Lauren Cat West. |
Jarrod Bunk of Hope. |
Many a extralight Rene Herse tire succumbed on this section. |
Ron and his dream pool. |
This show is literally bonkers. |
Ronnie's Murder Barn |
Lauren Cat West. |
Jarrod Bunk of Hope. |
Many a extralight Rene Herse tire succumbed on this section. |
Ron and his dream pool. |
This show is literally bonkers. |
Ronnie's Murder Barn |
When I woke up one morning and saw that registration had opened for 2022, I sat down at my laptop and shrugged as I clicked to confirm my entry. Solo category. Hopefully I could make it. If not, then I'd be making a charitable contribution to what I hoped was a new grassroots race amid an overblown circus of shit.
Was it? I'm undecided.
More on that later. photo: Thomas Adams |
The stretch between Natchez Trace and Little Rock doesn't hold much in the way of riding or detours. Not that I've discovered yet, anyway. Due north, you have Land Between the Lakes with the Canal Trail and miles of gravel roads, and while I had every intention of riding there on this trip, I was keeping it in my pocket for the return. I'm sure there are trails to ride around Memphis, but you don't hear much about them, do you? And I'd ridden in Little Rock once before and been both frustrated and desperately underwhelmed. I imagine there are some great gravel roads and routes to be found along the stretch, but that's a trickier animal, requiring more planning and intel than simply parking at a trailhead and going. Plus, I was trying to make at least some semblance of haste. Possibly even arrive in Bentonville in time for the first official "shake down" ride on Friday. So I pushed forward and tossed a coin between riding the Northwoods Trails in Hot Springs, AR and the Monument Trails at Mount Nebo. Both total unknowns.
Mount Nebo won.
There's a lovely kind of anxiousness to solo riding a trail system you've never been to before. Where do you park? Which way do you ride? Which trails do you ignore or prioritize? And in what order? It's a good exercise in "letting go," because as much as you want to do it "right," there often is no "wrong." God, even as I write that, I realize how completely false and stupid a statement it is. There is the potential for all kinds of wrong. Hence the anxiousness. I suppose what I mean is... riding at all is often better than not, so even if you're stopping at every trail intersection to check the map or pushing your bike up the downhill you were supposed to have ridden instead... it's something. Something different. And I like that a lot more than I like knowing every rock and root and subtle bend in a trail I've been riding for twenty years longer than I intended.
Mount Nebo was good. My van wasn't a huge fan of the very steep but short climb to the top, and I kept a wary eye on the thermostat, but I liked what I found up there. A lot of work and money had clearly gone into it. Likely the same money getting pumped into Bentonville. Rock chutes and plating along sweeping berms and bench cuts. A few cruxes that had me walking on my singlespeed, but nothing that left me frustrated or injured. I rode everything it had to offer, some trails twice, and sipped a clandestine beer in the van as I considered my next move. Bentonville was less than three hours away. I could be there in time for dinner and probably weasel my way into the group campsite a night early. Or I could relax and enjoy one last sunset before the clouds moved in... and never went away. I opted to stay, and lucked into an unoccupied campsite.
I admit, riding down the trail to Sunset Point, that it felt the slightest bit stout for singletrack. And it obviously was. But I didn't want to think any more about it. That had been my brief concession to caring. I'd have all day Saturday to ponder it.
I pulled up to the Meteor around 11:30 on Friday, only the slightest bit self-conscious as I circled it three times looking for a place to park; the noisy crackle of the van's overworked CV joints painfully loud. "Oh that?" I silently yelled out the window. "That's just how the van sounds. It's fine. We're fine... we're all fine here now, thank you. How... are you?"
In the spirit of not trying, I opted not to hustle trying to make the group ride, and instead ordered a beer and walked around to see who I could find. Immediately I found Matt Moosepacks, who used to come in and drink PBRs at the shop and who is both hustling and killing it with the bag game these days. I sat for a little while underneath his tent and stared blindly at the crowded parking lot.
