Bodies are strange and amazing and surprising and annoying. November, 1st 2025, the front wheel of my Unit X, pushed and I slid out at Brown's Ranch, on mile 38 of a 40 mile ride. Tired? Maybe, Caught daydreaming? Possibly. Not to big of a deal, yes the road rash would be annoying, but heal up with little impedance on my riding. But NO, the handlebar dug into the desert and drove my right elbow into my lower rib and cracked it. Plenty of pain and suffering, but it to was healing. A week of walks, and another of canal path rides and I was back on the mountain bike for some easy single track rides for a week, with the usual canal rides thrown in, before I got on the single speed again. I was lifting kegs at work again and I was soon back to my regular riding with little rib issues. Fast forward to the Thursday June 11th. I was trying to recover from arguably the hardest three days of riding, relative to my fitness and age(I am Old but pretty fit) I have ever had. Five days at elevation in Flagstaff Arizona. The bookends were easy ride, but the other three books were War and Peace, Dune and Of Mice and Men, were pretty tough group rides, two where single speed. I had an eye towards doing the AES Aspen Asphyxiation the next Saturday the 13th. I was so toasted, was taking it easy. I had been working on tight hip flexors with Planks and Glute bridges and needed to lighten that up switching to a few windmills, unweighted and kneeling lightly weighted and some light Yoga and some foam rolling. All very reasonable or so I thought. Almost as an afterthought I foam rolled my inner thighs and while doing this my ribcage was on the floor and as it rocked(normally), I felt a pop and the old adhesions that formed to protect the rib, back in November, opened up. It was a little sore, but my easy MTB ride on Friday in Flagstaff was fine and even during the grueling AES 28 mile 4000ft Aspen Asphyxiation, the rib only smarted a few times a big drop here and there. But I felt it in the rib the following Tuesday on steeps of Hawes, Alpe Duez. But you know just a little sore. Canal ride was fine and the usually brutal Arizona Single Speed Funday Sunday only made the rib smart a few times. But over this week the general level of soreness did increase. Sunday night into Monday it started to approach the pain back from November. So will I be Disciplined and stay off the trail for awhile and just do LSD on the canal paths or will I give in and hit the trails too soon?
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Friday, April 17, 2026
Pedal Speed, Crank Length, Cadence and Power
I did this way back in 2010 in 2010. I have yet to do the real world test maybe this is the year. Sorry some of the links no longer exist. The Word doc might take a few seconds to appear.
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Usery Mountains Tonto
After Last week,
I started with "Lone Mountain Loop South" section. That way if it was a bust I would just go fight the congestion at Hawes. It was steep at first and had some techy spots through out. Enough to peak my interest. Then I took that to the "Lone Mountain to Bush" trail. Which was sandy and in and out of a wash. The wash must have moved because the trail diverged significantly from the Trailforks map. I found following motorcycle tracks was the best bet. It is mostly a slight downhill, so that helped overcome the sand a bit. A fat bike would have been more at home here, I did struggle at times on my 3.0s. Oddly enough a decent single track opened up for the last mile or so to Bush Highway. I went West a bit to see if a the trail I was trying to ride, came out near the GPS track, the answer was maybe. But I had to save that for another, day as I was a long way from done. Partly because I wanted to try the "Salty Basin Loop", you know its cause it's black diamond. Yea right! For a gravel bike maybe. Sure there were a few steep rocky climbs and descents, but for the most part it was jeep trail. The South end even was graded, poorly! Probably with a front-loader bucket blade. And actual grader would would have been too long to navigate all the hills and dales and just the general non-straightness of it all. I found FS 10 AZT/Bypass more technical and challenging than Salty Basin. If I do it again I will probably skip the "Salty Basin Loop" or find my way along the nearby ridges. I did little of that at the start of the trail.
I found the North/South part of "Deer Tanks Loop (South) fun and challenging in either direction. Its a bit techy between wash canyon and FS 10. I was getting pretty gassed and I new I what I was in for on the "Gold Link Trail" so I popped off the trail to navigate a maze of a neighborhood. And made my way to Usery park and filled my bottles at the horse trailer trailhead. I was happy to be on the flats of Blevins, Chain Fruit and Talon, but I knew Talon turned upwards and I was ever so glad to take Talon back to my trail head. Even the DH with flat turns was fun, Yes George, after 27 miles many of sand I was never happier to be going down Talon form Pass Mountain intersection.
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