typical average speeds of 4-5mph. These are trails that guys and gals like to hone their skills on. The only thing I would hone would be my bones against the rocks.

A new trail that is just about done is the Ridgeline Trail. There is an unofficial connection that lets riders integrate this trail into a loop high in the Tortolitas. Ridgeline is so new, I couldn't find much info on it. Would I be hike-a-biking most of it? Was there fear of death exposure? The scenery was sure to please.

I started out on a trail called Como. It starts as jeep track and eventually narrows down to tight, moderately technical singletrack, fairly steep at times. It was warm out. I was sweating before the climbing even got down to business.

After cresting a pass and dropping a ways on the other side, another jeep track is taken, called Edwin Rd I think. It became a serious grind near the top, about 1300ft net gain from where I parked. After bombing down the other side, some newer singletrack is picked up, Wild Burro Trail. This was very tightly constructed through often rugged terrain. You couldn't be looking around riding this trail. A few minutes in, an object in the trail triggered my moving target indicator. It was a Gila Monster! Fortunately he was crawling away from me and didn't know I was there, so I had time to get the camera out. Quite pretty and quite creepy looking. It was almost as big as my forearm.

After dropping down and crossing the wash, the new Ridgeline Trail is taken to form a height-of-the-land loop. Ridgeline was a pretty serious grunt to start, with many steep switchbacks. I was impressed with the workmanship. Was this trail machine built, I wondered? So much benching and armoring in brutally rugged terrain.  There was near continuous moderate exposure. No instant death if you screw up stuff, but potentially not getting back out on your own in a few places. Great views of Tucson and the Catalinas opened up in several places.

Once reaching the high point, the trail contoured through amazing scenery. Whoever laid the trail out was a genius to see a line through that terrain. It flowed sweetly. Coming around to the part I wondered was finished, I saw fresh shovel marks with no bike tracks over them. The trail crew was out. I got to thank the guys in person for the fine work they were doing. The tortolitas were quickly moving up my list of top rides in Arizona.

Taking an interim route back down to the wash, I had to climb back over the Edwin Rd pass again. This side seemed even steeper and it was hotter out. But I knew from the summit, it was 15 miles near monotonic downhill back to the car.

A different route than Como was taken. Don't know the name of the trail, but it was miles and miles of interstate-buff singletrack. And the whole time you're staring at the Santa Catalina Mountains. That's the way all long rides should end. A couple miles of pavement closed the loop back to my car. The 34mi, 3.5hr ride went smoother than I thought. I checked with Cathy to see if she had more things to do. I wanted to hit Fantasy Island on the east side of town closer to our hotel.

Fantasy Island is a 20+ mile amusement park for mountain bikes. Gravity cavities, high-speed berms, table-tops and many air opportunities, and all-out speed sections galore. Fantasy Island has the highest fun-factor to energy expenditure ratio of any place I ride. There is very little elevation change there. I figured I was digging a deep whole early in the trip, but I had to hit it.

As best I can tell, I hit everything, and then some, in 24mi/2hrs riding time.That made 58.6mi of trail riding for the day. Not a huge amount of climbing though. That will come later.

Heading up to the Edwin Rd pass

Gila Monster on Wild Burro Trail

Wild Burro Trail

More Wild Burro Trail

Sprawling Tucson metropolis in distance from Ridgeline Trail

Looking down Edwin Rd towards the Catalinas

Mt Lemmon

Finishing singletrack

"Bunny Trail" at Fantasy Island with the Ricons in the background

Attitude Adjusted

I've been a bit on edge lately - work stress, not enough sleep, things never tipping in my favor. I was really looking forward to putting that behind me for a week, pedaling my worries into oblivion in the sunny, warm desert of Tucson.

It was great when Southwest had a directly flight out of Manchester. They don't anymore. Now I have to drive down to Boston and use a different airline to get direct flights to Phoenix. I hate travel. Not the visiting of cool places, but the getting there part.

Our flight left late. No worries, no connection to make. It just meant we'd get to our hotel in Tucson later. Arizona doesn't do daylight savings time, so they are a 3hr time difference now from east coast. A late flight meant potential to get groggy and ornery many hours past normal sleep time.

