Coconino Stage Race 2013

[schillingsworth]

"Hey all-
I'll be starting from I-17 and Schnebly Hill Rd on Saturday morning.  Hoping to get done sometime Sunday evening.  Hope to see some of you out there.  Look for the guy riding the silver SS wearing a white helmet."

I think the lime green knee highs will be more noticeable!!

Looks like Carl F may have caught his error after reaching the paved Walnut Canyon Rd. At least he gets to do that fun downhill he climbed by Fisher Point!!

[JeffD]

Greetings from camp 1.  Here with Devon, Tim, and Caroline.  Colorado dudes dropped into Sedona for the night.  Horrendous mud all day.  Ride 50' and stop, clean.  Repeat 1000x.  A-DOT was a good place to clean up.  Climb up from 17 is now quite pleasant.  Didn't expect day 1 to be this tough but the mud really sapped your energy.  Looking forward to some drier dirt and fun trails tomorrow!

[ScottM]

Thanks for the report, Jeff.  Way to persevere through the mud.  Clear skies and dry trails ahead!

[raybum]

Damn, hopefully 2 days of sun is going to dry that stuff a bit!

[ScottM]

Well, today our Coco riders should find much better conditions.  Lime Kiln should be packed in well, and mud concerns a thing of the past.

Carl is going for the lost rider award.  He missed the Hot Loop turn and kept dropping to Sedona.  D'oh!

Ray is up and running for his ITT thru-ride, going for the singlespeed record (just set by Kurt's student).

[raybum]

Here at hog wild... Damn lime kiln had some epic wheel grabbing sand... And more goatherds than should be on this planet... Wow.  Ready to assault Mingus....or get assaulted!

[JeffD]

Just rolled into Hog Wild.  Sedona was PERFECT, Lime Kiln was mostly OK but quite a few sections of bad sand as Ray said.  I defintely prefer sand to mud!  After the burger I need some chain lube (went through all I brought from the mud mess) and water/food before Minging it up.  Hoping I can be at camp before sunset, or shortly after.  Wondering if it's worth schlepping a beer up from Cottonwood?

[yz129]

first I am not riding the coco 250,i was in Sedona wed,thurs,friday, as I drove towards 89a I saw a couple of you riders and wanted to stop and say good luck,but thought I shouldn't bother you as I don't know any of you..
on Wednesday we rode gooseberry mesa in Utah and ran into 2 riders on a 4day b/p ride said they were from san Francisco.
one of them said the raced the azt750 this year.sorry didn't catch a name.
anyways wanted to say good luck to all and hope the mud/snow in flag isn't too bad for ya. I am riding the azt from fr418 into flag in the morning maybe we will see some of you!!!!!

sorry for highjacking this thread

[krefs]

Go Ray go! He's put up a fast time so far. If he's indeed going for the SS record, I think Bobby Treadwell's time last weekend was 36:07 (based on his GPX file).

Here are Bobby's splits, adjusted for an I-17 start (rather than the Williams start):

Cottonwood: 8:32 (Ray was ~8:20)
Perkinsville: 16:22 (Ray should have been ~15:15 I think)
Williams: 21:44
Flagstaff: 30:30
I-17: 36:07

So Ray is on a solid pace! But those are Bobby's splits from mid-way through his ride, and Bobby rode in the dark what Ray just had daylight for. I think Ray is going to have keep his foot on the gas all night long! I'm sure glad I'm not out there right now 

[ScottM]

Thanks for the splits, Kurt.  Will be interesting to see where he is in the morning.  Going to be a cold night once he gets up higher.

yz129 - sounds like you ran into Triple Crowner Forest Baker in UT.

[yz129]

scott,you are probably right,he was with a guy on a skinny tyred drop bar bike w/paniers, said it was day #4 st George and back to st George.

just looked him up,scott you are correct it was forest baker

[redrockgirl]

ahhh, thinkin about you guys out there!! embrace it!!!

[raybum]

Funny how things can go from so good to so bad quickly.  6pm as I made my way to the left turn to bomb down to the verde, my stomach revolted.  I laid down, slept a bit and still got no better.  Legs were feeling strong but couldn't eat much. 
So, it's not happening this year for me sorry to say.

[ScottM]

Sorry to hear Ray -- you were moving well.  I can definitely empathize with a non-functional stomach.  Turns out it's really hard to pedal hard and set records without a stomach.

Good work giving it a go.

Looks like Carl and Gerry are back in Flag, scratching. 

JeffD and BB are looking good in the stage race, with BB having started a day late and skipping stage stop one, catching up to everyone at stage two - around midnight.

Rhino and Judd are ITT touring a Coco-ish ride.  They wisely hit Jerome for food and adult beverages.

Yogi Barry started at I-17, left the beer, and is still going, albeit not for an official finish.  He texted that he skipped Bill Williams Mtn yesterday.  I'm sure it'll still be a heck of a loop for him by the time he finishes.

Tim and Mark are heading south on the Flagstone route, pushing new ground!

[cforsand]

Carl F. Here in flag. I have definitely scratched.  FRIDAY I took a horribly wrong turn which cost me a lot of miles and about four. Hours of lost time. I recovered and made it just short of munds where I camped for the note. I was up musing early Saturday and rode straight thru Schnebly road never seeing the stage one stop. Then made it to lime kiln by about 6:00 pm. The first section of that trail in murder and not meant for bikes. It was dark now and y main lupine headlight failed so I was mushiking that in near total darkness. Where I hit the first hwy crossing I bailed and rode the approximately 14 miles into cottonwood by pavement. Adding insult I got miles first and only flat on the hey which I had to repair in the dark. Cottonwood. Was totally sold out of hotel rooms and I did not have the energy to ride 4 more miles to get to dead horse around 11:00pm. Me exhaustion took over and I arranged a tactics back to flag and the only hotel I could find. All said I had a great time although riding solo. Best wishes goal all who ate still out there doing it.

