Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans...  Right after posting this I received a message from my sister that my uncle had died.  Apparently this happened a few days ago but nobody told me.  Looks like I'll be going to a funeral in Phoenix on Friday.  After not sleeping much last night I decided to change my ride plan by driving to Flagstaff and starting there. Hopefully I can make it home by Thursday night.  I'm not sure of the mileage but it might be a couple of big days with me getting a late start today. Maybe I'll finish the loop Sat. and Sunday or just call it good enough and get a ride to Flag and retrieve my truck.

Tomorrow morning (8/6) I'm going to leave my house in Chino Valley, AZ and hopefully return in 4-5 days after riding something like 270 miles. I've been dying to take one more trip before I return to work next Monday and since I live about 15-20 miles off of the Coconino 250 route I thought it would be cool to just leave from the house.  The plan is to follow the route as closely as I feel like and as far as I can. I say this because #1 it is summer in AZ and it might just be too damn hot and #2 I haven't done a ride longer than about 25 miles in several months so I have no idea how my various old body parts will respond. Because I'm unsure about how everything will work out I'm carrying too much food and water but better safe (and slower) than sorry I suppose. 

I have been wanting to ride the Colorado Trail for the last two summers but haven't been able to make it happen so this will have to do. In a way this is a shakedown run for riding the Colorado Trail next summer except instead of battling altitude and cold I'll be dealing with heat, rattle snakes and being poor condition. I'm serious about the snakes.  I almost stepped on one tonight just outside my door. 

If you want to follow my progress I'll have my Spot tracker on. Hopefully I won't be calling my wife to come pick me up or end up as a mummy in the desert! Here's the link for the Spot page.

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0ngL8nxNWg1SGuV3atqWvtk3sXKy7hLm8

I'm bringing a camera but I'm not too good about taking photos so we'll see if I have anything to post afterwards.

Chris

 

It looks like other obligations have successfully eaten into my time so that a full CT isn't going to happen. Now I'm planning to do a loop from Durango to Lake City and back.  It seems like that would cover some of the most scenic sections of the CT and end before the first long road bypass around La Garita Wilderness.  I'm still looking for shuttle options to reduce my road riding.  I'm thinking of parking in Silverton and riding over Cinnamon Pass to Lake City then up the highway to Slumgullion and get on the CT at Spring Cr. Pass then taking the CT route back to Durango.  This would allow me to do a self resupply in Silverton if needed.

Is there a cheap shuttle from Durango to Molas or Silverton to save me riding the highway back?  Is there a good place in Silverton to park my truck while I'm gone?  I could just park in Durango and ride/shuttle from there or even start the CT from there to Lake City and ride the roads back.  I guess an ONB on the CT could work too but I might run out of time.

Any suggestions of the best route or other logistical advice?  Thanks

I'm glad my essay helped.  I had to make the mindset shift myself but I figured it out pretty quickly by doing a bunch of research here and talking to experts on bikepacking and endurance racing.  One thing you may discover is that bikepacking pace is really enjoyable.  It is really hard for me to imagine XC racing being fun anymore.

Also, I used to think the same thing about walking being defeat until I did some races where just about everybody walks some sections.  There's no shame in walking (up or down) if it will eventually help you finish hours later and in one piece.

One more thing.  I tend to look at ride difficulty by average elevation gain per mile.  It is pretty crude but it gives you an idea of what you are up against.  100'/mile is, at least where I live, an average mtb ride.  10 miles=1000' of elevation gain. Usually this means lots of small hills but nothing brutal. Just fun riding. 150' per mile is going to be a really good workout.  200' per mile is going to crush me if it is a long ride.  300'/mile means I'm going to be doing a lot of HAB!  Now look at the profile of trails like the CT and you will see some sections that climb 2000'-4000' in 4 miles or something crazy like that.  It doesn't mean it is unrideable but you can count on that upping the overall average feet/mile to make a tough ride.  I think the Colorado trail averages something like 120-150 feet per mile which doesn't sound too awful but some days are going to be much more so you are going to be moving much slower.

A lot of these guys have more experience than me but I'll give my two cents. 

Yes, bikepacking rides are hard. They are especially hard if you are approaching them with an XC mindset which it sounds like you are doing. 

50 miles in 5 hours with bikepacking gear is too fast unless you are doing it on the road.  It is really tough to average more than 7mph bikepacking on singletrack.  At least for an all day ride.  I generally figure I'm doing pretty well if I can average 5mph give or take for 10 hours.  If it is a hard trail like AZT and/or I'm riding for 12+ hours 4mph is probably more realistic.  Sometimes you just have to stop and eat and rest a little so your average speed will go down.  For me, the longer the ride the more stopped time there is going to be.  The only way I can usually pick up my average speed is by stopping less, not riding faster.  If I need to go 100 miles in a day then I'm just going to have to ride for 15-20 hours. Riding faster for 10 hours is not going to end well for me.  With this philosophy I've had pretty good luck finishing long rides/races with very little experience or training.  I'm in no danger of winning but finishing is pretty cool. But that's just me. 

