We’re moving

In the next few days, I hope to move this blog to its own hosted website. I’m in the process of that right now. So if you experience problems during this time period, check back a day later, and hopefully every thing will be in place. I’ve never moved a blog before, so it’s an unknown. The URL will stay the same, at www.veloasana.com

I’m doing this move so that I can provide better features, especially when it comes to showing route maps and profiles. In the future, I hope to make these dynamic, and allow you to zoom in on the courses. This is not possible while hosted at wordpress.com, as they don’t allow the necessary scripting in the pages. But by self hosting I can do all the scripting I want. It will still be a “wordpress” blog, in that I’ll be using the wordpress software, just on my own site.

Usery Pass

From the north Usery Pass is 3.5 miles long, with approximately 660 feet of climbing.

After viewing statistics for my blog, I’ve noticed many readers are searching for information on Usery Pass, probably due to the upcoming Tour de Mesa, which includes this pass as part of its route. I just realized I’ve never put up a post for Usery Pass in my Mountain Poses section. Well, I’ve remedied that. Click here for more information.

Riders in the Bry

Riders in the Bry. There are many. Some real, some imagined.

There’s Mr. Alpine Dreamer: Hill-climber extraordinaire, ready to leap tall mountains in a single pedal stroke. Spirit’s in the high places. Known to stay in mountain pose all day long.

There’s Mr. Pack Man: Social, against his nature. Goes with the flow, at one with the herd. Never misses a call-out for the pothole, the road glitter, the car back.

There’s Mr. Lurker: Hangs in the back. Doesn’t say much, kind of quiet and shy. Usually has a fiddle tune or two in his head.

There’s Mr. Free Spirit: Rides as free as the wind blowing down the road. The lucky one.

There’s Mr. Locomotive Breath: Over his head, determined to hang with the group no matter what. Rarely succeeds, keeps trying.

There’s Mr. Navigator: Knows the routes, all of them, even ones he’s never ridden before.

There’s Mr. Velo Asana: Cool, collected, in the moment. Lives and breathes the cycling pose. Never falters, never fails. Hills, flats, curves, straights, they’re all the same to Mr. Velo Asana. Loves being “out there,” endurance his calling card.

There’s Lt. Solo: Rides epic rides, the whole day, all by his lonesome, through city, farm, coast, desert. Perfectly at ease with his puppy mind.

And then there’s Mr. Weak and Slow: Sometimes seen riding an old mountain bike. A heavy old mountain bike. Rides at 4 mph, in granny low. Even on a lighter road bike, Mr. Weak and Slow’s nature holds firm. Somehow manages to make it to the top anyway, to go the distance.

Lately, it’s Mr. Weak and Slow that’s in charge. Eight months and a mere 180 miles will do that to a person.

Musings from the desert

I’ve started a website for my new business: Desert Skies Publishing. The site is still under construction, so don’t expect too much. Along with the new website, I’ve started another blog, Musings from the Desert. This blog is in support of the new venture, as well as my first novel, just published:

I note this not only in support of my new site and book, but because the first posting on the new blog relates to yoga: Write it down dog. And the book, while not relating directly to cycling, has a main character that I call “The Dark-Haired White Mountain Bike Woman.”

See, I just had to get cycling in there somehow!

Be sure to check it out!

