Skip to main content

Stage 0: The Drive

I had planned to leave the house at 11 to pick up my rental car in Denver but work had other plans with an unplanned outage on my groups most important application starting at 10.  I did end up getting out the door around 12:30 after resolving the issue. As we headed out the door and I test my GPS one more time I laughed when it said I was ~450 miles offroute and Erin pointed out that I'm only driving about half as far as I planned to ride.

Erin dropped me off at the rental car place in downtown Denver, it felt a bit funny to only have the clothes I plan to wear for the next week on. I stopped in Fruita to pick up a big pizza from Pablos as my last meal before exiting society for a few weeks on and off. My original plan was to catch a ride from a trail angel who posted on the race forum a few months earlier but that plan had fallen through earlier in the week.

Midnight at Page Airport


I arrived in Page around midnight, a few hours later than planned due to work.  I had some trouble finding the after hours key drop at the airport rental car spot, a quick call to enterprise helped me out. I didn't have to return the car until the following evening so I took a few minutes to be confident I was ready to set off. I was tempted to try my fate on Lyft to catch a ride to the start but decided from recent experience it would just be a waste so I started pedaling, deciding I was better off getting a chunk of the prologue done at night while there was no traffic.  I passed a gas station where I was tempted to try and catch a ride but skipped on the idea. I ended up making it to Big Water Utah and camped behind the visitor center.

Stats:
12 hours driving
1:45 riding 800' climbing
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stage 5: Leg Redemption

 I started the day out nice and cozy from sleeping in a hotel. I woke up early and decided to grab a quick breakfast from the Mexican  restaurant from the same plaza, it was freezing outside.  I was expecting breakfast burritos but was surprised by an all you can eat American breakfast buffet. I grabbed my bike, stopped by the general store to grab some sugary snacks and an packet of Ramen as I was low on food and wasn't sure if it was gonna be a one or two day journey to Flagstaff.  The trail to the lookout tower was in quite good condition. I was serenaded by the anthem of the Northern AZ woods: Chainsaws.  There was a crew of 6 lumberjacks cutting trees just off trail.  I ran into some hunters looking for elk just after and and let them know the elks probably don't like all the chainsaws going in the area. Warm Hotel in Tusayan Grandview Firetower At Grandview I had to go up the fire tower to get a look, I've never passed up a fire tower overlook.  I decided to keep a go
Post a Comment
Read more

Stage 8: Highline Trail

From General Springs I crossed the main forest road and got on what ended up being the rowdiest descent of the whole route. It was just straight down a steep loose telephone line access filled with rocks.  I rode most of it but did have to walk a few feet of the descent since I would pick up speed to fast on the loaded bike. The Highline Trail is the most dreaded section of the AZT. I was optimistic by heading South this wouldn't be the case. It turns out starting in 2022 this will no longer be the case.  A trail crew has made significant progress on cleaning up the trail.  While I still did get a preview of the the past torture fest only a few hills at the start will still so rocky they were not rideable.  The parts which have been reworked were rather soft and that made pedaling difficult but it will pack in. They basically ran a zamboni over the whole trail. I met the trail workers and thanked them for their work. I also ran in the ranger heading up the project and chatted with
Post a Comment
Read more