We picked up bags and headed out the door for rental car shuttle at PHX. There were hundreds of people there, like not even able to walk through. WTF. Some dude directing cars and people was screaming at people. If he had a cattle prod, I'd sure he would have been using it. Cathy and I made it over to the sign that said rental car shuttle. Somebody politely told us the end of the line was back there. Huh? Where? I couldn't even see that far down. The line was the length of the terminal and then doubled back half way again. Hundreds of people waiting to get on a shuttle bus to the car rental facility five miles away. I think they had one bus going that took 20 people at a time. There were many angry people there. My blood began to boil.

After standing there about 20-30 minutes, more buses started to come through. Hopefully Dollar still had our car. We were really late now.

Eventually, we were on the highway and I was looking to make up some lost time on the 75mph posted interstate. About 10 minutes out, a big amber sign says vehicle fire, seek alternate route. Huh? Was that for I-10 east?

Just about then, five lanes of cars grind to a halt. Yep, that be where we were going. Now I was bullshit. Vacations are supposed to melt stress, not turn the burner up a notch. It was warm out and everybody had their windows down. You could hear other WTF's being yelled. After killing another half-hour plus, we started moving gain, slowly. A tractor-trailer caught fire and shut the highway down.

We never made it up to the speed limit before the traffic completely stopped again. Now what? Anybody whose traveled with me knows I don't suffer stupidity, or traffic not moving for no good reason, lightly. This one took a long time. No idea what happened, as there was debris all over the road and it looked like something burned. Maybe a car fell off a transport and caught fire? Hard to tell. Big mess.

That would surely be it, I thought. I'd be going to bed just a couple hours before I normally get up on east coast time. That wasn't the last of it. Next, a big amber sign said I-10 closed 46 miles ahead. You've got to be shitting me.  Hill Junkie hissy fit! We had 56 miles to go to Tucson.

Fortunately I know my way around Tucson a little bit. It is a huge, sprawling city. I could get off a couple exits up from the closure, avoid the big CF that closure no doubt was causing, and take secondary roads into the city center. It worked pretty well, but it must have been 30 stoplights. That comment about things never going in my favor? Stoplights must sense when I'm coming and turn red.

I shipped my bike to FedEx Office, open 24hrs. I was just waiting for that to go wrong. It didn't. In two minutes I was in and out with my bike box. Finally, something went right. The hotel was another 15 minutes away. We checked in and collapsed into bed.

I got no more than 3hrs sleep before I realized it was pointless to stay in bed any longer. Time to build the bike, I guess. I had to take extreme measures to get a long-travel 29er to fit in a Trico Sports box and keep it legal FedEx size. Deflated both shocks, tire pressures down to about 3psi and hoped a bead didn't break and spew Stan's all over, remove crank, rear derailleur, handlebar, rotors from both wheels. Box was still a little pregnant, but it works. Everything was still intact when I opened it in Tucson. Bonus!

Plan for Sunday was Cathy was going to drop me off at Box Canyon, not far from Mexico. I'd ride the Arizona Trail (AZT) to Pistol Hill, much closer to town while Cathy went for a hike in Sabino Canyon. She'd come back in five hours to pick me up. I've ridden 75% of the route before. The northern quarter would be new to me.

The route loses net 1200ft, but there is a considerable amount of steep, punchy climbs along the way, especially a 10 mile section near the beginning. Once through that, there are miles and miles of slightly down hill, flowy, buff trail to rip on through cactus forest. Don't screw up though, which I did twice...

The temperature was ideal starting out. Having not many hours of riding in my legs over the last few months, I had to throttle back on how hard I normally ride when visiting Tucson. I used the granny gear a lot on my 2x10 drivetrain.

Negotiating the many tight switchbacks with the sofa bike proved challenging. I missed a couple. I missed having Dave on the ride to school me on those things. You'd meet severe consequences if you botched a couple of those.

A couple hours in, I came hot into a sweeping left hand turn where both the radius diminished and camber faded to outside at the same time. Crap! There's a term "tripod'ing" around a turn, where you put a foot out as an outrigger. But what do you call it when you have foot and a hand on the ground with both tires sliding out at the same time? Turned out it was the same turn Dave sliced his elbow open on a couple years ago. I managed to escape unscathed somehow.