Back in the saddle again

Whoopie ti yi yo
Pedaling to and fro
Back in the saddle again

Whoopie ti yi yay
I’m on my way
Back in the saddle again

~~~

After riding 41 miles yesterday, I guess it’s safe to say I’m back in the saddle.

I’ve been slowly ramping up the miles. During the month of February, I’ve done rides of 1 mile, 4 miles, 10 miles, 21 miles, 30 miles, and 41 miles. These have gone from being very scary to almost normal.

I will say I’ve lost a ton of speed. My cardio-vasky has a long way to go. I was gassed at the end of the 20/30 mile rides, but a bit better on the 40 miler yesterday. I climbed Mohave last week (a piddly little climb, but with some 6% grade) and it felt like a big mountain. Climbed Desert Cove yesterday, (not quite as piddly, but still a mild climb) out Via Linda way, and I’m noticing the improvement.

It felt weird, riding my old training routes. I haven’t seen these roads in quite some time.

I doubt, though, that I could ride South Mountain. I don’t think I could make it to the top right now. And I’d be scared to death zooming back down.

And we’ll have fun, fun, fun

Yesterday’s ride was the first time I’ve had fun riding since coming back. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever enjoy riding again. It’s funny, I’d been so eager to start cycling, wistfully watching groups ride by when out walking the dogster, but then when I did start, it was like … meh! But yesterday, it was definitely enjoyable. It was fun seeing numerous riding acquaintances from various cycling groups – people I haven’t seen in a long time.

The Woolies

Can’t say enough about using a (merino) wool base layer this time of year. It’s absolutely the perfect material. It keeps you warm, yet it doesn’t hold moisture, so you don’t get the evaporative cooling effect that makes you feel cold after you take your jacket off – but you also don’t overheat, even after the temps warm up later in the morning.

I wish I’d known about this years ago – I learned this trick from the double century riders. So much for the fancy-dancy modern materials.

Riding probably short-lived

Shoulder is ever so slowly improving, though it’s likely I’ll have another surgery this month, which means being off the bike again – right when the weather will be at it’s finest here in Phoenix. Hopefully, (hey all you grammarians, I don’t care if using hopefully in this manner is grammatically incorrect … tough doodoo), having the surgery will be a short-term setback with long-term gains.

Hmm… maybe I should put off the surgery until summer, when it gets a wee bit hot here in the Phoenix valley.

On the yoga front

I can almost do plank pose. I’m so close. All those iso-strength exercises in therapy are paying off. Downward dog is still a ways off though. It’s frustrating not being able to do many of the poses I used to do. Power class is out of the question right now. It’s shocking how limited my range of motion is. I don’t notice that much anymore, for normal, everyday activities. But it’s the attempts at yoga that are convincing me maybe surgery would be worthwhile.

Dreams of the Alpine

Yours truly in 2005, 2/3rds the way up Grand Mesa, near Grand Junction, Colorado, on the 2005 Ride the Rockies tour. If you look closely, you can see the road we cycled up way down below. This is a tough climb. And it was hot that day – 95 degrees on top, and in the 100s after we rode back down the other side.

Went on another bike ride today, my second of the year, and second in the last six months, a whole four miles – 1/50th of a double century. Woohoo!

I discovered that I could even ride out of the saddle, and it really wasn’t any more difficult than being seated. Not that I’d want to do it very long. Overall, four miles was enough for the day. But the good news is that being on the bike didn’t feel as scary as last time. I’m still awfully cautious, though.

No doubt about it, I’m making progress.

It can’t come soon enough. The weather here in Phoenix is starting to warm up — I think it was near 80 yesterday. And that makes me want to get out and ride. I’m starting to feel even more wistful about seeing groups of cyclists ride by.

What dreams may come

Lately, I’ve been having dreams about cycling, dreams of riding in the mountains. That’s where my spirit wants to be.

One of my dreams was confused, though. In the dream I was running, and I ran 66 miles! I was supposed to be on a metric century run (62 miles), but I sorta went past the 62nd loop (apparently the track I was running on — was it a race? — was one mile long) and I did an extra four laps for the hell of it. It felt effortless.

I hope this dream was really about upcoming cycling adventures – and there is some precedent for that. I’ve been known to have dreams about running that turn out to be about cycling. A particular dream from the past comes to mind. A long time ago, back in my early 30’s, I had a dream about running up mountains, racing, I guess — and besting all my peers. Yessiree, I was an athlete. Woohoo!

It was later, once I started cycling and found myself gravitating towards hill climbing and riding in the mountains, that I realized the dream was really about cycling, and that I could ride just as strong as anyone else. Not that I was besting my peers, per se, but at least staying with them.

