Crown King and BCT Bikepack coming up!

So I've been bikepacking several times, and this will be Marcus's first. This will double my longest (my previous long was 75ish miles up in the Cabin Loop area on the rim).

What better way to really get a feel for the challenges of the AZTR300 than to do this. I'm not sure if anyone has done it before, but here is an overview.

From my house near 51st ave and Happy Valley, head north through open desert and bypass the loop 303 and then CF Hwy in order to intersect with the Maricopa Trail.

Head west and use the MT to gain access to the newish trail system at Lake Pleasant where we will top off on fluids and then begin the dirt road grind around to the Crown King trail. This isn't a MTB trail, it's more of a 4x4/OHV trail that takes some beautiful country all the way up to Crown King.

I've done it in a vehicle, never on a bike. Strava research shows that people (much stronger than me) have ridden up there. So it's possible. Just gonna be tough with bikepacking gear. But that's exactly the point.

Once we acquire CK, we will refuel at the Saloon and general store. Then bomb down the dirt road all the way to basically I-17 where we will intersect with the BCT and head north to basically its Northern terminus at Mayer (yeah I know it goes beyond that, but we aren't going to do that). The plan is to get anything else necessary in Mayer and then start the trek South on BCT until we feel like we have had enough. Set up camp and crash out.

Next day get up and continue the southbound route and go into BCC/Rock Springs for any supplies/lunch and then continue BCT all the way south until we run into the Maricopa Trail again at which point we follow it back to my place.

A giant lollipop of goodness. At least in theory.

Here is what the route looks like: 154 miles and about 14k elevation...

Prescott "mini" monster 2016

This weekend was my "official" kick-off of training for the AZTR 300 in April. Though I've been focusing on building up miles and climbing recently, there is no getting around needing to get some big, punishing rides in to prepare.

Enter the Prescott "Mini" Monstercross

I had done this route about 18 months ago and this version was way tougher in my opinion.

The day started off decent enough. I went to bed and woke up with a headache, which is rare for me. Apparently Marcus had some stomach weirdness also, but nothing that was going to stop us from riding. We both also didn't really get enough sleep, I think both of us were around the 4 hour mark. Not optimal, but whatever.

Marcus rolled up at 4:30AM and loaded up in my truck and we were off. Had some pretty interesting traffic encounters on the way up. People are stupid!

Made it up to P town and it was downright chilly. Low 40's when we started. We started to climb right away so we warmed up quickly. After the climbing, we promptly lost all of the elevation on a sweet decent. I mentioned to Marcus that this really make the day feel like it would be easy. We both knew it wasn't going to be, but it still felt like it.

We made it to the Granite Dells section at about 1.5 hours in. Just cruising and enjoying the day. Grabbed a picture of both of us and continued on...

Notice the rogue panda bags. They were rock freaking solid. I didn't use all the gear that I purchased from them, but I'm sure I won't be disappointed. 

We made it through the dells and crossed hwy 89 into a weird little custom home area. It's cool, but certain areas of it feel really closed in. I don't know if I could live in there to be honest. Some of the areas are more open, but it just feels "weird" to me. I dunno.

A little more techy/HAB sections after the housing area but then we were back to actual extended riding.

We passed Willow Creek Reservoir and Marcus discovered that he had lost his bluetooth headphones. Bummer. We were both good on fluids so we bypassed the available water here.

More riding on mixed trails until we dumped out onto Williamson Valley Rd. where we had a high speed roll and turn off into a neighborhood. Ground our way up to a trailhead and the beginning of some rubble filled trail. Kind of a pain, but it ended quick enough and then we had some fairly fast and flowy trail for a bit. Hit some legit pine trees for the first time in the ride to, so that was nice.

We stopped at the water source and it was filled with bees. I managed to top off water for Marcus and myself without getting stung and we got moving. We were close to the half way mark, but we both knew that things get really tough for the last 20 miles. Still feeling good though...

From here, it has an overall uphill trend, climb a bit, descend a bit, all while continuing to get higher in elevation. I started to lose Marcus on the climbs a bit. Not by much, but he was waiting for me at the top of the significant sections. The day was starting to wear on me, and even though the temps were nice (high 60's mid 70's at this point) it was starting to feel warm due to no shade.

We finally made it to the wolverton descent and I told Marcus it is nice to be going downhill, but it's just chunky enough to beat you down a bit. It makes you work. We made it to hwy 89 and had a pitstop at the white spar CG. Filled up on water for the final beat down.We debated on how much water to get. On paper, we only had about 15 miles to go. But it was warmish and we knew the shenanigans were coming. I took on a decent amount of water, but then when things started getting weird I totally stopped drinking. Dumb move. It made things more difficult for sure, and I was fighting of some cramps during some of the climbs. I need to remember to stay on top of hydration. Food isn't a problem, but hydration can be. I need to get this dialed if I want to survive the AZT300.