About 30 minutes later, I was less lucky. Wheels went out without warning around a tight turn. It was elbow and shoulder check to rock hard terrain. My face just missed a cactus. The bike slammed down so hard it broke the zip-ties on the GPS mount. Dang, I need that for navigation, and I didn't bring any tape or zip-ties with me on the ride. I did have a large ziploc bag though. I stretched it out tight and tied my GPS to the stem. Of course, I couldn't read much of the display now. Other than minor scratches on my arm and getting dirty sliding in the dust, I got off pretty lucky again. Things seemed much more loose than normal, maybe because it has been so dry here.

I reduce air pressure a bunch in hopes of avoiding more slide-outs. Not a minute later, I hit a rock so hard I tested my front wheel's natural resonant frequency. Sounded just like taking a hammer to it hanging from a string. I stopped, expecting to see Stan's sealant spraying out of the tire, but nothing. Hmmm, these 2.35" Racing Ralph's did feel much beefier than the 2.25" tires I normally use. Guess I won't be calling Cathy to come rescue me just yet.

When I got to the buff section, I started seeing people, after 2+ hours of perfect solitude in the desert. Crossing under I-10 soon brought me to the section of the AZT I hadn't ridden yet. I didn't study this part at all, just assumed it would be more of the same from that area. It wasn't. It was even more challenging than the hilly section early in the ride. Lot of exposed ledge and chunder. Pretty though, finally getting into saguaro's. With four hours in my legs, I was ready for the ride to be over, and it was getting close to the planned rendezvous time with Cathy.

The last couple miles to the Pistol Hill Rd trailhead had some sweet flow to it. Passed more riders there too. From there it was 2-3mi of dirt and paved road to meet Cathy waiting at Colossal Cave park. I finished with about 47 miles in 4.7hrs on the Garmin. I reached that state of total mental depletion. Attitude was adjusted. Bring on the traffic jams now! I could deal with it.

High point of ride, Mt Wrightson wilderness in background

Rincon's in distance

Many gates to open and close along the way

Open range land, hovering between 4500-5000ft elevation.

The fast, buff section, getting closer to the Rincon's

Near Pistol Hill

Yeah, Baby!

That time of year again to head someplace warmer to ramp up cycling volume. I missed Arizona last year, hit Moab and Fruita instead. Got in many great rides that trip. But Tucson offers an off-road experience that is hard to find anywhere else. The flora and fauna are so unique. The weather is almost guaranteed to be mint this time of year too.

Just my wife Cathy and I will be heading out this year. She doesn't ride much anymore, as her rheumatoid arthritis has progress to a point that makes riding uncomfortable. But like most folk in the northern part of the country, she sure could use a little warmth and sun. Looks like we'll literally be jumping out of the freezer and into the frying pan.

We'll spend the first three days in Tucson and the rest of the week in Sedona. I have several long rides planned, including two point-to-point rides where Cathy agreed to shuttle me. Two new areas for me to hit will be the Tortolita's near Tucson and a big loop in Prescott, just west of Sedona. Some high risk terrain is embedded in these rides. My boss said I was too busy to take risks...

Invariably, when my pale complexion is exposed to mega-doses of solar radiation for the first time in spring, my lips get severely burned, swell up and resemble one of the cartoon characters I watched eons ago.


I need a break from work in a bad way. Hitting new terrain on every planned ride will help melt stress.  Hope I don't OD on riding hours. I have a pittance of hours on the bike so far this year. Anyway, the sofa bike is there waiting for me. Haven't been on it in ages. I put some more serious tires on it than my usual girly XC racer type tires. 2.35" Racing Ralph's. Yeah, I know, they still have "race" in the name, but they are much beefier than the regular RR's.

Ear Popping Descents Two days in a Row

With road shoulders icing up overnight from snow melt and the Cape with some new snow earlier in the week, Saturday's big ride was looking more like a snow machine trail ride. There hasn't been much recent snow locally. Hasn't gotten above freezing all week either, to set things up. When I proposed following sled trails out to Fort Mountain and back, Soups and others jumped on board.