As the above picture shows, I’m not exactly built to be a hill-climber, and now, after being off the bike for six months, my “little ol’ belly” ain’t so little any more. But with any luck, I can make that belly shrink as the miles accumulate. Here’s hoping!

It’s yoga time!

Oh, and in other news, I went to my first yoga class in six months. I can’t do many of the poses very well, and discovered that it’s the little things that will get ya – I found it hard to push up off the floor while seated, in order to sit on two blankets folded up for height. I had to stand up first, before I could sit back down on the blankets.

But I was there, in class. So woohoo again!

Not ready for prime time

I just looked at my last few blog posts and realized it’s been a month since I made the pronouncement I was about ready to ride again.

Somehow, life has gotten in the way. Four  weeks later, I still haven’t even tried riding on the indoor trainer.

Well, this afternoon, I decided to do just that. And I quickly realized that my shoulder isn’t ready. Much to my suprise, it didn’t feel so hot on the trainer – there’s an uncomfortable pressure, and my shoulder feels a bit blocked up.

Then I had the idea it might be worth trying to ride out on the road. I had a suspicion things might feel better under actual riding conditions.

I went out for a one mile ride.

Woohoo! One mile! 1/200th of a double century!

And it was true, my shoulder did feel better under actual riding conditions – as long as I was coasting. But for whatever reason, pedaling constantly is not pain free. Not that it’s bad, but I can’t see riding more than a couple of miles.

That’s not the only problem. After not having ridden for almost six months – SIX MONTHS – it felt very strange being on the bike. Riding the first block was nerve racking. My bike felt “squirmy” (some of this was due to a slightly low front tire), and I felt out of balance. On top of that, I had very real fears of falling over and landing on my shoulder. And that would not be a good thing!

So, my hopes of possibly riding to AJ’s tomorrow (a twenty mile round-trip) to see my Los Freeloader friends have been dashed.

I’m just not ready for prime time.

Tour de Hero 2012

My wife and I volunteered for this charity metric century event last weekend, sponsored by United Blood Services. Many of the volunteers were from the Los Freeloaders cycling group that I often ride with on Saturday mornings, especially on those mornings when all I want is a nice, casual, friendly ride – and you won’t find a much friendlier group than these people.

I was going to put a map of this ride (which winds through Tempe and Paradise Valley) on this post, but alas, I wasn’t able to do the ride this year, so maybe when I find some spare time, I’ll go out and drive the course with my bike GPS and record the route, and update this post.

My wife and I took our camera with us when we were out on course, guiding the riders at two of the critical turning points along the way. But we were too busy being guides to get the camera out and take pictures. Oh well.

Instead, here’s a picture stolen from the Los Freeloaders website, taken during the annual “awards” dinner put on by this group, last October (November?):

These red and white jerseys (which many of us got for free, so we can advertise United Blood Services – we are freeloaders after all), are often seen on Saturday mornings at one of northeast Scottsdale’s most popular cycling watering holes: AJ’s at the corner of Mountain View and Via Linda, conveniently located along the popular Via Linda route. Other cycling groups frequent the AJ’s watering hole as well, most notably the Wheezers and Geezers. They often chide our red and white jerseys, calling us the “blood suckers.”

It’s all in good fun, especially since I sometimes ride with the Wheezers and Geezers as well.

Is a bike ride in the offing?

Got on my bike today!

Well, I sat on my bike anyway. I didn’t actually clip in and go for a ride or anything. But I can tell that day is coming, soon. I can reach the handlebars with only a bit of soreness.

A few months ago, when I started driving again, I came to the realization that the best test for determining whether I was ready for riding my bike was how well I could steer a car with my right hand. If I couldn’t steer a car without pain, then there was little reason to attempt steering a bicycle.

Lately, I’ve been able to drive almost comfortably, without pain, and can steer with my right arm only, if I want to – that is, as long as it’s not right after my physical therapy sessions. Then, my shoulder is too trashed to do much of anything for a few hours.

So, this morning, I went out to the garage and pumped up the tires on my bike. Turns out, I can easily pump them to 100 psi, and then it gets a bit dicey. My shoulder is not quite ready for the forces needed to pump a tire to 120 psi.

Even so, I climbed into the saddle and experimented with turning the handle bars back and forth. It’s not too bad. I dare say, that yes, a bike ride is soon to be in the offing.

Yay!

I was almost tempted to go out for a ride, to ride down to AJ’s (a twenty mile round trip) and see all my cycling friends. But sanity prevailed. Maybe I’ll get on the indoor trainer first, and then see how it feels next weekend.

Now this is hard core

Seen recently on a foggy, snowy, rainy evening as the skies darkened north of Waterloo, Ontario:

Two Mennonites riding their bicycles down a snow-packed highway, in traffic, legs-a-pumping, lights-a-flashing.

