Arizona Trail Race 750, Day One

Arizona Trail Magic, Day Four

Saddle sores, it turns out, are almost as painful while pushing a bike as they are riding on one. It seemed odd, but as I pushed, lifted, lowered and generally coaxed my laden bike on the narrow trail of Oracle Ridge, the pain in my left butt cheek was growing unbearable.

Pushing, and occasionally riding, on this rather questionable surface through the dark, I was experiencing more than my fair share of bumps and bruises, nicks and jabs from rocks and sticks and flora that seemed to have it out for me. It sounds silly, but at this early, pre-dawn hour, I was fully convinced that nature was out to get me and that these inanimate objects possessed a desire to inflict pain and suffering on me at every opportunity.

One of the more rideable parts of the Oracle Ridge trail

Growing frustrated at the seemingly random, yet capricious discomfort I was being subjected to, I decided to do something about the pain that I could prevent--sort of. Stopping in one of the few places where I had enough room for both my bike and I to rest--the bike against a boulder, and me, miraculously with both feet on the trail, I commenced applying ointment to my nether regions. Anyone who has tried this in the heat of battle understands the challenge of completing this task with a cycling glove on; there is just too much competing with a timely and accurate application of the soothing cream to the proper location. Anticipating this, I removed my right-hand glove and set it down.

Feeling somewhat relieved from my efforts I, once again, engaged in the on-again, off-again task of riding my bike on Oracle Ridge.

....and, dismount

About an hour in, just as the sun was peeking over the lowest hills to the east, my headlamp caught a flash on the trail ahead. Squinting to somehow see better in the thick darkness, I noticed that I was approaching another racer bivied beside the trail, his bike leaning against a scrubby tree. As I passed, he lifted his head and slurred a greeting of some sort. I fully expected him, now awakened, to bolt out of his sleeping bag in hot pursuit, but I never saw him--at least not that I noticed.

It was about this time that I noticed something odd about my right hand: it was not wearing a glove. After a few choice words, I realized that I must have left the glove on the trail back when I attended to my saddle sores. Normally, I would have just moved on and left the glove to degrade in peace, providing animals with bedding material for what must be a harsh existence in winter. But, I had purchased these gloves specifically for the AZTR and was not ready to abandon one of them to Oracle Ridge. I walked back on the trail for about 15 minutes, finally realizing that it was foolish to continue to the place where I had actually dropped the glove. I returned to my bike, dejected, but rather stylish in an 80s pop star kinda way.

The joys of Oracle Ridge

The Oracle Ridge section of the Arizona Trail, reminded me of the paths through the jungle on Gilligan's Island; you know the ones where the vegetation parts like the Red Sea as the Professor runs through what is indistinguishable from any other section of flora. Only in this case, instead of plastic, Hollywood set pieces, the plants and trees on Oracle Ridge are mean, angry little buggers wearing thorns, needles and prickly points of all sorts, reaching out to grab skin, kit and handlebars are every  opportunity.  It is not your grandfather's Gilligan's Island.

Just to add a bit of adrenaline to the mix of torture and blood-letting, in a few select, steep pitches the trail had been plowed to the width of a road and covered with baseball-sized, sharp rocks creating an element of unpredictability to the entire enterprise.

Good times.

Deceptively sketchy

At some point, Oracle Ridge had dished out the last of its weapons, and the trail became a smooth, flowing ribbon of joy descending gently through the foothills that sloped persistently towards the town of Oracle. Signs of civilization began to appear with barns and remote homesteads peeking through the trees that lined some of the lower ridges. The trail had clearly seen some recent work and was in terrific shape--sort of. For some unknown reason, maybe to discourage cyclists on this section of the AZT, water-bars had been placed in the trail in the most perfectly ridiculous place possible: the apex of every 180 degree turn. This is a huge problem for low-skill riders like me, because it re-directs the momentum of the front wheel to the side of the trail the minute it becomes airborne off of the 12-18 inch drops. After a couple of spectacular near-disasters, I opted to dismount and walk each of these turns, which just added to the frustration the morning had already offered up. Finally, a rideable trail, but I couldn't ride it. Terrific.

As I approached the highway that would lead me to Oracle, I had decided that I would take the off-route, paved road for a resupply in town. The official trail crosses under the highway through a dry riverbed, providing some of the only shade for the next 200 miles or so. Looking through the cool darkness of the overpass, I could see a cool, dark figure sitting against the riverbank on the opposite side of the road. By now you should anticipate that it was, of course, Norb. He was enjoying a can of soup in relative peace and quiet, which I was only too happy to disturb.

Norb told me that he had enough calories on him to skip the urban chaos of Oracle and would instead push on once he found the bottom of his soup can. I, on the other hand, could not resist the siren call of a nice Mexican meal in town, and popped up onto the road with my sights set on a big, fat burrito.

Having satiated my desire for food, re-supplied at one of the two Circle K stores in Oracle and even taken a brief nap in the shade of a small church, I once again, joined the trail proper, pushing on to who-knows-where.