The temp was expected to rise rapidly Saturday, to maybe above 50F. An early start was needed to get as many miles in before the trails turned to mush. Soups, Geoff, Tim, Dave and Andy joined in the fun. Rolling out just after 7am on the Rockingham Rail Trail, we were dismayed to find conditions pretty loose and soft. It appeared everything had been groomed recently by the local snowmobile club, pulling loose granular from the sides into the middle of the trail. For us guys on skinnies, the middle was nearly unrideable. Geoff was on a fatty and didn't have to chose his lines as carefully. Fortunately, the very edges of the trail were a bit crusty, but still hard work. I felt bad for suggesting this ride and feared a mutiny later in the ride when conditions went from marginal to awful.

Boundary of Bear Brook, with Geoff, Andy, Soups, Tim and Dave.

The effort heading out around Tower Hill Pond was pretty high. I was running my crappy Kenda Klondike tires, which have a rounded profile and knife into anything but ice pretty easily. I sensed impending doom with the firepower in the group.  At least we weren't risking black ice on roads and dealing with auto traffic. We virtually had the trails to ourselves at such an early hour.

Dave and Geoff did not plan on doing the whole ride due to other commitments. When we reached Podunk Road in Bear Brook State Park, they with Andy headed south, working their way back. Soups, Tim and I debated about how to continue. I found Podunk Rd pretty sketchy on the descent, again freshly groomed, which my tires knifed into like lightly browned toast. What would that be like coming back up in a couple hours if we went all the way out to Fort Mtn?

Groomer in Bear Brook

Soups wasn't concerned. Of course, he was running 2.4" monster truck tires, gaining some of the advantage that Geoff had with his fat bike. I nearly lost it about three times heading down Podunk.  When we got to the park entrance, we saw the source of our increased effort to stay upright, the groomer. Pretty fancy equipment.

A few minutes of pavement connected us to a jeep road off Mt Delight Rd. In a rural area, you'd think every road that dead ends into an open jeep road would have lots of snow machine traffic on it. Not this one! Dang, now what? There was some old sled traffic on it and a lot of foot traffic. It was post hole hell for the next several minutes. Tim was wondering what kind of boondoggle I was dragging him into. He hasn't experienced a full-up Hill Junkie boondoggle yet. Was this going to be the day?

As soon as we reached the power lines, we picked up well packed, smooth trail. It was not a maintained snow machine route, so not groomed. It was perfect! The next several miles turned out to be the best riding of the day. I was so looking forward to coming back down from Fort Mtn on this. It was going to be way faster than the bony, muddy mess it usually is in summer.

I had intel on the Fort Mtn access road from earlier in the week. For some reason, it was plowed down to bare gravel. Normally, it would not be rideable by bike in the winter. My guess is they had to bring communication equipment up there in a truck. The 600ft climb through the switchbacks hurt. A lot. Soups killed it. I did my best but he gapped me on the sustained 25% grade sections.

From Fort Mt summit, looking W/SW. Road was cleared by a bulldozer, pushing snow to side.

Looking toward Whites.

Tim and Soups (in his snow camo kit)

Can almost see Mt Washington.

It was fairly pleasant up top, now above freezing, and not too windy. Overcast obscured Mt Washington. After calorie replenishment, it was time to bomb down the frozen gravel descent. So nice to have tires on dirt, even though it wasn't singletrack. My ears popped like crazy.  The real fun came a bit later on the smooth sled trail, still dropping a lot of vertical. Certainly the fastest I've hauled through that section, and I've gone up Fort Mtn many times.

Back in the state park, we started up Podunk Rd. I went about 20ft before spinning out. Son of a bitch! I almost hung it up there, considering taking all roads back. But Soups and Tim kept going. It turned out to be not that bad once we got going, carefully hugging the crusty edges. Snowmobiles and quads were coming out in force by then too. Glad the road was groomed wide.

Back on Trail 15, conditions actually seemed easier for me. High sled traffic pretty much minced up the light toast snow into completely loose granular. There was ice just underneath. I found this easier to maintain control on than when heading out three hours earlier. There were almost no firm edges left anyway, with the traffic using up much of the trail. I think our average speed picked up even though it was thawing and things were softer. All of the snowmobilers slowed down at least some when passing us. I didn't encounter any knuckleheads. We did our best to stay out of their way too.

