Which doesn't quite add up to 8 days of warmth and sunshine surprisingly!
Day 1:
Travel
to Phoenix, pick up rental van, haul asses and bikes to Prescott.
Assemble bikes and take a spin around the Potato Patch, dodging
javalinas. It's a little chilly but I'm not at work. This makes me smile. Repeatedly.
Day 2:
Pre-ride some of the
Whiskey Offroad
course in relative warmth. Fight with shifting on my new Anthem, visit
the SRAM tent at the expo for some bike love, enjoy a pasta feast with
Dead Goats and friends at
Papa's Italian Restaurant. Yum!
Day 3:
Race day! Is that snow?! Is it pelting sideways? Yes. Yes, it is.
Dig deep ... you're here to race, it'll be fun, you'll get warm fast once you start.
Start time: 9:30 for us 25 Proof riders. The 50 Proof riders started at 7:30am. Well some of them did. Turns out lots looked out the window and went back to bed. Smart.
Off to the start area, Carthy suggests rubber gloves. Thanks to Garry I have two pairs in my bike bag. One for me, one for Gloria. Carthy packed dish washin' gloves. Liana and Henry do without.
We make a pact: We'll stick together, we'll ride the road portion. If it looks like hell once we hit the singletrack, we pack it in. No one wants to DNS.
Down the street from the start chute people silently pull bikes off vehicles, looking around to see if other people are doing the same. This is crazy, right? It's hard to say what crazy is. Let's do this.
Start time! Zip up what can be zipped, take a bracing breath, and head for the start line -- stop for a quick hover at the port-a-potties. Someone zips by on a bike, bent into the wind, blinking off slush pelting into his eyes, and shouts "Start is delayed!"
Back to the warmth of the van. Snow accumulates as the wipers slosh back and forth. F-Bombs are dropped. We don't quite believe this is happening. We're in Arizona! Whispers of doubt are let out into the space to mix with the blasting of the heater vents. Is this a good idea?
Start time! Out we go. Again. Hover quickly at the port-a-poties. Again. Flinch at the sting of the cold and the pelting snow. Rider buzz is heard ... start has been further delayed. 50 Proof riders are coming down off the mountain. They're soaked, blue and shivering. We hear stories of responders on the mountain hauling people into warm vehicles. We hear some of the Dead Goat riders up there have sent word to their girlfriends not to start the 25.
I text Sarah, who'd planned to race the 50: Let me know when you're safely off the course! Right away she replies she's back home and safe. She'd gotten hypothermic, bailed and turned back on her own. "It's nuts up there. Be careful!"
Texting Ramona and Anna ... both waffle for a bit. Our crew waffles. Lots of waffling.
Why aren't the organizers cancelling the race we wonder. Eventually we hear the start will go, but not til 12:00. Liana and Gloria throw in the towel and ask me to take them back up to the rental house. I do and come back down to hook up with Henry and Carthy. We track down some thawing Goats at the Longhorn (I think) and wait out the time before the next start time.
Noon approaches. Ramona's in. Anna's in. Liana has texted that she changed her mind and she's dragging Gloria back to the start line with her -- the hot tub repair guy will drive them. And so it happens. We all find ourselves at the start line, laughing ... at each other, at the absurdity of the day, at the ominous black clouds above us. At Carthy's dish gloves.
Organizers are trying to herd us to one side so 50 Proof riders can get through the finish as they return, covered in icy mud and water. Word spreads that the race has been shortened. We're to follow the 15 Proof signs from Friday night's race. They don't want us up higher where the 25 course usually veers off from the 15.
That lifted my spirits. 15 miles? Really... I asked Steve to give me that in kms cause I don't do math. I think he said 26kms. 26kms? I can do that in the cold! Hell, I have rubber gloves over my riding gloves and two pairs of socks on! I can last 26kms! This is Arizona!
Eventually the gun goes off ... it's 2 or 3 more minutes before we get the bikes rolling since we're near the back of the chute. I know how this start goes. Up up up on the pavement. At first we stick together. But we're picking off riders as we roll. Climb climb. This is going faster than I remember from last year in the heat.
Soon the group pact is done. Everyone is comfortable, the skies are not puking on us. Let's just go. Carthy sticks near me ... she's the bike fixin' brain and I'm the hands if hers freeze up. Henry and Liana are up ahead of us. Gloria's on our tails.
The bottlenecking was minimal this time. Fewer riders I'm guessing to be the cause. Carthy yells from the line "Put your GoPro away and walk it! Your Mom doesn't need to see you ride that!" when we see a guy up ahead leaving space so he can ride a section where things are stopped up. I like Racer Carthy.
Not much to report after that. We ride. We pass people on the fireroads, we pass people on the descents. I dropped a chain at one point and 4 guys got past me. But things felt good! The track was tacky. My toes and fingers were cold but nothing to give much thought to. I never saw Liana and Henry again. Liana finished a few minutes ahead of me. We all got our finisher pint glasses. The course wound up being just under 32kms in the end.
Looks like only 43 women (out of 512 total racers in the 25 Proof) finished. Not sure how many DNS'd or DNF'd. We were all in the top half of that. Yay Calgary women! Ramona even grabbed the podium with third place!
It was a crazy day but everyone closed the day feeling pretty satisfied. Race? Check! Nothin' left to do but ride for another 5 days ... hopefully in the sun!
I've been following Olympian and Canadian all around hero, Clara Hughes, on her Big Ride since it began in March. She's ridden through sleet, rain, snow, and heat to circle the country on her bike, raising awareness for mental health -- and working to create a stigma-free Canada. A true inspiration as a winter and summer Olympian, and most importantly, a champion of this cause.
