I spend a lot of time during the winter months doing my best Edward Abbey impression. That is, I write a lot here about my affection for Utah's canyon country. And while I truly do love the deserts of the Southwest, the Rocky Mountains are where I call home.

Right above me, in the mountains shadowing my front porch are some of the greatest trails I have ever ridden. And within those trails, only needing the slight prod of being strewn together is an epic one (two, three?) day route that will rival anything the canyon country so readily offers up.

I have mentally mapped out several variations of a "trans-Wasatch", something I am now calling the Wasatch Classic. It will be a point to point route, some 100ish miles, to start with, with the option in the future to expand. After all, the Wasatch Front is humongous, and the trails and fire roads literally spaghetti across the mountains in every direction imaginable.

Over the next days and weeks and months I will put tread to trail, some that I am familiar with, others that will be terra incognita (there's more Abbey for ya...) as I map out a route across the rocky slopes that rise up from the floor of the Great Basin.

At some point, on a certain day and time, anyone willing, will be invited to line up and TT the newly minted route. Free of charge, and unsupported of course.

Monday was the 2nd Annual Stan Crane Memorial Race. I never knew Stan, but I was honored to race in his memory with so many people who did know him. The turnout was huge, one of the biggest of the season. I lined up with 20 or so other singlespeeders, and off we went.

I can feel the viking in me emerging more and more, especially when I compete on the Ramble Tamble. There is a lot more grunting, oomphing, toungue wagging, and mashing. Spinning? Whats that?

The course was good for the SS. Long sustained climbs, followed by white knuckle descents. By the time I rolled across the line my hands had nice blisters torn across the palms. Hmm. I love my R1 grips, but for rigid singlespeeding I am not sure they are the right choice. I think I need to look into these.

The field was supa fast. Kenny, Brad, John, and a host of others turned out to mash the pedals. I felt spanky, and the legs responded to my viking outbursts, and still I only managed a 9th place finish. My time was pretty competitive though, and for the number of SS legends that lined it up, I can't be to disappointed.

I got to meet a lot of new folks, put faces to some local bloggers, and spend the rest of the afternoon BBQing in Karl's backyard with several Mad Doggers.

All in all a good holiday.

The Hopi have a legend about how they came to live in this world, the fourth world, as they called it. There are many variations to this story, but they all agree on certain points. The world in which they lived was corrupt, depraved, and evil. It was an unhappy life, so they sought higher ground.

Eventually the search led to this world, and through the climbing of tall trees, they climbed out from the underworld and emerged, into this the fourth world.

The ancient pueblo dwellers used the Sipapu, a whole at the bottom of a Kiva to remind them of their emergence into this world. The Kiva was a place of ceremony, a temple, a reminder of the evil they escaped in the underworld.

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One of the problems with being out on a long, slow bike ride, is that the mind starts to work overtime. It has to, to keep an acceptable level of sanity. As I turned the pedals in the late hours on Saturday I found my mind wandering across the wide mesa I had just climbed, down the banks of the Colorado, and across the desert I had left behind. My mind was everywhere, and nowhere.

Now, days later I am starting to make sense of the day's odyssey. Every race serves a purpose. Every race becomes a rite of passage into something new, someplace yet traveled. It might be that the road is through dark cavernous holes you never realized existed in your being, it might be through the sharp pain of speed. Maybe it is both, simultaneously.

But regardless of the outcome, the process itself becomes a threshold, an obstacle. How we overcome (or not) largely determines what type of threshold guardian the race becomes. It is a delicate balance between it being a helpful guide and friend, or rearing its ugly head as a nemesis and enemy.

Saturday was a day of emergence. Into a new world? Perhaps not. But certainly into a new way of thinking. Or at least, a different way...

The beauty of riding the Kokopelli Trail in the direction that we did, is that it offers a very unique opportunity to ascend. All routes have climbs. Some longer and more difficult. But few as symbolic. I wrote earlier about these climbs being bridges, and indeed they were on race day. They bridged an old world with a new.

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The complex emotions of that day have dwindled away. And emerging above the fray is the joy of simply riding. I am already aching to compete again. I love the adrenalin of racing, and the delusional stupor that inevitably overcomes my psyche, convincing myself that I can hang...but that is all based on a foundation of just simply riding.

What will the next long day bring? It's impossible to say right now. But no doubt, it will bring new stories, new emotions, and new thresholds crossed. Perhaps, even, it will bring a new world. Or at least a new way of seeing the one we live in now.