We got back to the cars with just over 4hrs moving time, 43.5mi on the Garmin, and 3800ft of climbing. That was certainly the hardest, longest ride of the year for me. I really needed that with a cycling trip just two weeks away. The three of us agreed the ride was a big success, everybody getting a superb workout.

So how do you top that off? You ski in the Whites with more ear popping descents the next day. And I don't mean Alpine skiing either. I am my own chair lift. I went up to Waterville for a solo, midday ski. I planned to ski only two hours or so at an easy pace. I was feeling pretty beat from Saturday's ride.

I figured I'd hit all the south end trails I haven't visited yet this season. I forgot just how punishing the climbing is on the south end. The climbs aren't as long as the north end, but they are much steeper on average. Jennings Peak, Upper Fletchers, Criterion all throw big double-digit grades at you. I was surprised how icy it was. Pretty much all of the south end trails were boiler plate (polished frozen granular) in the middle third of the trail. It was extremely difficult to climb on this, as the ski tails would just slide out as you pushed off. It took considerable upper body effort to make it up the climbs. Not how I wanted one of my last skis of the season to go.

I worked around to Lower Snows and started heading up. That was much, much better. Should have started on the north end. That must have been groomed at a different time. When I passed Swazeytown, it was perfect, untouched corduroy. Should I take it and and head up Beanbender? Beanbender is the hardest grade at Waterville. What would Hill Junkie do? Of course I went up it! It wasn't pretty, but I survived. Upper Snows was in similar mint condition. So was Cascade. Conditions were definitely Strava KOM material, but I was easy skiing and nobody looks at Strava KOMs anymore anyway. I'm pretty sure I bombed down the back side of Cascade at my personal fastest.

Looking down Beanbender, Thornton Gap in middle (Tripoli Rd goes through it)

Top of Upper Snows

Livermore Rd was back to the frozen granular. Fast as heck, but no control. Made my ankles hurt trying to find an edge on my skis. I was still feeling ok and started thinking maybe I could do a full perimeter skate. Hadn't done that in while. Looping around Moose Run/Wicked easy was anything but easy. Again, frozen pretty hard.

Heading up Osceola, I started bonking. I brought only one water bottle with me, and it was almost gone. I polished off the last of my calories. The 800ft Tripoli Rd climb coming up next was going to be interesting.

Top of Osceola. Sky just doesn't get any bluer than that.

From Bob's Lookout. Picnic tables only slightly more exposed than two weeks earlier.

Tripoli had a smidgen of crust, just enough to edge. Being more shaded, it was still squeaky and slower. I just had to make it to the top, then it was 1000ft of down back to the Nordic center. Sort of. There was the pesky Pipeline climb right at the end. Full perimeter skate demands you do it all.

Fortunately, Pipeline is groomed first and last, as I believe the Piston Bully comes down Pipeline from the Alpine area to groom the Nordic trails. It was mint, a nice final descent to bomb. I was surprised to see Mad River trail open when I came past. It wasn't open all winter. So of course, I had to ski it. It is on the perimeter. It hadn't been groomed in some time and was terrifyingly icy. I nearly went into the trees on the first drop. The trail probably should have been roped off.

I made it back to the Nordic center seeing cross-eyed right at about 3hrs moving time. Despite challenging conditions, it was a fabulous day to be in the woods. Very few others were out. The temps stayed just below freezing and the sun was blindingly brilliant. Maybe some snow this coming week and one more ski next weekend. That will probably be it for the season, unless somebody is still open when I get back from Arizona. A ski in April would make the sixth month of the season for me.

Rangeley Loppet 2014

If figures, we finally get a winter of epic proportions and I develop a ski related injury. I've teetered on the verge of ankle problems ever since I had to retire my black and yellow Salomon skate boots. I loved those things to death. Literally. Then I bought new Salomon's. They hurt my ankles. A season later I bought a pair of Atomic skate boots. The fit was virtually identical. They hurt my ankles slightly less.

