News flash: Ryan, Danny and I are not going to Sedona for the Big Friggin' Loop. We're not the only ones - Jeff Hemperly from Rico and T.R. from Montrose aren't going either, for the same reason. Said reason being thus: The Big Friggin' Loop has been considerably downgraded to a not-so-Big Friggin' Loop, and none of us feel that a 12-hour round trip by car is worth a 35-mile XC-type race. Apparently the organizers (used loosely as this event is technically a non-event) were attempting to appease common demand to rid the course of the dangerous Damifino section, as well as last year's ribs-deep river crossings - but in doing so, they cut the mileage and climbing almost in half, making the event much less interesting for endurance-event-oriented folks such as ourselves. Oh well, maybe next year, should they wrangle more miles out of Sedona's trails. New first race for 2011 (for me, anyway): The Dawn 'til Dusk 12-hour in Gallup, New Mexico, April 9th.
Last weekend Ryan, Jon and I had a pretty sweet time in Fruita. It was nice to be back on dirt after so much road riding, even if the dirt was soft and slow so early in the season... here are a few photos and one good story, with a video link to boot.
There's the river itself...
Three mountain bikes happy to finally see some dirt.
And one not-so-happy bike of a different species - look closely and you can see a motorcycle resting on the rock shelf just under the tree in the lower-right corner. Yes, there is a story here. Riding along the Western Rim trail, I was leading our group and noticed a dog tied up under a tree. Looking for people that the dog might belong to, I slowed down and we all began wondering out loud why someone would leave a dog tied up out in the desert. Then we heard a "Down here!", at which point we peered over the rim to find two men rappelling down the rim's edge on some very unorthodox nylon webbing. Looking closer, we spotted a motorcycle on a sloping ledge. Turns out that the day before, one of the men had hit a rock or something and accidentally driven his motorcycle off the cliff, jumping off just in time to avoid taking the 40-50 foot fall along with the bike. They had come back to lower the motorcycle the rest of the way down off the ledge and walk it out the valley floor to the nearest 4WD road, where they could pick it up with their Jeep. Best part: He was wearing a helmet cam during the whole crash, and you can check it out on YouTube here:
Enjoy. Be careful out there!
-Joey