Once upon a time, my legitimate super power was recognizing faces. Familiar or not. All faces. Someone would pass me on the street and I'd muse, "I know them from somewhere." And after a moment it would come to me... They'd stood in line near me at the grocery store once. Or sat a few tables away at a restaurant. Been on the same bus once. In a crowd at some event I'd attended. We'd rolled around naked together one night...Or something similarly mundane.
But lately, I just struggle to tell anyone apart. Some form of face-blindness that seems to be exacerbated by crowds. Looking straight through familiar faces less than ten feet in front of me. Maybe it's some psychological effect from the pandemic and isolation. Maybe it's just some form of senility that will only get worse. But honestly? I swear to fucking god, everyone just looks like Peter Stetina to me these days. Literally everyone.
Or else Peter Stetina just looks like everyone. It's one of those.
Peter? |
Is that you, Peter? |
Peter? |
But somehow in the crowd, I recognized Jack. His shock of bleached blonde hair and heavy black framed glasses standing out. Possibly because I'd just seen him at PMBAR, both of us standing on our own meaningless podiums for whatever category it was that we'd raced. So in the spirit of familiar faces in faraway places, I went up and said hi.
Which is how I met Katie and Katie (and not pictured Hannah) and how we all ended up hanging out throughout the weekend.
KKJ(&H) |
At some point, I hopped on my bike and rode off to fulfill at least one of my Bentonville rituals: Curry Fries at the Pedaler's Pub, which I sadly remembered being better. And after a few more drinks with KKJ&H at a boojie Mexican restaurant nearby, rode my bike to 8th Street Market and Bike Rack Brewing to meet up with Thomas and Gabbi Adams and some of their friends from Oklahoma. Over Rule of Three IPA's divvied out by instagram friend now met, RayRayRay, we talked about kids and travel and where we all end up. And whether the grass is always greener. And I told them a story about pretty Becky, who, as we sat griping one day long ago about place and circumstance, about our exes and Greensboro, had tried to put it in some perspective. "It could be worse, man" she said, tossing her blonde hair from one side of her head to the other. "My ex? He lives in the Seventh fucking Sphere of Hell these days."
Peter? |
Whether or not I acknowledge it often enough, I have to admit to being relatively fortunate. In that while my mornings may be often distinguished by the slow ascent through a haze of having imbibed more than I should have the night before... rarely do they begin with the troubling immediacy of having to take a desperate emergency shit in the wee hours of rising dawn.
But this was one of those mornings.
Did I mention that it was pouring rain? That I'd pulled into the race venue in the dark of the previous night, and with no real lay of the land, blindly driven across a giant field, and parked at the literal furthest point away from the port-a-potties?
Well I had.
And did I mention that among the many things I overpacked for an eight day road trip, a rain jacket was somehow not among them?
Well it wasn't.
Outside of the white noise of heavy rain on the van and ground, the field was quiet. No bustle of arriving cars or racers getting ready for their long day. If other people were awake, they too were hunkered inside their vehicles and tents. And while it wasn't quite light out, it was no longer dark. I could clearly see the portapotties some football field's length away. So. what? Trudge across the field and accept being drenched before the day had even begun? Sacrificing the few dry clothes I had left? No nearby copses of trees to hide behind or in, either. So that if I acquiesced to my immediate instinct and darted some twenty feet away from the van, if any one of my many neighbors were to peek their heads out of their curtains or tent flaps, my crouched, lonely, and clearly distressed form would be not only visible, but unmistakable in its undertaking.
And what then? Leave it in the field? Whatever the current quiet, it was about to be full of 1000 racers in so many vehicles. So even if deposited at the periphery, I'd still be dropping a veritable land mine. And I have enough Leave No Trace etiquette to know better.
So what? Bag it?
