As I missed one days blog due to wifi abuse at the GC, I have decided to get you back up to date with 2 days in one. Don't panic..It's not going to be massive. We have nearly broken ourselves and have only managed one ride a day.
After I ditch the boys I go for a rim cycle, just me and the Bronson. There's nothing like quality time with a loved one.
Yestarday started off badly with a hangover, the worse motel room coffee ever, muesli out of a cup with rice milk and no spoons (Stefan likes to pretend he's new age) and a half humorous, half bitchy political stoush about who wants to walk down the Grand Canyon and for how far.
I'm not sure why it's called the Grand Canyon. I couldn't find any reference to it at all.
There's only two ways to enjoy travel into the canyon. Mountainbike and Mule (ok, you can walk but really?). Seeing as you'll get arrested and thrown in the slammer if you try it on a bike, the trusty mule is the only viable option. Shame you have to book a year in advance. Did you know that a mule is the baby of a male donkey and a female horse. No mention of what happens when you mate a male horse and a female donkey?
Being all good mates, we decide to follow Stefans lead and walk down the Canyon until the first person throws their toys out of the pram (it's a 8-12 hour hike depending on how hard you are). I avoid this drama as I cunningly wait until they have started the descent and then I just pull out mumbling something about my hemorrhoids (always works) and I have a nice leisurely walk along the rim and then jump on my bike and ride the cycle section Rim Trail and look for a good kicker for my canyon gap jump.
There are Elk feeding everywhere on the roadside. Not too sure if this is self-massage or there was a tasty morsel stuck to it's butt.
The lads get back far earlier than anticipated so we bust a move to Sedona via McDonalds for my second worst coffee ever and a snack that cost more than the huge Mexican meal the night before.
We decide last minute to stop at Flagstaff, Arizona to ride some sweet aspen and pine singletrack with local trail guide Dan, then arrive at Sedona by nightfall to fall on the sofa and try and make ourselves dinner from the leftover food in the chilly bin (there was a time on the trip when someone, usually James, would whip up something delicious for everyone to eat, but now it's every man for himself).
Local rider Dan, a friend of a friend, was roped in to show us the Alpine meadows and forest of Flagstaff.
James pinning the super smooth and fast pedalling descent.
Aspen, meadows, smooth trails. Bliss. A good time to bring the carbon 29er rigid out of the shed.
Jeff taking a break from pedalling to pop some rock. Jeff also had a decent break as he couldn't pedal quite fast enough on the first run recovering from a cold (poor opossum) and he pulled a u-turn to head back up and wait for us on the steeper run #2.
The second descent was amazing. Tim happy as larry on the fast and swooping with random rocks to pop and jagged teeth to crush your rims...as Jeff found out just up the trail a bit.
Can you imagine 30 minutes of descending this trail? Stefan about halfway through.
Today we woke at 5 am so we could make our next mission to Hi-line trail at dawn. We met up with local ripper Lars, another muscular firefighter who left us chewing on his dust as he effortlessly sprinted, popped, jumped, and dropped the stunning slickrock, sand, ravines and slabrock drops of the Redrocks trail network. He broke us big time and any thoughts of ride number 2 were quickly put in the back of the cupboard as the temperature climbed and moral dropped.
We had to take a few breaks on our dawn Hi Line trail ride. It was 16 degrees at 7am already. I was broken from thje 3 hours of sprinting at Flagstaff. Look at the guns on Lars (far left). He wrestles cactus in his spare time.
Keep your eyes on the trail Stefan. It's easy to get distracted by the monolithic formations here but you have to be on the ball or you will smack into a rock step and fall into a cactus.
The descending parts of Hi-line are world class. Fast and furious. Big balls needed. Jeff warms up on the first hairpin before things get hairy.
James rode stuff way harder than he's used to and he just ate it up. It looks easy here but he has just exited a steep stepped ravine through that rock face.
When Stefan isn't buying 20 metres of curtain material on a boys trip to the States, he likes to ride a little bit of rockslab (don't even ask). photo: Jeff Carter
This is the view we got of Lars all morning (when we could see him) This guy is a weapon. We spied some secret SRAM stuff on his bike too. He must know some people. He's like therodfather of Sedona, just better, faster, stronger, better looking.... and he can actually ride. As you can guess, I'm not too sure if I like Lars. Lucky for him he was too fast and I never even had the chance to push him off the nearest cliff. phot: Jeff Carter
Tim is Mr Casual on the bike. Wait until he's 50 then we'll see how casual he rides. Bastard.
Simon's 11th day of riding finally caught up to him today. He was troopering out the back and only had one beer afterwards (normally he's quite drunk and wandering around in his undies muttering angrily)
Me dropping some steeper slab than it looks. I wasn't going to let some flashy 35 year old cat rescuer out run therodfather even if he can bench press 80 kg and has Sram Blackbox parts on his bike. Later I limped into the carpark and not long after had to have 4 strong IPA's before my legs would stop shaking. photo: Jeff Carter
Simon hucks rockslab #34 with James hot on his rear photo: Jeff Carter.
Luckily we had a fridge full of local IPA's (Stefans food snobbery also transcends to beer) so the scales were tipped in favour of a siesta with some smack talk about how we were going to smash Hangover trail tomorrow. I was gutted to not ride another trail. Sedona has the best terrain ever, but is a little too much up down up down up down for old guys like us on our 11th day in the saddle.
What a shame Jeff didn't buy his wheels from Wheelworks Handcrafted Wheels. If he had he'd get them rebuilt for free. Jeff glued his rim up but Hi-line ripped it open again.
Seems anyone can get a liscence in America. I think the blonde one even had a gun. Don't worry, Trump will sort all this shit out.
NOTE: So I found out what happens if you mate a horse and donkey the wrong way. It's called a Hinny, and they are smaller. And if you're into slaves, then who wants a small one.