Too bad I couldn’t get my camera out in time to get a picture as we drove past …

Shifting Gears

Sung to the tune of Jingle Bells
Parody lyrics by Bryan Flamig

Riding up the trail
On a heavy mountain bike
Over the hills we go
Slower than we would like

Rusted gears and chains
Giving us a fright
Oh what fun it is to ride
This mountain top at night

Shifting gears, shifting gears
Shifting gears? No way!
Oh what fun it is to ride
In granny low all day

Single file, single file
Please keep to the right
Oh what fun it is to ride
This mountain top at night

Merry Christmas to all and have a wonderful holiday!

The long haul

Well, this shoulder therapy gig is the pits. I keep waiting to “turn the corner” and climb the ideal healing ramp with its ever increasing slope — you know, where the healing process speeds up faster and faster.

But it hasn’t worked out that way. Instead of rising up an ever-increasing slope, the progress has been more like a linear road – like riding the flatlands of western Kansas. Yeah, as you head west you are gaining altitude, on average, but you’d never know it!

Though I do exercises on my shoulder every day, and go to therapy three times a week, my progress can be measured in tiny increments. Maybe I can stretch a millimeter further every day. Maybe.

One of the exercises they have me do is rotating a big exercise ball (the kind you are supposed to sit and roll around on) with my arm. I’ve been doing this exercise since the first part of September, and only now can I do it without any pain. I guess that’s progress. I guess I should count that blessing.

These days, my “favorite exercise” is hanging from a bar on the lat strength machine. I don’t actually pull down the bar, I just hang from it, stretching my arms. I put “favorite exercise” in quotes because it hurts like the dickens, but it’s proving to be the one exercise that seems to be yielding the most benefits. When I first started doing it, about two weeks ago, it felt like I was being crucified. Now, it’s not so bad, at least until about the fifth rep of 20 seconds. It’s a big ouch after that.

In other more positive  news: I can do the table-top yoga pose now, including cat-cows. Yeah, I know, it’s not much, but at least it’s not impossible any more. And I can do the beginnings of child’s pose, and I do a modified version of downward facing dog, except instead of starting out in the horizontal plank position, I start out vertically and lean over a counter top and stretch my arms out. I call these stretches “counter dogs.” Yeah, that’s right, I’m coining that term, right here and now. Ha!

Anyway, I’m resigned to this long haul. And it might get longer. My surgeon is talking a possible ‘nuther surgery. I’m keeping my shoulders crossed (yeah, a joke) that this won’t happen. I can’t imagine going through another surgery recovery.

Today I saw the Bullshifter’s Thursday morning group ride by as I was out walking the dog. They are gearing up for many long distance rides coming up, including a 300K later this month. I could only look on wistfully as they whizzed past. But not to worry. I’m okay with it.

Beginner’s luck

I have numerous friends who are participating in the annual El Tour de Tucson this weekend. Good luck to all! May you always have the wind at your back. May you zoom down Tangerine Rd at 40 mph. May you finish in Platinum. May you not run into a big pile of gravel. Ha!

Here’s an approximate map of the course:

The El Tour de Tucson route, 2007 edition, about 3,000 feet of climbing. The route changes a bit every year, so don’t take this as gospel. This year, in 2011, it’s a full two miles longer, coming at 111 miles. Gee, maybe they should have held this ride last week on 11/11/11. Ha!

So anyway, what does this have to do with beginner’s luck?

Well, I’ve done the Tour de Tucson a few times, and the first time I did it, back in 2005, was also the year I had my fastest finishing time – a not fabulous but respectable 5:45:28. Try as I might, I’ve never bested that achievement.

That year, after zooming down the hill on Tangerine Rd, I had a “saddle bag incident.” The zipper on my saddle bag broke as I was cruising along in a very fast pace line. Someone was gracious enough to mention that the bag was open, and my car keys were about to spill out. So I had to stop and leave that fast pace line behind, wistfully. I spent the next fifteen minutes trying to fix said saddle bag, before taking it off and stuffing the whole thing into a jersey pocket. In retrospect, I should have not fussed with it at all and took it off right at the beginning!

So I lost fifteen minutes, which means I could have easily finished at a 5:30 pace. I figured, back then, that I’d be able to best a 5:30 time the next time around, and maybe even come in around 5:15, or if I played my cards right, under 5:00, for platinum. And it was true, after that first time, I got a lot stronger, or so I believed.

Alas, the next year, while I was doing a much better time halfway through, I had a flat – right while drafting behind a fast-moving tandem. Stopping to fix that flat cost me oodles of time, and I never recovered psychologically from that. I came in over ten minutes later, at 5:57.

The year after that, I cramped up big time just before the descent down Tangerine Rd. I wasn’t able to stay in any pace-lines, even going down hill, so I lost a lot of time, and finished in 5:46 or there abouts, 30 seconds slower than my best time.