I ran into a trail crew a few hours out of Oracle and enthusiastically complimented them on their work, as the trail was wide, smooth and just a joy to ride, despite the unrelenting heat of the midday sun. I couldn't help but feel bad for these kids working under such remote conditions. I felt even worse for them a few miles later when I saw their base camp. It was a small cluster of tents trying to stay within the shade of a few trees dotting a dry riverbed. I was once again reminded of Gilligan's Island, No phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury.... This was a tough assignment, and I couldn't help but wonder if the reality of this gig matched the brochures that attracted these kids in the first place.

Miles and miles of flowing fun

I knew very little about the terrain I was going to encounter in the remaining hours of the day, but it was beautiful, if not significantly variable. Gently rolling hills covered in cactus, scrub and sagebrush, frequently offering high ridges that held out the promise of a long, unbroken descent; this was spectacular country and quite simply a joy to ride in.

Ever-present trail sentinels

As the sun was fading into the western ridges, I descended a rough road, cut into an ancient riverbank towards what was now a very dry river bottom. I was running low on water and knew that my next possibility to find some was at the Freeman cache, many hours in the future. A small ray of hope was offered, however, by a large generator sitting next to a dilapidated windmill, and a good-sized solar panel stationed near where road met river bed. Clearly, someone had demonstrated a persistent commitment to keeping electricity supplied to something here; I held out hope that it was a well.

Across from the generator, about 50-feet away was a large, algae-covered tank, about the size of a backyard swimming pool, but at least twice as tall. As I slowly approached it, looking for a way to access what I hoped was potable water, I noticed Norb rising to a sitting position on a low wall next to the tank. "I just had a nice little nap," he said. "Man, did that feel good. I had ants crawling all over me and I was so tired, I didn't even care!", he offered in what had to be one of the oddest statements I had heard since we were all hanging with Mallory days earlier. "The water here is excellent," he added. "But you have to fight the bees for it."

Sure enough, a pipe extending about two feet from the tank edge was spewing cold, clear and beautiful water into a fetid, algae bloom floating on top what had previously be cold, clear, beautiful water. Surrounding, and I do mean surrounding the business end of the pipe was a rather large and intimidating swarm of bees. Just to add some excitement, there were an equal number of bees flying acrobatic patterns around the end of the pipe creating what appeared to be one of those Carl Sagan Cosmos models of an atom, with electrons spinning and circling to and fro.

"Just put your bottle into the stream of water," Norb said. "The bees won't bother you, they just want the water." I couldn't argue with his logic, but it did seem to me that this put me in a position of competition with these flying hypodermic needles, and they would not see me as just another wayward traveler, but rather as someone taking from them something that they felt they needed in a significant, survival-type, of way. Realizing that my options were few, I reached nearly to the end of my arm and placed my bottle under the flow of liquid. Norb was right. The bees could not have cared less about me, but I will admit that constant buzzing about my head terrified me more than just a little.

A few hours later, we were riding through the desert darkness on a single track that typified so much of the AZT to that point: it was smooth and rideable, then an unrideable rock garden, then again smooth, then rock garden.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I could see Norb's headlight slowly increasing the gap between us, telling me everything I needed to know about my dwindling energy reserves. I thought back to my amazing lunch in Oracle, and the four smaller meals I had eaten since then and marveled at how quickly I had burned those matches. I was on fumes.

The amazing appeal of the AZT

The trail popped out onto a dirt road, and I began to close the gap to the lone rider ahead of me. We were both anticipating the Freeman Road water cache, which is a very foolish thing to do, as these blessed brown boxes, much like coal in a Christmas morning stocking, often turned joyous anticipation into the deep darkness of despair as they presented nothing but empty plastic jugs.

At one point, we exited the road and passed through another AZT gate, once again rejoining the single track surface. In our stupor, we had both believed that this represented the anticipated cache, but saw no box anywhere. I dismounted my bike and paced off a 50 yard arc, per the cue sheet, hoping that this box, like no others had been, but stealthily hidden from passersby. No luck. All I scared up was a rather disturbed owl.

We rode on.

Crossing another road and then another, my headlight caught a quick, small reflection of light beside the trail. The cache box! Sure enough, the box of life of sitting right next to the trail and was chock-a-block full of water and Jolly Rancher candies. They were a trail revelation for me. There is nothing better for a parched mouth with no hope of water in sight, than the sickeningly sweet block of goodness that is a Jolly Rancher candy.

We were both probably a little happier than we should have been over such a small thing, but after hours and hours of nothing to cheer for or look forward to, this metallic treasure chest was a gift from a Universe that had been somewhat stingy in the joy department as of late. As we filled every available vessel with luke-warm water, Norb, noting a small pergola over a low sandstone table, remarked, "This would be an easy place to just stay for the night." Funny he should mention this, because I had just concluded that I was not going to turn any more pedals this evening.

"I am going to keep going for a couple more hours," Norb announced, once again making me look like a total lazy bum. I knew that the wise money was on joining him, but I had already made up my mind, and was soon bidding Norb farewell, while setting up my bivy, and eating yet another meal.

Freeman cache

The stars were almost oppressive in their brilliance. A handful of shooting stars did their best to distract me from sleep, but gazing through the Ocotillo roof of the pergola, I was soon looking through ever-narrowing horizontal slits as my eyelids fell heavily closed.


More to come.