The last 10 miles (and really the last 4 or 5) are really tough. I thought we had a sub nine hour finish in the bag but then the boy scout "trail" HAB followed by Turley trail said no to that. Just a kick in the nuts. That's all there is to it. We finally finished and were cruising pavement back to the start area when we noticed an off leash dog barking in the road. It was fairly large and we contemplated what to do.

Dog on the left

We kinda barked at it and it moved further away. At this point, we went toward it so we took a quick left at the road you see on the left in the picture. The chase was on. Marcus and I were both laughing and sprinting down this road. I turn around just in time to see the dog eat pavement when it tried to stop quickly after realizing he was past the territory of his house. Funniest thing ever. It retreated through the open gate and Marcus and I turned around and made our way to the end. It's always something!

All in all, a good day. I still finished faster than the last time, and like I said with a harder (IMO) route. I'll take it. Having Marcus riding with me probably helped a bit. This route can be a bit depressing solo. More so than the other AES routes I have done solo. I'm not sure why that is.

CK bikepack is next!

Strava Link

It's starting to get real

I'm starting to obsess a bit over the AZTR coming up in April. I know it seems so far away, but there really is a lot to do in that time. Mostly training but also gear acquisition and logistics planning. Luckily this race is maturing and there are a lot of blogs with a wealth of information which are super helpful. Still though, the 300 route is no joke and no matter the riders ability or knowledge, it has the ability to knock anyone out at any time. It has cut down some legends and I'm not anywhere near them ability wise so I always have that in my mind.

Gear wise, I ordered up the majority of my bags from Rogue Panda. For the time being I am going to roll without a seatbag, but I will have the full complement of frame bag, two top tube bags plus a handlebar roll. Seatbag will come later I'm sure, but I am going to see how what I have works out when we do a little run up to Crown King for a bikepack shakedown trip.

Also, I have been scouring for deals on other gear. I found a sweet sale for an REI branded down puffy jacket for 50 bucks. Score. It's an ugly color, but I don't really care.

Training has started to pick up a bit. Mainly focusing on doing more climbing now that the weather is getting cooler. A mix of hill repeats Monday is a 6 minute climb that I repeat as much as possible and Wednesday is a shorter hill < 60 seconds. Mix in a big-ish ride on Saturday. Humboldt will be on the regular rotation. At least every other week.

Starting in October I will be getting in at least 1 AES style ride per month starting with a running on the Prescott mini-monster.

Looking forward to all of it!

Just one of those days...

I was planning on a Humboldt run on Saturday but Marcus texted and said he was going to be on the west side so I suggested a full PSP tour. He hasn't been out there for a while and is in fabulous shape compared to the last time we were out there.

Started bright (ok not so bright) and early at 5:15. We didn't want to take lights for 15 minutes so we just took it slow to start. Almost immediately I knew it was going to be a hard day. Marcus has a higher pace that me so I wasn't being lazy, but wasn't super pushing or anything but I knew right off the bat that my legs had nothing - even on the flat CAP road that goes from Deem over to Sonoran.

We hit up the grunt of an entry climb from the trailhead and got started. I was trying to not slow Marcus down too much, so I kept the pace decent but I was already feeling like I was in the red on everything. Not good.

Stopped at some of the intersections to explain what things were and where they went (and to rest haha). I told Marcus I had to slow up a bit. I felt bad, because I knew I was holding him up. I told him that today was going to be a bad day for me. But I didn't want to waste the early start and hey... sometimes you just have to HTFU.

Onward...

Got up to Dixie loop and I knew I was in trouble. I had to freaking walk significant parts of the climb. I haven't had to do that in years. What the  hell is going on?

Mercifully, the climb ended and it's a fast decent back down to Bobcat where Marcus was waiting for me. From there, it's flat through the neighborhood over to the North Sonoran section on the other side of Dove Valley. Marcus asked how I was doing and I said shitty but let's keep going. Mental game.

The climb heading towards Carefree Highway is milder in grade but it was still kicking my ass. Didn't walk at least. Before we started the climb, I told Marcus I'd just meet him at the new TH. I met up with him and he was sitting in front of the big fan they have installed. It's cool, but how about some potable water? Not sure what they were thinking there...

Now on to the pain game. It's a decent climb to the towers, but not too bad. But I knew what was coming, and it was going to be ugly. The north climb from central. I started walking pretty early and alternated between pushing and riding the whole time. Like I said earlier, it's been years since I've had to walk anything here... other than if I dabbed and had to push the bike to an easier starting place. Made it to the top finally and Marcus was not there... no biggie. Fast decent down and there were a lot of riders out today. Cool! I even came across Jeff and Nancy. I didn't say anything to Nancy, but as Jeff passed I said "Is that Jeff?" proceeded by a 3 second pause then finally he skidded to a stop. He looked like he was struggling a bit and they had a beefy climb that was just starting. Told him sorry for interrupting the flow, just wanted to say "hi".