What’s up with the beginner’s luck?

Achieving my best the first time around is a pattern I’ve had during my life in many other endeavors:

The first time I ever went bowling, my first throw was a strike. After that I mostly threw gutter balls.

My first 10K run was my fastest 10K. Okay, so I’ve only done two 10k’s – but I was full ten minutes slower the second time, though I’d done a lot more training and thought I was in better shape. This discouraged me from ever trying again.

My first organized double century, Solvang 2008, was the fastest double I’ve ever done, finishing at just over 13 hours. I’ve never come close to this again, even though in later rides I had the advantage of drafting behind others.

Finally, the first time I ever entered a scholastic contest – a regional test on general high school science when I was a freshman – I won a gold medal. But I never came anywhere close to that in subsequent years.

So what’s up with the beginner’s luck?

I don’t know, but maybe I’ll have a reverse case of it the next time I encounter a big pile of gravel. Ha!

I think I can’t

Many routes look harder than they really are. Driving up (or down) a mountain pass in your car, you might think there is no way you could ever ride that course on your bike. But you know what? I’ll bet you could. I’ll bet anyone in decent shape could. And by decent, I really mean average. If you ride regularly, no matter your rank in the pack, you can do pretty much any route – as long as you think you can.

Back in 2005, when I was just getting back into cycling, I did the Ride the Rockies week-long tour through Colorado, going over numerous mountain passes. On the way back to Phoenix afterwards, I happened to drive a significant chunk of the route. On one stretch of highway, the road went down, down, down, for twenty, thirty miles. From the perspective of the Jeep, it looked like a very hard ride to do on a bike, going the other way.

Yet I had done just that a few days before. And I didn’t remember it being all that difficult. More importantly, I didn’t remember ever thinking that I couldn’t do it. It was a given that I could.

One day I tried to get a few friends to climb Scottsdale Mountain in northeast Scottsdale. One rider in particular wasn’t all that strong, but I knew she could make it to the top if she’d just try. She’d done the companion climb, Hidden Hills, many times. While Scottsdale Mountain is harder, it’s not that much harder.

But my friend didn’t think she could do Scottsdale Mountain, and I had trouble getting her to try. So I applied a bit of reverse psychology. The idea was to make the climb optional. I told her we’d do Hidden Hills first, and then afterwards, start up Scottsdale Mountain. I told her that at any point, if she wanted to turn around, we would. We started up Scottsdale Mountain, and I made it a point to keep her engaged in conversation – to keep her mind off the fact she was climbing this supposedly tough hill. We rode slowly, spinning in our granny gears. Next thing you know, we were at the top. She was shocked that she actually made it.

Now she insists on doing this climb every time we ride this way.

Some of my cycling friends seem in awe when they hear of me doing double century rides, or rides like the Triple Bypass. They shouldn’t be in awe. They could do these same rides too. But when I say to them, in all sincerity, that if I can do these rides, then they can too — they never believe me.

All rides, when it comes down to it, involve putting one pedal in front of the other, over and over. That’s all there is to it. Sure, it might take you a while to get up a seemingly impossible hill, or ride seemingly impossible miles. But unless we’re talking 20% grades, or doing 300 miles a day or something, most such challenges can be conquered by anyone who rides regularly, and puts in a little training. Even an average rider – like myself.

You don’t believe me, huh?

See what I mean?

Heart of Arizona

Heart of Arizona ride (Hey! It does look like a heart!) in the, er, … heart of Arizona, which starts in Congress, AZ, some 60 miles northwest of Phoenix. Put on by the Bullshifter’s Club of Phoenix, this ride features a combined century and double metric century route. Approximately 8,300 feet of climbing for the full route, perhaps 7,000 feet for century.

November 5, 2011

Every fall the Bullshifter’s club puts on a ride northwest of Phoenix that is one of the toughest organized century rides in the state. I’ve never done this ride – in the past I’ve always had a conflict on this weekend. Today I had no such conflict, but alas, due to injury, I still couldn’t ride the course.

So I decided to volunteer with sag and rest stop support, traveling around with Jim and Robin and helping out where I could at the first and fourth rest stops. I didn’t really do all that much – because Robin wouldn’t let me lift anything — after I had told her that I had learned the hard way to be wary of such activities due to my shoulder injury. I guess I should have just kept my mouth shut before-hand (Just kidding!)

This is the first time I’ve ever volunteered at a cycling event, and it was interesting getting a different perspective. My main observation: It’s amazing how fast cyclists can do 100 miles. Even though I’ve ridden many, many centuries myself, I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated the speed we humans can go under our own power, nor have I fully appreciated the efficiency of the lowly bicycle.  Driving the route in Jim’s truck, it seemed we never had much time to dally between stops. Once we were stopped, it wouldn’t take long before the first cyclists would come rolling in.