As I get older, I'm noticing my feet pronate more. They do this inside Nordic boots. This combined with questionable skate technique puts a lot of stress on the inside of my ankles. I often get blisters just below the medial malleolus (big bump on inside of ankle) when first breaking out the rollerskis in the fall. That calluses over and things seem fine for a while.

Then I get on snow and the discomfort goes further. I was doing ok until several weeks ago I skied 41km at Weston. I counted 104 hairpin left-hand turns that day, where I had to edge my right ski to make the fast, sharp turns. At the end of that session, I had intense pain, and skiing twice a week since has not allowed it to heal.

After quite a bit of poking around on the web, I'm pretty sure I'm getting what is commonly called "skater's ankle," a condition that hockey players and figure skaters are more likely to get. The way I think of it, you develop an internal blister, actually a bursa, where one doesn't belong and it becomes inflamed. This can be very painful. Professionals get custom fitted boots. I'm presently stuck with Pilot bindings, severely limiting my boot choices. I intend to remedy this limitation next season by buying new skis with the NIS/NNN binding system. I once owned a pair of boots that never bothered my ankles, so I'm hopeful there are still some others out there. In the mean time, I've been donut-padding my right ankle to provide a small amount of relief. The pain can be so severe that I have ended many ski sessions early because of it. Relief is immediate, as soon as I stop skating. I have zero discomfort running or on the bike. Those sports don't wrap a laterally rigid cuff around your ankle.

Stop-gap ankle measures

Ankle woes weren't the only thing holding me back from signing up for the Rangeley Loppet. I've been working crazy hours lately. Not just hours, but high stress hours. I've been working six days a week and sometimes over 12hrs a day. At the end of the day, I'm just mentally wrecked. It has been extremely challenging to train right now, not just because time is limited, but because my motivation has been so low.

I kind of think of it like the Battenkill road race. You're hanging on at the back of the pack, just barely. You almost get dropped going over a hill and fight to stay on. Then you hit another hill before you can even catch your breath. Repeat over and over. That's what the last few months have felt like for me, always on the verge of getting dropped. I was finding it really hard to commit to Rangeley. It was a day and a half time commitment, and I just wasn't in a racing mood. I had no motivation. But my ski buddy Brett was persistent that I join him, maybe so he could have the opportunity to thrash me after I beat him by 10 seconds at Waterville a couple weeks ago. I capitulated and registered.

Since I didn't really plan on aggressively racing Rangeley, I did not rest much during the week. My lunch workouts are precious to me, my only release mechanism. Monday/Thursday I ran. Tuesday I hammered on the MTB off-road for 1.7hrs, a very satisfying, but punishing workout. Wednesday I skate skied at White Farm in Concord, my fastest average skate of the season, although conditions were icy and I didn't work very hard. I did rest Friday though, a rare true rest day for me.

Race day morning Brett and I awoke to email stating the race will be delayed until the temperature rises above -4F (-20C). Dang, how cold was it outside? It was forecast to be around +10F (-12C) by race start. I didn't think I had adequate clothes for that kind of cold. The wind was blowing snow around too. Brett was unphased, having just done the Birkie in similar conditions. My motivation plummeted further.

The Rangeley start is always a pretty big CF. The entire 25k and 50k skate fields go off in one big wave. The course whittles down to two-wide almost immediately, slightly downhill. The there are some abrupt narrow bridges and uphill pinch points where everything grinds to a halt. Poles get stepped on and broken. I really didn't want to fight for position in this melee, so I lined up further back than I normally do here, third row. This meant I would be 45 back or so, since I'm not one of the stronger double polers.

I survived the initial couple kilometers, but I saw broken pole pieces on the track. I know Weston skier Robert was one to lose a pole. Pretty much race over at that point.

The course heads out on a long straightaway after that, where the snow was more of an icy granular and fast. I was getting sucked along quite nicely when I noticed Brett was just ahead of me. How can that be, when he started a row ahead of me? We were quite far back from the front of the race, and the pace was pretty easy. I wasn't even breathing yet. Maybe I should race a little more seriously than I planned after all.