This is me. I'm 52 years old and only really started riding frequently a few years ago.  I've done a couple of seasons of XC racing in cat 3 50+ then cat 2 50+ where I finished both seasons on the podium.  I started doing a few AZ Endurance series races three years ago.  These typically last (for me) 6-8 hrs.  I did my first solo 24 hour race at the OP this year and did 13 laps for something like 210 miles. This was much more than I imagined I could ever do.

I am certainly not bragging here because these accomplishments are nothing compared to what most folks here can pull off.  I only list them to make this point.  I'm old, I'm addicted to Dr. Pepper and Doritos and I don't train, I just ride.  I ride hard when the race or ride is short and I ride slow when it is longer.  If I'm bikepacking I try not to even sweat! I never wear a heart rate monitor and have only done intervals about three times in my life.  The only numbers I keep track of are miles ridden, hours per ride and vertical gain per ride which sometimes I just guesstimate.  I have never ridden more than 1800 miles in a year.  I did my 200+ mile 24 hour race having ridden only about 250 miles in the previous 2 months.  The secret for that was knowing myself, picking a lap time that seemed ridiculously slow and sticking to it. On every lap I ate and drank on a schedule and stuck to it also.  It can be really tough to force yourself to go so slow but it pays off in the end.  There is a bunch of physiology behind it that is worth learning but ultimately you have to listen to and learn from YOUR body to figure out what you can do.

Having said all that, if you want to really be competitive then you will probably want to do more structured training and I think Lynda is probably your best bet for training plans.  My wife used one of her XC race plans this year and really loved it and had great results and there are lots of testimonials on this forum about how well her endurance plans work.   

Sometimes I think people think training plans are like magic pills though.  I think they will work but they can also drive you into a hole. Sometimes you just need to forget all those numbers and learn to listen to your own body and learn from all of the experienced folks here.  Krefs (look him up) told me once, "You'd be surprised how far you can go if you just keep eating and drinking."  That was at the beginning of my first ever bikepacking trip and I did 100 miles that day.  I had never even done 100 miles on an unloaded bike before. It was so nice to ride along with him for the first 30-40 miles and see how a "pro" does it.  He can just noodle along and talk and eat and sometimes take photos and sit on a log to eat real food yet still seems to be able to knock out big miles and long hours day after day.  I just did what he did and it worked. Of course his recent AZT 300 record probably looked a little different but his average speed was still only 6.7mph.  He just never slept for 45 hours.  But think of that.  One of the fastest ultra racers set an amazing record and his average speed was less than 7mph.  That ought to give you some perspective on the kind of average speed you should expect from yourself.

Another great pearl of wisdom I figured out early on was for long races/rides never redline yourself. That's using fuel you will be needing later.  Again there's some physiology/biochemistry stuff that explains this but really all you need to know is that you have to go slower than you CAN for a given section of trail. If the trail gets steep but you will really have to hammer to make it, walk.  If you could ride it on your big chainring if you push it, shift to your little chainring and spin up it.  It can be hard to get over the feeling of strong legs.  When my legs feel good I want to just hammer along because it just feels so good but for all day rides it just comes back to bite me in the end.

Like I said I'm no expert and I'm kind of new at this but by being disciplined about eating, drinking and SLOW pacing I have found I can ride all day without any serious training.  If I can do it you can do it.

Couloirman, Thanks for the offer and info.  I'm still on the fence about leaving for various reasons which is why I don't really want to commit to sharing a ride with somebody.  As I said in my first post I'm actually trying NOT to go but sometimes inspiration takes over my better judgement. The chance of me going is falling now because of other commitments and the cost of driving up (why I only wanted to drive as far as Durango) but I figured I'd ask the question in case I did make it happen.  I've always wondered if hitchhiking with a bike would be easier than without.  I hoped somebody here might have tried it.  I've had mixed luck hitchhiking on foot in the past but If I saw some guy riding down the highway on a loaded bike and hitchhiking I'd definitely stop to help him out.  But that's just me.  I trust people on bikes.

Mountainjah,  I hear what you are saying and believe me 2015 is on my mind but I have learned that sometimes you just have to go for it when you are inspired and the time is available.  I know I should have done it last year because I was so fit coming off a good XC race season and two other bikepacking trips but I let better judgement get in the way.  I put the R in CTR in () for a reason.  I'm not in stellar shape and to be honest would rather ride mostly in the daytime to see the sights but I would still be riding hard to do it in a respectable time.  I'm not totally out of shape but I have a pretty strict no training policy though.  I find training takes the fun out of riding.   I've done a 3 day bikepacking trip already this summer and just spent 10 days riding in Salida and Durango.  I look at the CT as a big adventure.  I've done things of similar scale before just not on a bike.  I've learned that barring injury I can generally grind my way through just about anything.  I have all of the CTF books maps and believe me have done lots of research on the route etc.  It is all that research that inspires me to want to go.  The thought of waiting another year is killing me.

