D. Herbold - onespeeder.com

This looks like an excellent ride. It reminds me of the day, a few years ago, that I tried to make it to Flagstaff from my folks house on the down-side of SoMo in a day…an achievable feat. I started around 5 or 6 am on the road bike that September; a time when it’s still pretty warm there. The idea was to take the day and get to flag, a ride that would have clicked about 160 miles or so.
I should preface this story with the fact that I have annual urges that simply defy good sense in respect of pure exploratory adventure. Sometimes I feel that I need to experience more than what life dishes out when it’s managed with a logical pragmatism. I think it makes me feel alive more than anything. I credit my upbringing for this and I have no embarrassment for my choices. I am proud to be.
I made it to Cave Creek that morning about two hours after I started and I was already sweating, mildly surprised by the warmth. My optimism was overbearing that day. My logic was not. At that moment in Cave Creek, I felt a bit of disappointment with the idea of heading left to ride the shoulder of I-17 (the original idea) up to Flag. Surely there must be another way. I picked up a couple of liters of water and a state map. On that map indeed lay an option…a dirt road that headed north past Seven Springs and into the wilderness. And so it was. A little red line of obscurity on a map that I had purchased in a Circle K was all I needed. I headed out from there with little regard to the voices in my head.
I was at Seven Springs Campground (a few miles past the weird hermit ville of Seven Springs) an hour later. The road until then was patchy pavement & baby smooth dirt. The sign on the other side of the camp ground stated plainly “unmaintained road…” from there on. I climbed over 2 hours to make it over the first of two monster summits that I would face that day and indeed, it was an unmaintained road. The further I went, the further I felt that I was in true wilderness. This was exactly what I was looking for…almost. I descended from that initial climb for what seemed to be an hour. I never considered what climbs would be like out there. I just never considered anything but trying… and the climbs are not small. The decent from that first climb was slow. I couldn’t let it roll because I would have pinched both tires in a second. At that point, I was far enough from anything that a flat or two was a threatening idea. So I rode the brakes the whole time. I passed the last form of civilization shortly after the descent in the form of a very isolated, very creepy ranch. I considered stopping for water but I was too disturbed. With a house out in the sticks that far, I could only recall my childhoose envisions of what it might contain. I could only think of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I didn’t stop. Water was the primary of my concerns that day, as warm as it was. An hour after the ranch, I was down to a half liter. Conservatively, that was worth two hours. Of course, I bled it in less. I knowingly walked into this ride under prepared just to see what might happen. And at that point, I thought potentially that I was going to have to stay the night out there or perhaps be picked up by helicopter rescue only to be displayed in the dumbest of terms, on phoenix or even national TV. Things didn’t change either. As I became more lucid with every roll of the tire, I became more depressed with the situation. But, that was one side of the gamble and I didn’t turn around, I just kept on going. How it was going to end, was what made it an interesting idea. I inevitably ran out of water of course. I was over 60 miles north of Cave Creek and at least 30 miles east of I-17 in the middle of nothing. When one drives from Phoenix to Flag, When they get up on top of the mesa above Black Canyon, to the east they will be able to see a last horizon line of mountains in the far distance. I was on the other side of those on a road bike playing out my best, pointless act of survival. I looked at the map again. I knew that I was coming up to a junction in the road according to the map, if it was even there. I was finally being convinced that the ending of this experience was going to be lame and not cool. But then the junction.
My mother has always insisted that my brother and I have guardian angels with us. I tend to believe that in a way, she is onto something as he and I have been saved from stupid ideas more than twice. The junction determined a split in direction from the original northern route I had been traveling. I knew that getting to it would define some sort of progress. It would give scale to where I was and at the very least, I thought it’d be a good place to be found. I rolled around a corner then, and as my mother believes, my guardian angel was indeed there. Sitting bolt upright in the middle of that junction were two slightly used, one gallon jugs of purified water glowing in the high sun with their caps on. I don’t believe in god but to see water sitting the middle of a road to nowhere was something I could only define as miraculous. Those two gallons of water would allow me to get out of my stupid idea on my own. I sat there and cashed almost all of one and filled my bottles with the other. I left the remainder there as some sort of homage to the nothingness. I sat under an FS sign that pointed out my options while basking in that salvation. The sign said West 32 miles to I-17 and the other way, East to the Verde. West was uphill and I was beat down by then, but I knew the name of the place it went. East was downhill and the only thing I know about the Verde is that it is creepy eerie. Logic was having its way with me.
The next two hours I spent trying to ride, often walking in road shoes (even taking them off at times) and otherwise struggling out of Bloody Basin on a road so steep that I could not pedal in my easiest gear. The road was serpentine as it scaled the basin. Whenever I pass signs on the highway that make a location sound interesting or unique, such as Bloody Basin Rd, I wonder what it’s all about. Bloody Basin has a history rich in the domination of natives by the white man. Its topology is as severe and it seems mysterious to me. When I finally climbed out of it, I didn’t hear the rush of high way noise I expected either. I saw nothing but more of the same shit I’d been gazing at for the last 8 hours. That expanse one sees from I-17 east to the edge of the horizon. Bloody Basin is miles from its highway exit. Fortunately the road smoothed out. I hoped, and was rewarded, that the worst was indeed over. I passed a ranger somewhere between the top of Bloody Basin and I-17. I think he was probably scouting ranch land for vermin…whatever. I stopped and chatted with he and his partner for a minute. I don’t think the dumbfounded look ever faded from their faces. I was too proud to let them know of my situation too. I smiled and chatted as if I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t going to let in on the secret, I needed to pedal out of it on my own at that point. Probably the last thing they expected to see was a spandex nut on a road bike out there amongst the cows.
Over ten hours after the start, the smooth roar of I-17 faded in and pulled me back into the world. My walkabout that day was exceptional. It gave me the satiety that only long rides can. I limped off the dirt and faced the last two miles that would lead me to the salvation of McDonald’s cheeseburgers in Cordes Junction…a civilization of sorts, as defined by current standards. I knew I was good. The moment I hit the pavement again, I got my one and only flat tire that day. It was a sidewall cut. Something that would have been unrepairable out there in the sticks. I don’t know why, but when I got that flat, it was the only time I looked at my tires that entire day. The soft Michelin race tires were so beat they should not have lasted five miles into the dirt, lead alone the 100 miles that they did. They looked as if they had been hit by a weed whacker over their entire treaded surface, yet they held together until I was on pavement again. I rode the rim straight to the McDonald’s. I didn’t give a shit about anything but a hamburger. Nothing could have been better at that point. I sat there and waited for a ride at Micky D’s eating hamburgers and sucking down a soda. Tapped, I napped for a couple of hours on the benches outside. It was one of the best rides I’ve ever had.

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