What is it about a road that stretches into the horizon, passes over rocks, sand, through trees and rivers. A road that climbs and descends, twists and turns. What is it about a road that goes on so far and so long that it lasts through the day, through the night and again into the day? And how is it that this road is simultaneously intimidating and inviting, exhilarating and exhausting? Why is it that despite the pain that comes with traveling this road, more and more people find themselves taking the journey? What is it about solo 24 hour racing that I find so addicting?

When people find out that I like to do 24 hour races I usually get a variation of the same response. "You're crazy!" "Why would you do THAT?" "Wait, you do it alone?" "I could never do that." There is something that attracts me to the challenge. Normal cross-country bike races are fun, fast and painful. They require an all out effort over a 2-3 hour period of time. They are mentally draining and physically taxing. But they don't have that certain "it". At least not for me. Now don't get me wrong, I love XC racing. I look forward to the season all year. I travel around the state to various events. I love the atmosphere and the competition. But for me, they can't compare to the anticipation of 24 hours in the saddle.

I think the difference comes with the setting of the sun. In the limted experience I have in 24 hour racing, the hardest part for me is when the sun goes down. That is when the realization sets in that while everyone around you settles in for a warm night by the fire, you are setting out on a cold, dark sojourn into the unknown. I have never been so mentally taxed as I am when I point my light onto the course and turn my back to the light and laughter of a good campfire, cold drink and warm food. And yet, at the same time, I have never been so drawn to something. It is the beauty and mystery of 24 hour racing.

I don't think I can exactly say what it is that attracts me to these races. When I attended my first 24 Hours of Moab I was a spectator. I was in the start finish area just as the sun rose. Nat Ross came through after a lap, and he sat down in a chair. His support crew fed him, swapped his bikes, rubbed his shoulders and sent him on his way. He finished 2nd that year behind 24 hour legend Rishi Grewal. That was the first time I experienced the "it". The seed was planted and I let it grow. Last year I did my first solo race, fittingly, at the 24 hours of Moab. Nat Ross was there again. He lapped me 5 times en route to his victory. But somewhere in the suffering and the "learning the hard way" I became a 24 Hour Solo Racer.

Labels: moab, races

Labels: moab

I think of music, and of a musical analogy to what seems to me the unique spirit of desert places. Suppose for example that we can find a certain resemblance between the music of Bach and the sea; the music of Debussy and a forest glade; the music of Beethoven and (of course) great mountains; then who has written of the desert?

Mozart? Hardly the outdoor type, that fellow - much too elegant, symmetrical, formally perfect. Vivaldi, Corelli, Monteverdi? - cathedral interiors only - fluid architecture. Jazz? The best of jazz for all its virtues cannot escape the limitations of its origin: it is indoor music, city music, distilled from the melancholy nightclubs and the marijuana smoke of dim, sad, nighttime rooms: a joyless sound, for all its nervous energy.

In the desert I am reminded of something quite different - the bleak, thin-textured work of men like Berg, Schoenberg, Ernst Krenek, Webern and the American, Elliot Carter. Quite by accident, no doubt, although both Schoenberg and Krenek lived part of their lives in the Southwest, their music comes closer than any other I know to representing the apartness, the otherness, the strangeness of the desert. Like certain aspects of this music, the desert is also a-tonal, cruel, clear, inhuman, neither romantic nor classical, motionless and emotionless, at one and the same time - another paradox - both agonized and deeply still.

Like death? Perhaps. And perhaps that is why life nowhere appears so brave, so bright, so full of oracle and miracle as in the desert.

~Abbey

Labels: moab

Labels: moab, photos

INEZ [struggling and laughing]: But, you crazy creature, what do you think you're doing? You know quite well I'm dead.

ESTELLE: Dead?

[She drops the knife. A pause. INEZ picks up the knife and jabs herself with it regretfully.]

INEZ: Dead! Dead! Dead! Knives, poison, ropes--all useless. It has happened already, do you understand? Once and for all. So here we are, forever. [Laughs.]

ESTELLE [with a peal of laughter]: Forever. My God, how funny! Forever.

GARCIN [looks at the two women, and joins in the laughter]: For ever, and ever, and ever.

[They slump onto their respective sofas. A long silence. Their laughter dies away and they gaze at each other.]

GARCIN: Well, well, let's get on with it. . . .

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

~Tolkien

The Road goes ever on and on
Out from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
Let others follow it who can!
Let them a journey new begin,
But I at last with weary feet
Will turn towards the lighted inn,
My evening-rest and sleep to meet.

Labels: moab