Going into the powerline climb, things really bogged down and it was so hard to pass. There were a lot of college girls, who ski really well, but don't necessarily go uphill very well. Masters cycling base has value. Beginning the drop from this climb, there was a sharp right hand turn. Those in front of me scrubbed a lot of speed and I was forced to do the same. One of the girls skied up on my left pole just as I was whipping around the turn. My tip must have been mid-foot under her ski just as I was bringing my arm forward. The jolt was pretty horrific. Damn near pulled my shoulder out of socket. What did give was my grip. I had just mounted the grips on my new V2 poles with hot-melt glue a week earlier. The grip pulled off the pole. When I regained my balance, I had a grip in my hand with no pole attached. Son of a bitch! I had to stop, turn around, ski uphill into torrent of skiers coming around that turn to retrieve my pole, hoping it wasn't broken. It wasn't. Putting those tight grips on properly aligned was no trivial matter in my basement. Now I had to do it with heavy gloves on in a ski race. I sort of got things put together and pushed off. I lost better part of a minute. Brett was now long gone. I was pissed and skied like I meant it after that.

Fortunately the next climb, the big one, was groomed really wide so I could pass all those college girls again quite easily. It took most of the rest of lap one to catch Brett again. Even though I didn't use any fancy wax for my skis, they seemed quite fast despite the really cold conditions. I used some Swix LF3 powder, the first time I used it.

Beginning the second lap, Brett noticed I was back with him. It is unusual that I be with him in a 50k race mid-race. He usually gets a better start and grows the lead from there. But he capitulated the lead, having me set pace for a while. We agreed to work together. Brett was ahead of his Birkie nemesis Kurt at the time and wanted to keep things that way.

I carried a large water bottle with me so I knew what I was drinking (HEED, evil stuff) and so I would drink enough. Brett had to stop at the top of the big climb to take a HEED feed. I slowed and waited for him. We were pretty much alone on the course at that point and I figured if we worked together, I cold get done with the race sooner.

On the big descent, I noticed I could no longer stay in Brett's draft. Crap. My skis were getting slow and his were not. Perhaps my LF3 wax was not very durable. Brett used a cold pure fluoro and had his skis professionally waxed the week before for a cold Birkie. He put many seconds on me simply by tucking down the hill. Think of it this way. You and your friend are on singlespeed bikes. You have just one gear, and when you go down a steep hill, neither of you can pedal fast enough to increase your speed. You just spin out. Now say your tires are half inflated and your friends are full. You are drafting your friend. Even though your friend is providing drafting benefit, your soft tires will eventually spit you out of his draft. You can't pedal to get back on, because your are going too fast and have only one gear. That was the situation I was in. When we got to the bottom, I had to claw my way back up to Brett, burning matches.

Coming though the start/finish for our third and final lap, Brett's nemesis Kurt caught us, and at no small speed differential either. He was moving. That sucked for me, as the 1km gradual descent from the start was coming up. Brett latched on to Curt, realizing he was a much more promising pacing partner. I was unceremoniously dropped.

On the long, icy straight-away, Brett and Kurt put huge time on me. Bye-bye. That kind of ended my motivation to race right there. Plus, my ankle was absolutely killing me. My form went to shit because of it. I could not come down on my right leg without it killing. I was committed to finishing at this point, with less than a lap to go.

On the long climb, I could see Brett and Kurt not far up. I knew full well that if I buried myself to catch them, I'd promptly be dropped on the descent again anyway with my slowing skis. No point. I just kept a steady hard tempo pace going, trying to block out that a 130 pound girl just dropped me on the descent. My skis must have really slowed down. They were not like that at the start.

The modified course from last year was going to be a full 50km, finally, and I could tell that despite my ski and ankle woes, I was going to have a very good average pace. I crossed the line in 2:53:19, less than a minute and a half back from Brett. That was clearly my fastest pace marathon in not the fastest conditions. I could at least come away from this race feeling pretty good about that.

I wasted no time getting into dry clothes so I could devour a thousand calories of soup, kielbasa, cookies and brownies. The volunteers always have a feast waiting for us after the race, second to none. I've done the Rangeley Loppet many times now, and it is always a smoothly run event. This year I wondered if I even want to do more ski marathons, given that it isn't the way most people relax when stressed with work and life. But I'll probably be back...