2018 Arizona Trail Race 750 - Day 5

I was up at 1230ish and quietly packed my bivy into my bar bag. It seemed like Dean was sleeping in, as a quiet snoring was emanating from his bivy, about 20m away. I tip-toed past him as he was by the entry point to this little clearing by the river. I knew I would be seeing him again, later in the race. He is one strong rider.

The trail went up, pretty much straight away. It started out as double track but quickly went to single track. Single track that skirted around a cliff face with a high wall on one side and a drop off the other. I pushed most of the ups and hooted down the downs. There were many, many of these. 

I made a deal with myself this morning. I was not going to look at my gps distance at all and I was not going to look around in the darkness at all. I was simply going to look at the trail, keep moving along it and when I had done enough moving, Picketpost trailhead would be in front of me....

The only photo I took of that morning. Lots of exposure.

2018 Arizona Trail Race 750 - Day 4

Beeep, beeep beeep,beeeeeeep.........

My watch was telling me it was 2am and to wake up but again I had beaten it to the punch. I was already looking up at the stars, sweating my arse off in my bivy. I was not sure if it was my sleeping bag rating, the warm night or the “night sweats” that one tends to get when doing these bikepacking races. I turned the bag and my bivy inside out and hung them from my handlebars for a quick dry while I got dressed and ate another burrito. I was always slow to get going but I always look after my gear which I think pays dividends in the long run.

It was very dark and quite cold and windy as I began pedalling toward Kelvin, a mere 89km away. The trail was quite tight and tricky this morning with lots of steep pinches that had me off, pushing. Add to this a 25-30 knot wind and any time I turned into wind I was crawling again. I was on the lookout for water as I went along but even though tanks were marked on the gps I couldn’t see anything in the dark of night.
Just when the trail seemed to get a bit of flow to it, a gate would loom out on the darkness and cause a dismount. At least most were of the modern, easily operated variety.