This year’s event didn’t have a big attendance (50 riders). A weather front moved in the day before, with rain and a big drop in temperatures. It had even snowed the night before on Yarnell Pass and the mountains north towards Prescott. It was rather chilly in the morning, and the skies did not look promising. I know if I had signed up to do the ride and had seen the forecast and poked my head out the door in the morning, I probably would have went back to bed. As it was, I sauntered out at 4:00 am, and made the drive to Jim and Robin’s so I could hitch a ride with them for the day.

For those riders that did make the effort to come out, it turned into a nice day for a bike ride, if a bit chilly.

Here are a few photos I took throughout the day. Many were shot from the back seat of Jim’s moving truck, out the front window. And those that weren’t shot that way – I had trouble holding the camera and snapping the shutter. It’s difficult for me to raise the camera to eye level right now. Oh well…

Early morning scene on Hwy 93, about 10 miles into the ride. We were worried about possible rain, maybe even snow, but the skies never closed in any further than this, and the day would be pleasant, if a bit chilly.

The iffy weather made for great photos. This stretch of road isn’t usually quite so scenic, but the clouds and early morning light made it so.

Scene just across the road from the first rest stop, near the Santa Maria River, 29 miles in.

First rider of the day parks his bike at the first rest stop.

Second rider of the day.

Third rider of the day. Too bad I don’t remember any of these guys names.

My friends Court and Scott from the Phoenix Metro Bicycle Club. At the start line earlier that morning, I was telling somebody that I fully expected my friends to wimp out and not show up for the ride – only to have them come up to me immediately after I had spoken. Ha!

The first rest stop gets busy for a while. The first 29 miles featured a lot of downhill, so none of the riders seemed all that desperate for food and water.

A group leaves the first rest stop. Another five miles or so, and the climbing fun begins.

Riders tackle the first hill, on Hwy 97, on the way towards Bagdad, AZ.

While the first 34 miles are on busy US 93, the road to the second rest stop features wide open desert with little traffic, basically in the middle of nowhere.

Brian and April come in to the second rest stop, 54 miles in, at the junction to Bagdad. Only the double metric century riders would continue on and climb the hill to Bagdad.

Looking west from the second rest stop.

This stretch of road features many rollers, with the elevation trending ever upward. The elevation at this point is 3,400 feet. The high point for the day would be in Wilhoit, at 5,000 feet, 97 miles in. Yarnell Pass is almost this high as well.

Riders heading south and east, on the way to the big climb of the day  — a ten mile slog topping out near the “town” of Hillside. Apparently, this climb seems to go on forever for the cyclists. Hmmm, it didn’t seem so bad in the truck. Ha!

Is that … snow? Yesirree! It got a bit chilly the night before, with elevations above 4,000 feet seeing early season snow. Looking east, about 75 miles in.

First rider into Rest Stop #4, near Kirkland Junction, 91 miles in. This rider was one of a handful that did the full 124 miles. Most opted to do the 104 mile route.

Looking northeast from Rest Stop #4, towards the town of Wilhoit, about fifteen miles southwest of Prescott, AZ.

A mail box right next to Rest Stop #4. Say, our we in the Solvang area or something? Ha!

These riders don’t seem to have any sense of urgency to finish. Well, why continue on, when there is tasty tomato basil soup to partake of – that Robin must have spent hours and hours making the day before, slaving away at her stove. She even went so far as to seal her homemade concoction in cans, with labels to boot. Looked store-bought. The wonder of it! (Ha ha!)

One thing Robin did actually make were hot potato snacks, which were quite popular.

More riders coming in. By now (roughly 3:30 – 4 pm), the day is starting to turn chilly.

The owner of these sandals rode with said sandals the entire 104 miles – and no, these aren’t the kind of sandals with pedal clips. No sirree. Said owner had forgotten his bike shoes, and had to settle for riding in these, without clipping in. How he managed to finish a tough century this way, I have no idea. Simply amazing!

Looking down Yarnell Pass, with Congress, AZ in the distance – the finish. Many said that this stretch of road was down right cold! I know the riders we passed in the truck looked like frozen popsicles, hunkered over their handlebars.

Riders partake of the post-ride hamburgers.

Update: Make of those hamburgers lamented that I forgot to mention the fabulous ‘shrooms and onions toppings. Sorry about that!

Whew!

Even though I did absolutely no riding, and really, didn’t do all that much during the day except keep others company and take photos, I was tired by the time we made it back to Phoenix. And I was sore the next day too. Geez, have I lost fitness or what!