Vote for Team Shannifer to go to the TransAlp Ultimate XC Challenge
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I am not sure what I am doing in the above photo. Apparently wrestling with something on the bike...I remember Pete snapping it though. I had just finished filtering some water, and as you can see, Marko was getting ready to do the same.

Yesterday I had more to say about the KTR. Today...not so much. I think I just want to put the weekend to bed, and not dwell on it too much. I finished the race, in spite of myself. I would have quit had there been a convenient way to do it. But since there was not, finishing seemed like the best alternative.

By far the best thing coming from the weekend is the number of finishers. A record number of riders completed the route. Some fast, some not. But everyone crossed boundaries that they had previously not approached. That's the beauty of the ride, the reason we do it at all. Call it a race, call it a ride, call it whatever you want. Make us pay a fine, or make us get a permit...none of that matters. At all.

What matters is the individual accomplishment of pushing beyond the everyday acceptable level of normalcy and into a world that is only available to those willing to explore it. How could I expect a BLM agent, or a judge, or anyone else who had never been there, to know what the inside looks like?

The spirit of the KTR was sapped dry for me, before I ever turned the cranks over. But for many, if not all the others out there, it was alive and well. Kokopelli danced through the night, his faint flute leading the way through the desert, into the sun, and up the mountains.

I followed the tune as best I could, and just before sundown I finished the ride. 20 hours, 47 minutes after I began. I finished with 3 other good friends. Chance, and mutual bonkage brought us together, and an unspoken knowledge that any one of us on our own would probably end up a shivering mess along side the route kept us together. In fact I did end up a shivering lump, atop N. Beaver Mesa. I was ready to curl up in my space blanket and let the sun set. Dave, Derrick and Fred talked me out of the sand and back on the bike.

Alone, I may still be up there....

As I look forward, I get the feeling that it is time for a new obsession, a new event or race or route to occupy my thoughts. The Kokopelli Trail will wear my tire tread again, but perhaps not for some time.

In the end, people who came to ride the Kokopelli Trail got to do so. But it took a lot of discussion with the Powers That Be. I think they realized that I could easily call off the ride, (which I did) but despite that, nobody planned on simply going home.

I tried to get Mulder and Scully to meet us halfway. That was not an option for them. And can I be surprised? The Government is not known for thinking and observing in real time.

At midnight, those who hadn't already started their ride, rolled out on Mary's Loop. I was among them, and was glad to be done with the mess and out on my bike. I took a $275 punch to the mouth for "failing to obtain a permit", but mountain bikers being who they are quickly stepped up and I was assaulted with hands full of cash to help pay the fine. Thanks everyone, it means a lot!

I have quite a bit more to write about the adventure that was KTR 2007. Right now my hands hurt, my butt hurts, my legs feel like stone, and my mojo has gone seriously AWOL.

One thing that stands out over all the din of the Government nitpicking semantics, is the incredibly solid, standout people who do the things we love to do. It would have been very easy for someone at the trail head to lose their temper and send a large snowball rolling down a slippery slope. Instead people were quiet and logical, polite and intelligent. Thanks everyone for keeping your heads.

There is more to come about all of this, but before I get into it, let me apologize for the mojo sapping debacle of having to argue our way into being able to ride our bikes on public lands.

The KTR has taken on an interesting twist, or at least potentially has. Go here to read more about it. The prospect of BLM agents trying to pull people off the trail, or chase down someone is humorous, and I really don't think it will come to anything like that. But I can see them showing up to harass and discourage people, which makes no sense in my mind.

The danger is that anything that happens tonight could set a precedence for any future ride that fits in the KT category. The GL, the CT, the GD and more. What does the future hold for these rides? I think anyone who wants to set up a new route and/or participate in one of these rides will have to start being more subtle about the details.

I was going to write more about this, but I can feel my Kokopelli mojo seeping out of my brain right now. And frankly, I can't afford to lose any of that. I will need it tomorrow, while I struggle up North Beaver Mesa.

The KT has a few landmark bridges to cross. The first is Salt Creek. Last year it was a huge threshold getting over that one. It is small, and unremarkable, but in context of the race, it was a giant step toward finishing.

Another one is the Dewey Bridge. It stands as the half way mark, the entrance into the mountains, and in it's own way an obstacle to overcoming the race. It stands as an easy bail out point, a spot where friends can stand and wave, offer encouragement, and a ride into town...

