Floribama Riders

Our route takes along a dirt road adjacent to the California Aqueduct. The aqueduct is a buried pipe with a concrete cap, looking a lot like the world’s longest driveway. This gets us used to the bikes and riding together. We spread out to minimize the dust. We occasionally pull off on some side trails to play. A couple of hill climbs, whoops, jumps, and one trail they call 'Razorback', sort on the knife edge of a ridge with a fairly steep drop on either side. Everyone handles the detours well. After 35 miles of this we arrive near the town of Mojave, and ride over near the huge windmill farm you have seen in dozens of movies, TV shows and commercials. There's very little wind, only a few are turning with that characteristic 'whoop whoop' sound. Then into Mojave for gas and gatorade.

Back out of Mojave, our plan is to climb onto a nearby ridge for lunch. The climb gave us numerous choices, basically you can follow an 'interesting' jeep trail winding back and forth across the face of the hill, or take some more direct (steep) routes directly up the face. I take most of the direct routes, and discover that that 605 will chug down to some incredibly low rpms and still pull my large self up the hill. We all get to a flat spot for lunch with varying degrees of difficulty, except GT. He's really struggling. He has brought his own bike, and watching him earlier, I suspected he had too much air in his tires. Finally Curt arrives, riding GT’s bike. Brad rides Curt back down to get Curt's bike, and gives GT a ride up. Curt discovers two problems with GT’s bike, the steering damper is adjusted to maximum damping, which is way too much for the conditions, and his tires have 30 psi. We fix GT's bike, eat lunch, and contemplate the next big hillclimb looming off to our left.

After lunch, Bill, Ron and I climb the next hill and wait. The others are struggling a bit to make it up. Brad comes up the hill and tells us that they have decided we should go back down, and we'll take another route. We start back down the hill. I'm following GT, who is now quite tired and has lost his confidence completely. He drops his bike a few more times just out of exhaustion. Curt and Brad wave me around, and settle in for an extended coaching session to help GT get his confidence back, and get him down.

On the way down the mountain, I catch up to Jack. Jack is struggling a bit with the same thing I remember from my first trips to Colorado, 'flatlanderitis'. The lack of anything horizontal anywhere within sight screws with your balance. Also, the trail is strewn with gravel, rocks up to softball sized, and some coarse sand on top of hard pack thrown in for good measure. For a guy from south Alabama, it's all new challenges. Jack gingerly makes his way down the mountain and arrives in one piece.