Komoot Women's Arizona Rally, Pt. 2

Out of the wilderness, but then...back into the wilderness.

We awoke to the cool desert morning near the base of Mount Lemmon, but still high enough up that we were thankful for an extra layer of clothes as we made the remaining descent back into Tucson. I housed the rest of my chocolate mousse and some coffee to get going, then took off with a small peloton down the mountain. We arrived at LeBuzz, a cafe and breakfast spot near the base of the mountain, and joined a few other cyclists in line. Soon, seemingly the whole 55 or so group of cyclists were there, either arriving late after spending a night at the lodge on top of the mountain or slowly packing up for the ride ahead after taking some time to digest their burritos and pastries.

I tend to be a bit tight-pursed on bike trips. I pack a bunch of food, then insist on eating it instead of enjoying the hot prepared meal shared by everyone else. This time, though, I was celebrating. I had closed the gap, I was menstruating, I was hungry, and I was finally going to wild camp. I deserved a breakfast burrito, and I needed some protein. After two days eating rehydrated meals, trail mix, and peanut butter pretzels, this burrito was the best burrito I'd ever had. I ate half, the moved on to pick at one of the pastries I'd ordered. As time went on and we continued lingering, I slowly picked at the remainder of my burrito while chatting with Tucsonians who were interested in what we were doing; even though LeBuzz is the go-to spot for cyclists heading up Mount Lemmon's paved side on a weekend morning, it isn't as common to see 50+ fully-loaded and dusty bikes being stood over by dirty women+ as they casually eat their breakfasts and chat in a broad range of international accents. I came to from my culinary hypnosis. My leftovers were hanging on by a loose foil-wrapped thread. I wrapped up what little remained, patted my swollen belly, and hopped on my bike.

Because no bike trip can really start until something is lost, I stopped by the Earlybird Bikes across the street while Melinda and Kristen refilled on grocery needs and bought a pair of gloves to replace the ones I'd dropped. I also lost my blinkie light, because I had inexplicably attached it to my rear pack during the day while riding on an untrafficked road, so I bought another red blinkie as well. It was a cute, clean shop, which seems to be the aesthetic these days, rather than the chaotic maze of bikes and products I sharpened my spokes in. I can see why that isn't the vibe people are looking for, but it did make me miss my old bike shops, and the days of fishing around Kraynick's for this or that part as Jerry peered over his glasses in pleased judgment.

Back with the crew, it was a lot of pavement at first and we leap-frogged out of town. Kristen is incredibly strong and all it took was a fast wheel to ride casually with to pull away from me. After a leisurely stop at a convenient store to refill on water and snacks, Melinda and I rode off at our own pace, seasoned enough in long-distance cycling to know what feels good and what will cause premature fatigue. The route soon kicked us into sand, and we got to a ranch fence just as the speedier cyclists were closing it. There was a rider there sitting alone so we stopped to say hi and check in.

Katie took the first couple days off to relax with a friend in Tucson and catch up on some much-needed rest. Her friend dropped her off at this point, where she was waiting for a cyclist she knew to meet up with her to start the ride. As we talked, she pulled out a camp stove and casually began the process of making lunch. She was kind, quiet, and seemed confident in her surroundings and skills. It was past noon and the heat of the desert day was ramping into full throttle. We felt bad leaving a solo rider, but had a sense she would be just fine waiting in the shade with fresh legs, compared to our tired bodies that still had many miles of deep sand to traverse. We said goodbye and headed into the desert.

The trail tucked and dipped in and out of sandy, rutted washes, steep inversions of land that sometimes seemed impossible to ride and otherwise made us feel like superheroes for powering through so smoothly as we avoided the barbed wire and cacti that crept perilously close to the best line for riding. We came to an intersection where we disagreed, so Melinda chose one direction and I chose the other. We were both wrong. We spent a half hour laying out arrows and Xs marking the correct, though less obvious, path forward. It was days later when we finally heard people had come across these markings, some slightly mangled by quads and motorbikes by the time the riders saw them, but in good enough shape to save them the time we'd lost in testing ever other possible direction, crawling under barbed wire, and staring dumbfounded at the map.

The rest of the day would have been a slog if the company weren't so great, the scenery and weather perfect (besides the fatigue of heat, I love a scorching desert day), and the mode of transportation divine. The trail had swashes of deep sand, and we wondered aloud if this was the sand we were warned about (it wasn't). Eventually, the heat dissipated and with it, the light. We were approaching the other side of this wild terrain, with the road only a mile or so away. We heard some riders were planning on a spot at a designated camp area. I wanted to meet more of the cyclists, but hadn't yet had a remote wild camping night yet and was really jonesing.

We looked around for a moment and found a lovely little area to tuck away. We had some cell coverage and checked WhatsApp to see where others were in their journeys, if anyone was going to be coming this way, and let riders know where we were. As we scoped out the space for best spots for lying tents, we heard voices.

"Do you think that's us?" Melinda asked as she hoofed over an embankment toward the ruckus. She came back a minute later. "I don't know if that's our group, I saw a truck and heard a lot of women chatting and laughing, but couldn't see any bikes. I think there was a mountain bike in the back of the truck. Their siren song pierced my heart.

