I went down to sedona today with the intention of riding a little bit of the SBFL course that I hadn’t been on before. Out of the 50-some miles of singletrack that are on the course, the only thing I hadn’t ridden yet was “Damn if I Know”, so today was the day.

I’ve tried to find it before, but somehow the directions I’ve gotten in the past just didn’t quite work (or I got distracted too easily, which is also a distinct possibility).

So, armed with the GPS track, I headed down for a couple hours on the bike in the red rocks. I ended up riding the first 14 miles of the course in right around 2 hours. I cruised the airport loop, headed down brewer’s, up schnebly and mund’s wagon and the picked my way down “damn if I know”.

I’m really glad I took the time to find that trail today, because there was a good 15 minutes wasted looking for the trail, even WITH the GPS to help me out. There are a couple sections of wandering across slickrock with no cairns to help you out, so I’m glad I got it out of the way today.

I think I made decent time, and I have a hunch that those first trails are the slower ones of the course, so I’m feeling pretty good about tomorrow. The legs felt good, a little tired tonight, but I don’t think I went too hard today so I should be recovered.

In addition to the legs feeling good, I totally shredded the airport loop which was a big confidence booster as well. After I hit the end of the runway on the southwest corner of the mesa (which is about the top of the major climbing), I only had one dab from there down to the road at the bottom of brewers. I think that’s a new PR for me.

I’m really excited about the race tomorrow, because so much of it is singletrack. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good fire road as much as the next guy, but I feel like the singletrack levels the playing field a bit from gears to singlespeed, and really caters to the technical riders (which I like to consider myself).

And realistically, even if it all goes to crap tomorrow, there will be beer waiting at Oak Creek Brewery after, and that will make it all better.