The rest of the trail back to apache wash TH is mild and fairly easy, so I made it to there and I said we have two options... one are the flats back to SoSo, or the rest of NoSo to where we started. I was kinda hoping he would say flats, but he said that will be boring to which I agreed, so we ate a bit and finished up the rest of the full NoSo loop. A couple of painful spots, but nothing like the climbs on the other side.

Back through the neighborhood and to the Bobcat trail. This is deceptively uphill and is shitty when you are just ready to be done. There are a few short punchy climbs through a couple of washes as you make your way to the cholla forest and then it's a sweet downhill to another steep wash transition. Then it's the last major nut punch of the day. Strava segment called "nice climb". We today it should have been called "nice hike" because as soon as it pitched up I hiked the whole damn thing. Ugh. Finally that was over and did the fast decent back down to the trailhead where this all started.

Now just six miles back home. I always dread this part after a big ride. It's boring with a couple of hills thrown in and the final kick to the teeth to get back up to the gate. Done. Felt really good to be done with this ride. Dropped back down really fast, and then took a little dirt jump. I told Marcus that that 1.3 seconds of the jump was the only fun I've had in the last three hours haha.

Eff me what a day. Good mental training. I'm pretty sure this was due mostly to a very bad week schedule wise - lot's of late nights and early mornings. I'm pretty sure I was dehydrated at the start too and just was never able to overcome that. Good lessons. Hopefully I'll be back on track this week.

Flagstaff Weekend

The last couple years I have been able to get up to Flag to do the flag2gc ride. Both years Marcus and I have been able to go up the day before the event to get a ride in on Friday. Last year, even though we got up north early enough (usually the Monsoon storms brew a little later in the day), we got caught in some nasty conditions, but luckily came out unscathed.

This year, we ended up leaving N. Phx a touch before 5AM and were on the bikes off of Schultz Pass Rd at 7:15. We had pulled up a Schultz Trail loop that started on Lower Moto and decided to take that and then break off on the AZT heading North toward the snowbowl area... until we felt like we had done enough or the weather started to look iffy. We got about 6 miles in on the AZT section and then the clouds started to roll in a bit. Since we knew that we had about 16 miles back to the truck if we turned around right then, we decided better to be safe than sorry, so we turned back. 16 miles of awesomeness all the way back to the truck, with a phenomenal downhill run at the end. So much fun, and so beautiful!

As we finished up and were getting the bikes into the truck, the rain started. Perfect timing! Time to get the eff out and go get lunch. 

The next day we got up bright and early for the depart of the flag to GC ride. It went off pretty well, they added a bunch of AZT singletrack north of FR 418 which was a blast to ride. I hadn't ridden the section north of FR 418, but had ridden it south of there. Amazing trail. 

After that, there was a bunch of gravel grinding to be had. The sag stops were great, and overall it was a quiet peaceful day on the bike for me. I ended up helping Travis a bit and sticking around at the sags waiting for him to make sure he was doing OK mechanically. I don't think I'll do that next year. Marcus crushed it as usual. I don't have any pics of this day - I regret that a bit, but maybe next time.

Back at it...

Took a couple weeks off the bike for vacation and stuff. Started back this week with a smallish mountain bike ride and but this week is about getting the bike commute started again. Tuesday was hot, and today... supposed to be even hotter (112).

What a way to get back in it.

Next week will have more MTB added, along with some interval stuff likely.

Tire review - Maxxis Mud Wrestler

These came on my Giant TCX SLR2 and I'm just about done with them. I've gotten about 750 miles out of them, but they just aren't suited for what I'm using them for; a commute with a bit of dirt but primarily rough pavement and a fairly decent amount of road debris including glass.

Now I can't really speak to how they roll, as I would be comparing them to big (by comparison) mountain bike tires. So this review is strictly based on tire life and ability to do the job.

I've had three flats, one was a pinch (my fault) and then two on the same commute yesterday. The second was my fault because I apparently didn't do a good enough job of checking the tire for additional pointy tube killers when pulling out the shard of glass that I though caused my flat. Well it did cause it... in addition to the other large thorn that had penetrated the tire.

So I guess it doesn't provide much in the way of puncture protection. The knobs had also wore off for the most part in the center part of the tire (especially the rear). I know it's more of a dirt tire than a pavement tire so I get it.

Next up will be some Panaracer T-Serv Protex which I think will fit my needs a bit better.

I'll continue to run slime tubes also and as always, I have two spare tubes plus a patch kit on board when I commute. That fact saved me the having to make a "call of shame" to my wife yesterday.

P.S. If people in Phoenix can stop breaking bottles and crap all over the road, that would be great.