I feel like this time of year is a really exciting time on the bike. I know I’m a little behind the curve because of the winter, but I can feel the improvement every ride. I start to get my balance and rhythm back, my leg strength starts feeling good again, body parts stop aching after rides, and best of all, I get my ‘eat anything and everything in sight’ apetite back.

That’s really the best part. Trust me, I miss it.

Two times up elden this week, and a big ride (by sedona standards) yesterday. 26 miles and 4000 feet of climbing. Airport loop, up schnebly hill, down munds wagon, back halfway up schnebly to cow pies, down damnifiknow, the first part of jim thomson and back to the parking lot since I was running late.

I absolutely love the climb up schnebly. If you haven’t done it, you are missing out. One of the most enjoyable and most satisfying dirt road climbs around, that’s for sure.

I always enjoy the long grinding climbs on my singlespeed. It clears my head, it lets me get into a nice rhythm, and I can almost feel the muscles building from the winter of hiking and intermittent spinning.

As I was pounding out my rhythmic spin up the road, I started thinking back to when I first moved to flagstaff. Four years ago, I moved to flagstaff with the green fixie, the red trek 8900 (set up as a singlespeed) and my Tomac 98 special.

I could barely make it up shultz on that singlespeed when I moved here. I had to stop several times, and I certainly didn’t consider it a ‘warm-up’ like I usually do now. 4 months later, I did my first 100-miler, and I did it on that singlespeed. It was the Soul Ride, the last year it ran. It took me 13.5 hours, and I came in DFL.

How times have changed.

Well, maybe they haven’t changed that much, I still get a DFL every now and again, now I just know what I’m getting into.

Today I busted out 35 miles on the bike around the south side of elden and the AZ trail on the east side of town with Shawn and the Turbo AC.

I was feeling decent, kinda tired and slow, but not bad by any means. Adam was feeling pretty good until he broke what seems like his 8th set of Egg Beaters.

I want it be noted in the record that I have been expressing my concern for years about the quality of egg beaters pedals and their suitability for any sort of riding other than smooth pavement. He is going to be ordering a pair of ATACs as soon as QBP opens tomorrow morning, and it’s about time.

On second thought, ‘expressing my concern’ is the wrong way to put it. I think those pedals are horrible pieces of work. They are broken more often then they aren’t. Go ahead, let me know how wonderful you think they are, but the bottom line is that the first rock you hit with them, they’re toast. Crunch, crack, smash, pink, plunk.

Junk, I say, junk.

Anyways, enough tangential ranting for now. Back to the topic at hand: poor Shawn.

Adam and I knew what this ride entailed. Shawn was just the poor sap who got taken for the proverbial (and literal) ride. He was hurting pretty bad by the time we bailed to the road after about 25 miles of hittin it pretty hard. I have to hand it to him, though, the guy’s a trooper. This isn’t the first time he’s been thrust into the pain cave by various folks around town, and he keeps coming back for more.

Tonight I raise my recovery beer to long climbs and Shawn’s rock star glasses.

It’s a wheat beer, that’s good for recovery, right?