[rhino]

Rhino and Judd - Back of the Pack Racing
We started out with a very intentional modified Coco Loop. We choose the Casner route to Sedona to avoid mud, still pushed muddy unrollable bikes for 2 miles.

We detoured from Mingus to Jerome on a hand drawn track Ray gave me. It was the highlife of the trip. The trail to Jerome was amazing! Thx Ray.

Tropical Rhino was tired of waking up with ice on the bivy and bag we detoured back to Flag via Pine2Mine route (I think).

Thx Scott for adding our beer fueled route to the tracker for our families.

Ray- we waited for you north and west of river with a blazing fire...but never saw you descend.

[aaron w]

Oh boy, my coco ended with me in the ER in Cottonwood.  I'm back home in Salida now feeling pretty bummed and my body is in bad shape.  Everything was going great until I went over the bars on the downhill just after the lime kiln hike.  I got quite a bit of loft during my flight and slammed into the ground with the side of my chest.  Knocked the wind out of me but everything seemed OK and I kept riding.  Pain increased gradually over the next couple hours.  At first I felt like I was just going to be "feeling it" for a couple days but soon pain was the only thing I could think about and my vision started going a bit.  I stopped to go through a gate with John, Reilly, and Caroline.  I told them I was hurting and to not be worried if I dropped back.  Within a short time after they dropped me things went from bad to worse.  I found myself wimpering out loud from going over small bumps in the trail.  Then I started getting nausious.  Luckily my buddy Zach pulled up ( I thought he was ahead).  I told him what was going on and he asked to see my ribs.  As I lifted my shirt we both heard a loud snap.  Now I was getting scared and really hurting.  We bailed down the dirt road and then pavement into cottonwood and went to the urgent care clinic.  After a couple xrays they said they were calling an ambulance and I needed to get to the ER as it looked as though there was fluid in my lung.  Having just rode my self to the clinic there was no way I was getting in an ambulance so I began to walk across the highway to the ER.  That walk was longer than I thought and I got a bit panicked.  By the time I got into the ER I was shaking like a leaf.  Well it seems as though no ribs are broken but I've badly damaged a lot of cartilage and connecting tissue.  No fluid in my lung thank goodness.  The doc said maybe some bleeding in the chest cavity around the lung.  My chest is clicking and popping which is a horrible and painfull feeling.  I can't breath right, can't sniffle, am scared to cough etc.  Damn!

Well despite this I had some good fun.  Day 1 was a mess in many ways but I still had a good time.  Got to camp 1 too early to stop and my buddies and I wanted burgers and beer in sedona.  The highlight of day 1 for me was decending the singletrack into sedona in the setting sun and twilight.  We had a great meal and then resupplied for the next day at circle K.  We camped just after we got on the singletrack after circle K.

Day 2 we were riding at 6:30.  Totally awesome trail, perfectly tacky.  Just after crossing under the highway on templeton trail I snapped a saddle rail.  Luckily I was able to quickly get to absolute in oak creek.  Rode some new to me singletrack from oak creek back to where I broke the saddle.  Right after I rejoined the trail with my buddies Caroline caught us and we all rode loosly together to cottonwood.  Caroline it was great seeing you and getting to chat.  Highlight for day 2?  As we all were riding into Roxburough SP we came to a wooden pedestrian bridge.  There was a wedding party preparing to cross the bridge.  The bride, all the bridesmaids, groomsmen, etc were all there.  They saw us comming and kind of parted the sea to let us through.  We all rode across the bridge each giving the bride a high 5!  If she only knew how nasty my cycling gloves are!

Well you know the rest of the story.  I'm pretty sad right now because the coconino was only the beginning of a big bike tour I've been planning.  I had 3 more weeks set aside after the coco for the flagsone route and more.  Now I can't even think about riding.  

A shout out to Jeff whom I crossed paths with a few times.  Very nice to meet you Jeff.  Also a big shout out to Tim who has helped me so much the past few weeks with local knowledge and gpx tracks for my big tour.  I'll be back to ride that stuff soon!  Hope your tour is going great.  Can't wait to hear about it.  

[ScottM]

Oh, Aaron, that is terrible to read about.  Really sorry about the crash and that it took you out of both the Coco and especially the rest of your grand plans.  Glad you are OK and that some friends were around, too.

Eszter and I were climbing up the road to little rainbow this afternoon wondering where your house was.  Little did we know you were actually back in town. 

Heal up and maybe see you down in AZ for some winter touring?

[cforsand]

Can you share a gpx of the track to Jerome? I drove thru there on my trip into flag. Stopped and had a ghost Burger. A very interesting spot perched precariously on the side of h mountain! Can you also give more details of your rte back to flag. How long/difficult was that ride?

[rhino]

@cforsand
Give me a few days to get my stuff together, haven't even unpacked the car and swamped with work.
Trail to Jerome is amazing. Not currently passable by car due to huge massive boulder blocking road.  The views on the descent to Jerome were the best of the entire trip in my opinion. There is a crystal clear spring that trickles right across the road.

The route from the Verde back to Flag follows the Pines to the Mines race/ride (I think, not sure), but in reverse.  I will have to look at the GPS numbers, but there was some climbing.  Almost seemed like more climbing than taking the official route north to 40, but GPX will verify this.  The route goes into Sycamore Canyon area, once you have ridden that section twice...you probably will start to look for a re-route in the future.  There was not much reliable (obvious) water from the Verde back to Flag.  We mistaking thought the river in Sycamore Canyon would be running because it was raging last time we rode through.  Well it was almost bone dry and we had to filter some pretty manky looking water as emergency water.