What Josiah said.  Thanks Toby and Stefan.

I am really trying NOT to head up to CO to do the CT in the next few days but I might, in a moment of weakness, find myself driving up.  Let me explain... I came within inches of doing the CTR last summer but I had a hard date that I HAD to be back in AZ and didn't know if I'd make it.  It would have really sucked to DNF a day short of the finish for something like that and I didn't want the added pressure.  I have not stopped regretting that decision, nor have my wife and kids stopped reminding me that I should have done it.  This year I'm in nowhere near as good of shape and am just getting over a lingering case of Achilles tendonitis but I am dying to have a big adventure to finish off my summer.  (College Prof. returning to work Aug. 11 so I can't do the CTR proper start on Aug. 10) I really have two problems, not in great shape and no shuttle.  I've thought about trying to share/swap rides with somebody else but what if one of us bails or we are very different speeds?  I figured I could start in Durango and ride to Denver then rent a car and drive back but that would be fairly expensive (third problem-I'm broke)  I'm wondering what are the chances of hitch hiking back?  Picture me riding down 285 with a cardboard sign on my back with a giant thumb on it.  Anybody ever done that?  If I had the time I'd just ride back.  Any other ideas? 

It sounds like just being worn down and having some sort of imbalance or deficiency as the others have suggested. There's a kind of PTSD thing that can happen too.  Sometimes it just seems like the "real world" is so _________. Fill in the blank, boring, hectic, meaningless, complicated,...  Also you may be suffering from endorphin withdrawals after a long hard ride.

Sometimes (like right now) I am unmotivated and kind of depressed because I don't have any big goal in my near future.  I know after my first solo 24 hour race I had the exact opposite symptoms though.  I was so stoked that I had done so well that I was on a high for at least a month which was good because I couldn't ride due to tendonitis, but I didn't really care.

I don't disagree but I have also noticed how much easier it is to ride my bike at 4mph than to push it at 2mph.

In my shopping for a new bike I'm wondering if a 1X11 setup is that great for bikepacking.  By my calculations the 30X42 lowest gear is 7% bigger than the 24X36 I have (and use) on my current rig.  A 28 up front will get the low gear the same but the high gear will then be almost 20% smaller.  I'm planning to use the bike on things like the CT and AZT.  Seems like a 2X10 with a 22/36 or 24/38 up front might be much more enjoyable.  Anybody have some experience making the switch to a 1X set up for bikepacking?

I rode the AZT south from Flag to the Mogollon Rim (rd 300) in two days last summer with my 15 year old daughter.  It is close to 100 miles.  You could road ride back or just hitch a ride on the highway.  Alternatively, leave your vehicle in Flag and hitch a shuttle south and ride N-S.

I'm looking to buy a new more all around trail bike than my current Giant Anthem 29er. I'm pretty sold on the 2014 Salsa Horsethief but I'm wondering how it would fare as a bike packing rig?  I asked Kurt R. about it and he said it was fine but he's a little on the superhuman side of life.

I have a Karate Monkey for the more road oriented stuff but I'm not too sure I want to ride it on trails like the AZT or CT.  I rode the KM rigid last summer for a 2 day Kaibab 150 trip and found it fine for the first day that was mostly on roads but the second day of 50 miles on the AZT beat me up a bit.  I rode it again with a suspension fork for 100 miles of AZT south of Flagstaff and still felt beat up.  Maybe I'm just a wimp.  No matter, I will probably be getting a Horsethief anyway but I'm just wondering if anybody has been using one for bikepacking and how it has worked out.  I hope to use it on the CT(R?) and AZT sometime soon.   Thanks.

So glad to see Caroline moving along.  I was just talking about her today and said, "She just doesn't have any quit in her."  Tough tough person.  Go girl.

I'm guessing Aaron's Spot quit?

If my addition is right when I add Kurt's moving time and stopped time he finished in 44:44.  That's a nice number.

It's easy to say from here/now but I really wish I could be there.  Maybe next year.

There are some real battles going on out there.  Both mental and on the trail.  Pretty awesome to see this unfolding.  I'm really hoping to see Kurt beat 48 hours.  He told me some time ago that it had to be done.  I'm also rooting for Caroline on her 750.  She is so tough.  I'm hoping she and the other 750 folks don't have to detour around the fire.  I was rock climbing on the
Peaks in Flag yesterday and saw that fire when it just started and guessed it was by Fisher Pt.  The first thing I thought was what bad timing it was for the racers.  This morning there was very little smoke so I'm hoping they have it contained. 

Good luck to all the racers but be safe and smart in the heat.

Sweet! Thanks.

Hey Adam,  I just finished reading it and loved it!  I just wish it were longer so I could keep reading and share more of your experiences.  I want to do it even more now.  Mostly because I want to experience the pleasure of coming across Apple and the bar.  That must have been like dying and going to heaven.  Being an AZ desert rat I hate being cold and wet so those passages make me shiver.

Great work on the writing and even more so on your race!  See you next year?