Two-Wheeled Madness

Arizona Trail Magic, Day Two "Nothing like camp coffee to get your bowels moving." Mike, the grizzled AZT veteran is stumbling his way through the darkness to the Kentucky Camp comfort station. "I was fartin' beans all night long...," he said to no one in particular, but I immediately appreciated the wisdom of my having slept on the porch, rather than inside the hostel building itself. As I was falling asleep the night before, I was startled to hear someone breathing right next to me. I turned to my right, glancing down the porch expecting to see a large dark lump representing another racer, but saw nothing. I looked off the end of the porch, thinking that someone may have taken up refuge under the deck just below me, but no matter how hard I rubbed my eyes--nothing. Strange. The alien breathing was too loud to be imagined, and it was strangely in sync with my own inhale/exhale pattern. On a whim, I tried exhaling completely to see if the invisible stran

Arizona Trail Magic “Just try me.” “Please, I’m begging you, just try me and see how far I will drive this truck up your [butt]!” Mallory is making quick, little movements with her fingers on the steering wheel, egging on the driver whose rear bumper is less than a bike length away from our SUV’s front end. We are in the HOV lane on the I-10 freeway heading east; the three of us: Mallory, Jared and I. The driver so rudely blocking our path is alone, well, physically alone. They may have felt that the ethereal presence of the person they were talking to on their cell phone qualified them for the 2-persons or more lane. Who knows? But, Mallory is having none of it. Jared is a friend that I met racing the Tour Divide in 2016. It is he who arranged for Mallory to drive us to the start of the AZT 750. She is the first of many trail angels we will encounter throughout this adventure, although her wings are a bit rough around the edges. We are indebted to her kindness and