Crusty Cassette

I Should have listend to my mother. I f I had, though, I wouldn't have been dragging a fully loaded trailer over 18% ascents through thick gravel, descending corduroy roads trailer bouncing behind through gelological time, or changing my soaking clothes in a filthy men's room in Beatty, Nevada while I shivered and the urinals overflowed.

"Don't talk to bad men." I should have listened.

Doug tells me I must unveil the tale one day at a time so I'll begin with the cast of characters today. Look for more pictures and adventures to come.

Cast of Characters

Doug

Doug seems like a pretty sane guy. He likes to take it slow down hill--sees no point in risking injury. I like that.

Still he does have that questionable tendency to just take off on a trip which got me into that Weiser River trip lsst fall. When his mind is set, he's gone. Several times he'd finished dinner and just left. He'd get up some mornings before dawn and just go for long walks in the moonlight.

Suspicious behavior for sure. And then there's the story of Doug's Waitress. I'll save that for later. For now, I should note, I should have recognized the bad man in Doug much earlier.

Jen and Scott at Rhyolite

Scott is Doug's friend and former boss from work. They've had 14 years to develop their bizarre relationship. Scott has joined us for rides a couple of times being laid back, never pushing the pace. Who knew he liked to hurt himself? He's run ultra marathons and while they might be in his past, his fundamental masochism showed up on this trip. His dérailleur became fouled so that he couldn't use the smallest front chain ring--granny. He made the toughest climb up Towne Pass in his middle chain ring.

In camp he decided to fix the problem which he did revealing that he not only had carried two large cameras and a lot of water but also a well-stocked set of bike tools meant for the bench.

Scott pulled two links from his chain earning him a front granny but losing the two largest gears in back. So did he use that granny gear to climb from Stove Pipe Wells to Beatty on the last day? "No. Where's the fun in that?" He might just as well have said, "Hurt me again."

Jen is Scott's fiance. She and Scott are both trained adventure cycling leaders. She also helped organize the Idaho Bicycle Ride last year. She has, however, never pulled a trailer before. She probably outweighed her bike and loaded trailer, but not by much.

Doug claims he heard her complain a time or two on the big pushes and in the cold, but I never did. And she took more than her fair share of pulls. If she's marrying Scott, she's likely a very dangerous woman.

Steve on his Gunner

Steve quit his job to ride across America a couple of seasons ago. What else do I need to say to show you how dangerous he is? Well, maybe that his training plan for this ride was a century ridden after having recovered from breaking the L1 and L2 vertebrae. He figures the best way to get back into cycling shape is to do his first ever fully-loaded mountain bike tour. He even bought new front rack and panniers for this trip. Definitely not safe and sound of body and mind.

That's me, the novice tourist on the right

Corrie has studiously avoided buying any bike that could reasonably be used on a tour. Some how I fell into this bad company. I don't like to drive farther than than the distance I'm going to bike, so what was I doing 900 miles from home with a freshly purchased Burley Nomad hitched to my mountain bike?

Critical mass. With McCracken and Goodenough lobbying for tours and actually doing them and my having no good excuses, I gave in to their blandishments.

I should have listened to my mother.

Scott had to impune Doug's manhood to get him to come out on the wet pavement, but the Death Valley Team minus Steve made the Lapwai Loop Saturday morning despite wet pavement, east winds, and Scott's insistence that we ride it reversed.

Scott and Jen live in the Orchards near where Cliff used to lilve. They had already ridden down Tammany and didn't want to ride back. I was just glad anyone had shown up at all.

Doug and Scott have mapped out a four day self-supported tour in Death Valley and I have joined in. They report about 176 miles of cycling on mountain bikes with trailers, panniers, the whole disaster. Now they have begun to mention four mile high passes. Since I hadn't done anlything ride longer than 35 miles, I really wanted to push myself a bit. They must have felt the same for there was nothing inviting about the morning's dark aspect.

I'm riding with a gps these days and I like knowing the grade and seeing total elevation afterwards. The backside of Web Ridge turns out to be 9% at its worst. Too bad that comes after a couple of miles of 3, 4, and 5% riding.

Just to top off the day, Doug and I had a head wind down Tammany. Doug kept saying he didn't mind 'cause it was downhill. I hate having to pedal downhill. Didn't Sean tell me this Pilot would pedal itself?

For the ride of it. --Corrie

Touring, touring. I've fallen in with bad company. After having resisted blandishments from Sean and Steve to outfit myself as a tourist--you know the drill: panniers, racks, trailers, gear to weight you down and prevent that feeling of regained youth and mobility a good road bike delivers.

After resisting such blandishments I find myself actually considering a tour in Death Valley of all places. Last year it was McCracken who kept getting me in trouble. This year it looks to be Doug. He's got his friend Scott and his fiance, Jen, as well as Steve all lined up to drive to Death Valley in the middle of February.

So I'm looking at trailers-Burley, BOB, Extraheel and studying weather and road maps for places as welcome sounding as Furnace Creek and Funeral Mountains. The ground temperature at Furnace Creek was 206 degrees once when the air was a cool 128 degrees. Okay so the forecast is for more than average rainfaill--over 2 inches when the average is 1.6 per year and February is the rainiest month of the year with an average of .35 hundreths of an inch.

But Funeral Mountains?

What am I thinking?