The last series of articles took quite a bit out of me. One, it’s not easy putting that much time into anything when any given work week might be a hundred hour week, and any given shift might be a 30 hour shift. Two it’s not easy calling bullshit on your heroes. But sometimes the bullshit is a bit too much to take. At Least if your plan is to stick around for any length of time.

And so I’ve been thinking about “Going Long.”

It’s a thought that’s been rattling around in my head for some time now.

Some of the relevance is personal. I’ve now completed 8 years of higher education, 2 years of research, 2.5 years of residency. With just half a year between me and decent paycheck I’ll be taking on another 2 or more years of fellowship training because practicing anything but academic Sports-medicine would be a mistake.

Some of it is just plain wonderment about human nature or the rather the nature of some rare humans.

One such human recently made aware that there is a Tequila tree that lives on one of our local mountains. As it turns out the Tequilla tree was recently refilled for an upcomming special event. No that event is not the imminent arrival of LA for the kickoff team Radioshack training camp. Nor was the event the podium sweep of a world famous charity ride by a suspected doped Mexican team. No the special event is an unsanctioned combination hike and bike race.

Are there organizations that actually sanction these things?

The hike is estimated to be a 6 hour affair to the bike staging area. The hiking leg is followed by a 6 ish hour MTB ride. For those “that are in to that kind of thing” there is a Tequilla tree along the way. Entry is word of mouth. The only fee is for a shuttle seeing as it’s a 12 hour point to point in the desert. And the only prize, is probably something like first dibs next time you happen to be by a Tequila tree.

But the true genius of the event according to the founder is that it starts at midnight. That way you should be hitting the bike just as the blue is starting to crack across the sky. And by that time you will need every bit of motivation to actually climb aboard the bike. Unless of course, you are in so much pain that the only motivating factor is pain itself.

Bicycling magazine once wrote a good bike review. It was for a Pegoretti Marcelo, a steel racebike. They speculated that the bike was to stiff for the touring crowd and steel connoseurs. And too heavy to actually race. But they concluded that the bike was perfect for someone. To that someone they said,”We don’t know who you are, but you are a beautiful person.”

My current roadbike is an old style madone, carbon fiber sharkfin seat tube and all. My current MTB is a Niner Sir 9. Like a Marcelo a Sir 9 is not a bike that I would ever buy. Unless, I was planning On racing my first 24hr solo mtb, and my race bile was a recalled Jet.

At this point I have now ridden the stink out of the Sir9. I can honestly sat that the Jet does everything better in a faster, more comfortable… technical sense. Yet the Sir somehow is the absolute right bike for my first Solo 24 hour race.

Maybe I’m just kidding myself so that I don’t feel suckered that my proper race bike won’t be showing up untill way after Old Pueblo.

And maybe the reason that every ride I’ve done on the Sir has been at least 5 hours is because I can all of a sudden stick to a training plan.

It would be nice if one solo 24 hour aboard a steel hardtail was enough to prove one’s nature. More than likely it will just confirm that I tend to be a bit stubborn when it comes to ill-conceived ideas.

Whatever the case, 24 hours should be long enough to reach a point where every last bit of thought will be needed just to push a pedal.

And isn’t that all that anyone could really be looking for?

Whatever the case, here’s to Going Long.