E
ach year, the annual stroke of midnight arrives on the last days of summer. At the end of a long season of riding, tracing serpentine footpaths across Europe and into the heart of the American Southwest, the time comes to pack the root cellar with memories and restart the cycle. The pattern of working and not working; living with permanence and in transience; and resting and riding provides an essential balance in our lives. A never-ending bike tour is not what I seek, nor is an endless summer, but in the last days of September and October, I am not yet ready to give up t-shirts and dry dirt for the season. Eventually, freezing nights and snow force their hand, and the season is over. Several months prior, on the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine, on the shores of the Black Sea, rain drives sideways for several days. Three of us look out the fifth-floor window of a concrete Soviet apartment building, freshly laundered and guarded by mugs of hot chai. There are still a few more weeks of riding for us as leaves ripen to yellow and apples rest in rotting piles beneath branches. These final days in Ukraine are a daydream of ancient trails past cave cities, villages, and Cold War bunkers. Camping in the hills just outside Simferapol, two of us look forward to more riding, halfway around the world. Celebrating with a mug of semi-sweet red wine and an aperitif of dates, filberts in honey, and Russian cheese, we say goodbye to our Polish riding companion, Przemek, and to Ukraine. We arrive in Colorado from Ukraine with an approximate plan for several months of riding in the Southwest. For a third
consecutive year – always in September, October, and November – we migrate to this arid, expansive corner of the country. Running away to the Southwest at the end of the summer is a poorly kept secret amongst people who live outdoors. At this time of year, desert heat is less extreme, water needs are more easily met, and everywhere else has already succumbed to the season. We ride from the western slope of Colorado into Utah along Kokopelli’s Trail, tracing the Colorado River to the north side of the La Sal Mountains, glimpsing remnants of early season snow up high. At 5,000 feet, nights are cool; at 9,000 feet, nights are cold, although each afternoon melts the memory of the previous night’s frost. As long as we continue to move south we are running away from the season. That season is winter. Crossing from Utah into Arizona and to the Grand Canyon, we connect with the Arizona Trail (AZT), an 800-mile corridor of signed singletrack from the border of Utah to Mexico. The trail traces segments of an old wagon route from the Canyon to Flagstaff. Continuing, we bisect several local drainages – crossing mountains and valleys – as our tracks connect Flagstaff, Sedona, Cottonwood, Prescott Valley, and the Black Canyon Trail, a 78-mile singletrack trail north of Phoenix. Ending at 1,500 feet in elevation, in shorts and t-shirts once again, we stick out our thumbs on a road back toward Flagstaff, hoping to explore more of the AZT. Five thousand feet higher in Flagstaff, it is snowing. The forecast is dismal and the thumbs go out again.
Bunyan Velo 173