In the bag. An excellent adventure in every respect. Below one can see the upper end of the loop, with the out and back summit trip. I got 6500′ of climbing from the coffee shop to the parking lot.

Us singlespeeders with less than 2:1 gearing got dropped on the pavement right away, so I stuck with my trademark slow start, ticking through the outstanding AZT. Faint and gravely, but not too faint, just enough to get you looking around without actually stopping. Sharp turns going up and down, but nothing that couldn’t be ridden (descending).

The gasline (starting around mile 10, above) was surprisingly SSable. Lee and I yoyo’d and chatted through Bloodsucker and the miles after, until things generally turned upward around mile 25 and I launched away. More awesome wilderness singletrack, and then the peak itself.

Topofusion replay is fantastic. Tells me the grade hiking up the final hundred yards actually was 50%+. 12 minutes up, a few hanging on top, 8 back down, and away.

Being halfway done is good. Having only fast dirt roads left is also good. Cruising at 13 mph is good, spinning out at 18 bad. Being only halfway done….. that’s just ok. Music helped, so did the minor headwind that brought my gearing a bit further back into the reasonable zone.

I plugged along, minded and found the Junebug turnoff. Then life got exciting. Going south to north (mostly downhill) on that trail on a rigid SS is just too much fun. You could do that all day. The geared pre-riders slogging along in the opposite direction looked pretty confused.

Anything after that was pretty easy, especially the washboard and gently climbing rollers. I saw Patrick in the distance towards the end, and it was on. I couldn’t imagine it was anyone who wasn’t racing, and I only hoped there was enough road left to catch them. I did catch him, but it turned out he was in the midst of a mechanical-filled day, and had turned back early and rode the end backwards. It was a pyhrric victory with a little last push in the legs.

Max had been back for almost an hour. Camp chair, beer. Sports action as folks roll in, then killer pizza in Orcale (of all places).

What more?

A fully stocked cupboard.