Oh, make no mistake, I've most certainly shit in a bag before. Four times that I can readily think of. Once parked in Joe Freeman's driveway while I waited for him to please wake up and let me in. Twice when camped behind SuperCorsa Cycles on two separate Spring get-the-fuck-out-of-dodge van rambles, unable to make it until Drew walked over to open the shop doors at 9am. (Both of these locales mercifully aided by the fortunate proximity of a bucket.) And once at the finish of my fourth DK200 (now Unbound), being entirely too obliterated and generally heat-distressed to trust myself to successfully make the walk a few blocks to the portapotties. Squatting low in the van in broad daylight while Dorothy stood watch outside. This time without the aid of a bucket. Just crossed fingers that my aim was on point, that I could prevent myself from peeing at the same time, and that these were the good plastic Kroger bags without a tear in the bottom.
And then? Put the bag in one of the few trash cans at the race start/finish? Empty its contents in a portapotty? Leave it next to my van until I could dispose of it reasonably, some 24 hours later?
The logistics were vexing, whatever choice I made. But I was starting to break out in chills.
I was in the process of hastily examining all the grocery bags stuffed in the grocery bag-bag and turning in dire circles like an indecisive dog, when I heard a merciful lessening of the rain... and tore open the van door and sprinted across the field, knowing full well that if I tripped or so much as stepped wrong... it was over.
Thus began RULE OF THREE.
AWWWSSSOOOMMME STOOORRRRYYY!!! |
Until two days before I got in the van and started driving west, I was 99% sure that this would be yet another event that I would be unable to attend. Outside of workload, staffing at the shop has been a particular crux for the past few years. Oh, I've got a good crew. But their very part time schedules don't allow for any real continuous coverage that allows me to step away. But Lee St. Clair was available and willing and suddenly things started to fall into place... and I began to throw together the tentative beginnings of a travel bag. Until Tuesday night arrived and I found myself crossing the North Carolina/Tennessee border, feeling all of my lingering fucks blissfully melt away, I didn't really believe it was happening.
I'd managed to snag a late afternoon ride at the Fonta Flora Trail near Morganton, and some dinner at Highland Brewing in Asheville, and slept that first night in the dark quiet parking lot of Big Creek Trailhead. Waking up to the beautiful noisy rush of water over rocks. Coffee. A quick cold swim. And back on the road, headed to Mead's Quarry in Knoxville to ride as much of the Urban Wilderness as I could before moving on.
I spent a couple of hours riding familiar and new (but all fun) trails, and followed it, as always with a swim in the quarry. Wishing for what seemed the millionth time that I'd brought a goddamn floaty of some kind so that I could drift lazily in the sunshine and green water and gaze up at the rock walls.
Next time. And I needed to get moving, anyway.
Halcyon Bike Shop had already closed by the time I pulled into Nashville, so with no real bearings or intel, I chose a brewery called Yee-Haw. And it's not that I regret that decision, so much as I know for a fact that there are better places to go in that town, and wish mightily that I'd found one of them instead.
But... the tacos were ok and the Pilsner was fine. I sat in an Adirondack chair and watched men in cargo shorts pantomime bending their friends over every time they scored at cornhole. Watched jacked beared men in flag t-shirts buy their very tan girlfriends cocktails, constant vape clouds billowing over their heads. And I tried to intentionally feel something other than my usual misanthropic bitterness. And while that didn't come naturally, I did find it. A man leaning in and whispering something to a woman, peals of genuine laughter erupting from her as she spilled her drink and wiped her eyes.
And me, smiling like an idiot across the patio at people I didn't know and some joke I hadn't heard. Like a voyeur creep.
That night I slept at the Wrangler Camp in the Natchez Trace and listened to nearby horses neigh and nicker throughout the night. Strangely happy to get to plug in the small fan that lives in the van's bulkhead, because even if it meant the night was warm... it meant summer was here. Or close.
Next:
Rule of Three Number Two
"This way." |
I seriously don't know. |
What does it mean? |
Yeah, yeah... laugh it up. |
Losers. |
Well shit... look who I found. |