Enter Single Speed Arizona, a 40-mile death jaunt up and around Mt.Lemmon, just outside Tucson. Just getting off the plane and feeling the warm air was almost worth the plane ticket. Our friend Stephanie picked Chewey, Hurl and I up in Tempe and we biked around town with her. You don't realize how much you miss sitting on an outdoor patio and sipping a beer with shorts on until you haven't done it in five months. We had about nine toasts that night, all of them we yelled "6 below", referring to the temperature when we left Mpls. We slept outside that night, yum. We took Steph's truck to Tucson the next day and hooked up with the race promoter, Dejay, and more friends. We were surrounded by some of the best people in the bike world. So what did we do? We started the race prep with sponsored New Belgium beers. After dinner at a Mexican joint (there seemed to be no such thing as bad Mexican food down there, BTW) we rode back to Dejays and played until 4 am. It was looking grim for a strong ride from any of us the next day. With a 7am wake up, I stumbled to gather my things: "Bike, check. Helmet, check. Shoes, check. Brain, c'mon brain, where are you?" Not good.

The neutral rollout left the park around 9am along a couple miles on pavement to the start. Then it was a long 10-mile climb up a dirt road. But it was warm, sunny and a great way to burn off the fumes. I promptly found myself in the back telling myself that while going uphill is tough, at least it was safe. The fear of cacti and big rocks was on my mind, as the locals had told me horror stories about being attacked by killer jumping cacti. Somebody drove by and asked if I wanted a PBR, I almost puked. Then I got passed by two guys riding Xtracycles, one of them riding FIXED GEAR. No way! When I got to the top, somebody said I looked gray. "Great?", I asked. "No, gray" they replied. I laid down, grabbed a Pepsi and a honey bun. Then waited for Chewey, who'd just puked, and Hurl, who ironically hadn't puked. We were already in trouble and hadn't even hit singletrack yet. I took off on the singletrack after Chewey and almost immediately got jackhammered onto some rocks that had the texture of a belt sander. All I noticed was that my knee was bloody and my bike still worked. Crashing early was a good thing though, it woke me up and made me realize I needed to finish the ride. Chewey, Hurl and I rode most of the race together and the riding was incredible, as promised. We stopped about as often as a school bus. Whenever there was water or food, we loaded up. There was one last stop about 12 miles before the finish and at this point, we'd been riding for about 6 hours. Beef jerky, water, GU, whatever, everything except beer tasted good at this point. The 3 of us then rode off towards the finish with a fourth guy, Crazy Dave. I got my second puncture of the day, then bonked, then we got lost. All 4 of us were going off the beaten path a few miles before we smartly turned around to go back. We found some hikers with a map and eventually found the race course again. Three of us had already bonked and recovered, but now it was Hurl's turn to bonk, and it was not pretty. I was riding the best I'd ridden all day, and with nobody in front of me I was able to rip the 5-mile downhill and clean almost everything. Remember the video game Q-Bert? That's what it felt like to drop down rock after rock. The rigid Karate Monkey proved to be the perfect vehicle, again. I'd wait every few miles and take pictures. Then rip another few miles of DH. At the bottom, Crazy Dave opened a PBR and it tasted delicious. Quote of the day came from Hurl at this point "I'd murder for a Coke right now". We were officially off the trail and my hangover was gone. It was just two miles of road back to the park where we started 8 1/2 hours prior! There was still a crew of volunteers waiting for us, as we came in 1 1/2 hours after the previous slowpokes and 5 hours after the winner. Hurl earned official DFL (dead f'ing last) award because he bonked the worst of us four. I earned bloodiest rider for my early mishap with the rocks. I was never been happier to see stale pizza and warm Pepsi in my life.

After the race, I learned that the winner of the initial 10-mile dirt climb won $50 cash. But all in coins and he had to carry it or be disqualified. I love that.

Photos of SSAZ are posted here