Caller ID strikes again. I just called Andy at Desert Cyclery and the first thing to come over the other end was “Speak of the devil, destroyer of drivetrains!” What’s really funny? He hadn’t read the Dawn til Dusk report yet. He did say it was time to send the Yeti to him for some lovin…he could sense it’s pain. So the Yeti gets some new parts, shocks, wheels and who knows what else. Andy and Kong at Desert Cyclery are the real deal – if you are in need of anything bike related in St George, ya gotta check ’em out.
Each year, early in the season, there is some event where I push it really hard – too hard too soon for the distance – and have one helluva crack. It seems to be an integral part of my training. I can’t claim the crack is planned, but they are very productive. Dawn til Dusk served as the ’07 spring crack, and it was a good one. The day after I felt as though I’d done a 24 hour, not a 12 hour. But I’m happy to report things have come back to normal very quick.
Today was a nice steady climb to 9,000′ – no snow up there, even though a foot or so fell up there last week. Ya been next to a stunt kite doing it’s thing? Ya know the big whoosh sound it makes? That’s what I heard at one point on the ride today – even felt it. Surprised, I looked up, and was even more surprised to see a golden eagle no more than 6 feet above my head with talons waaay bigger than my hands, wings and feathers all over the place, so much that it looked deformed. Almost crashed again, but stayed upright…turns out the eagle had some screaming critter in it’s dangling talons and was being harrassed by some sort of agile bird of prey.
That screaming little critter had more than a crack. That was a crater.