The third bridge is not so obvious, but I look at the climbs in the second half of the race as bridges. Each climb leads to a new area of the course, they bridge the desert with tall mesas, or the mesas with the mountains. Eventually it leads you back into the desert, and to the finish.

So, with bridges in mind, here is the Kokopelli Trail image of the day:



I may have got schooled at 5 Mile Pass, but at least I looked good doing it :)

Have you ever started daydreaming on the bike, and suddenly you realize you are not paying attention, just in time to hit a loose rock and go over the bars?

Me neither. :)

Kokopelli Trail image of the day, brought to you by Ed.

Originally, I had posted only the above picture. But some good music and daydreaming led me back to the keyboard. With more thoughts.

It's no secret to those I ride regularly with that I love the Kokopelli Trail. I think my riding and training buddies grow tired of me beginning every other story with "On the KT...". But the truth is, that race changed the way I look at riding in general. It opened up new doors, new ideas, and totally redefined the way I look at challenges and obstacles. On and off the bike.

But it's not just the race that draws me back to that route. It's everything else about it as well. The scenery, the magnitude, the contrast of desert meeting mountain. I get a "tough guy" feeling when I read in trail guides that "generally the trail is toured in 4-6 days."

From beginning to end, the KT represents everything I love about endurance racing. And, it could be argued, represents everything I shy away from as well. There is better singletrack out there, maybe more exciting trails as well, but nothing else seems to have the mystique of the desert, combined with the daunting challenge of the mountains.

Next week the race will happen again. Only time will tell if the mojo from last year repeats itself. It probably won't, after all, a first time is an only time. But I am sure that whatever next week brings it will only add to the allure of that place.

I got worked. I pulled the plug a couple miles into my 4th lap. It started to unravel quickly, and I had no desire to get a ride off course from a 4 wheeler. Things went well, really, except that I could not get any liquid out of my pack. Any attempt to fix it resulted in failure, so I was relegated to the small freebie every 10 miles at the start/finish area. The lack of sufficient calories just took it's toll. The legs were feeling decent, but with the incoming bonk they were getting a bit shaky on that final lap.

I hate DNFing. Hate it. But it was the smart decision. I guess after a silly one (moving up, racing pro on the SS) I was due to use my head. I will race the SS again, but it will be in the SS class.

I did get a lot of work done though. 35 intense miles. That was what I was after. It's all with a bigger picture in mind, and today was training more than racing.

I think I knew I was in trouble when Kenny Jones looked at me before the race like I was crazy. I thought, "If Kenny thinks this is bad, it must be bad..." Kenny did the E100 on a SS, and finished in the top 10. I thought he was crazy for doing that!

I always knew the local Pro's were fast. But trying to chase them down was incredibly harder than I thought it would be. Those guys are the real deal, and it was fun trying to hold on as long as I could.

All in all it was a solid, hard, painful workout. I learned a lot, and next time I won't be quite as ambitious. But that still doesn't mean I won't get another delusional notion and line up the SS at a 12 hour sometime.

Maybe in June...

I am going to race in the Pro category at 5 Mile Pass tomorrow. 44 muddy miles. On the Singlespeed. My rational for moving up from Expert is simple. Longer races=more time chasing guys like Fox and Bart. All that adds up to being able to ride faster, longer.

At least it all adds up in my head that way. In reality I might just embarrass myself.

It's not going look like this tomorrow out there...

So, Old Man Winter must have read my blog, and decided to pull another trick out his bottomless bag. I truly am sorry I had the audacity to say that summer had arrived. The momentary lapse in common sense and long term memory is inexcusable. In reality, the trails needed a bit of moisture, especially out at 5 Mile Pass, where Saturday's XC race will be. But I could have done without the 40 degree drop in temperature.

After my ride the other day I saw this at a nearby car dealership. I don't think Sager has enough middle fingers to cover this atrocity. It's going to take a group effort to knock this one down.





24 Solo arrived in the mail today. Time to lounge on the couch and enjoy it!

I know I am jinxing it, but the weather the last few days has been to good to not get excited that maybe, just maybe, summer is here. Today was a huge step in that direction. We rode the trails up the South Fork of Provo Canyon today. It was a fleeting glimpse of the high country, but good quality Alpine singletrack nonetheless.


K.C. and Scott climb through the trees


Chris tops out high on the Great Western Trail, Cascade Saddle in the background


You can see why I love these trails


New Van Dessel gear arrived today