"Good enough for me! Even if they aren't our group, I kinda want to meet them." We didn't unload our bikes yet so we turned out of the protected wash and headed up the road to the next pull-off. In front of us appeared an oasis. Fifteen or 20 women and nonbinary cyclists hanging laundry on the shaggy branches of junipers, cleaning their chains, setting up tents, gathering dead branches and brush, hovering around the smoke of what was to become a lovely fire.

"Heeyyy!! You made it!" They all seemed to say in unison as we rolled in, grinning. I kept my tent backed and "cowboy camped" in the open air, mindful of the anthills when laying down my sleeping pad. We stayed up fairly late into the evening, swapping stories and playing games around the fire, mainly little icebreakers. I easily assume most people have a quick bond and I'm the lone outsider, and these little "get to know you" games were a nice reminder for me to chill out and stop internalizing this lone wolf persona that's been cultivated through a life of not feeling quick enough kinship. I made my dehydrated green chile stew, used too much water, and was very thankful for this use of leftovers a couple years prior. It was the best camp meal I could remember having, from one of the best stews I'd ever made. Happy, warm, full, I popped a couple Tylenol PMs to mitigate the cramps and body soreness, and slept well through the night.

photo courtesy Ashley Gruber

In the morning, despite having such a minimal set up to break down, I was one of the last to leave. It finally occurred that I was groggy from the Tylenol PM and promised myself to leave those for emergencies for the remainder of the trip, and to only take a half a pill to start. Melinda and Kristen were kind enough to wait, and we rode together along the canyon rode that swerved with short, steep pitches just enough to keep it fun and interesting. We stopped for snacks and eyed a truck parked at the horizon line of the hill in front of us. Hunters? Men? The Komoot crew? Their silhouettes got out and one leaned against the truck while another appeared to climb into the truck bed, though I couldn't make out much since my sunglasses aren't prescription (I lost my prescription pair in the bench seat of a pickup truck while hitchhiking into Chile's Atacama Desert, caught up in a conversation with the world class horse jockey who offered me the ride, and promised myself I wouldn't spend money on the good version of something I will never take care of; now, all my sunglasses are review products, found sunnies lifted from the roadside trenches I've left plenty as sacrifice, or $8 gas station impulse purchases when I'm feeling sassy on a beautiful day).

We finished our snacks and rode stone-heartedly toward this leering group of strangers. When the road tucked into itself before jutting up a steep ascent, Ashley Gruber, the photographer, was squat in the elbow of the road, smiling with her camera pointed our way. Through my traumatic time at Dirt Rag, I still can't throw the stone cold look of an athlete who hates her sport at the camera when I clearly love my sport, but I am slightly better at body positioning on the bike in the completely unnatural way that looks better for the lens. Like being a good chef for commercials who knows how to use wood glue instead of syrup to give the pancakes that golden crown of what the viewer assumes is maple juice.

Smiling and waving at the photographer, so uncool. Photo courtesy Ashley Gruber

At the top of the climb we slow rolled past the Komoot truck and shared a chuckle with the ladies at how they saw us staring at them and they wondered when the heck we were going to finally start riding our bikes. I stopped to switch out my water bottles and Lael rode through to join in what was to become a cheer party for the riders coming up behind us. We chatted for a moment and I told her to keep an eye out for the Sarahs, Makayla, Frida, and Carmen, my group from the first couple days of riding, and who I was missing terribly and was anxious to hear now their trip has been going since I last saw them. She let me know they were all coming along, as the Komoot folks had access to everyone's trackers, and everyone seemed to be doing well. I continued on my way to catch up with Melinda and Kristen. We were back on pavement, and soon enough found ourselves at a junction with a diner and a gas station shop that came just short of being a mercantile. We caught up with some new friends and shared a lunch, charged phones, filled water, and lounged a bit before the final pull toward Patagonia, Arizona.

To be honest, I don't remember a lot about this stretch. I remember pavement, the road rising in front of us as we gained elevation, and shade creeping in as the landscape changed and became more lush. More Junipers and Cottonwoods began lining the street, the grass appeared greener. Mailboxes and welcome signs scattered the roadside, handpainted invitations to slow down, enjoy the view, stop in town for a coffee. We turned left just before downtown and before I knew it, we had arrived at Melinda and my only reserved camping destination, TerraSol.

Most everyone in the Rally had booked a spot there. We arrived around mid-pack or sooner, with a lot of space to choose from for campsite options in the wide field. The camp host showed us around and gave us the rundown of where the showers were, how laundry worked, when to expect dinner, and was quickly pulled away by the next wave of riders. The lone visitor not in our group was a gentleman who'd been staying there for a while, taking a break from the Arizona Trail. He filled in some of my gaps in information, and let me know the large mats leaning against the tree were tent pads to protect against thorns and moreso to help with insulation as the night would be getting quite cold.

"That's good to know!" I said, "because my sleeping pad has a hole in it so I will need something to sleep on. Also..."

"A bucket?" he offered.

"Yes! Is there a way to check my pad for holes?"

He called over Mary, the owner of the space, and she got me set up with a trough of water and some soap.

"Let me rinse this out for you," she said against my insistence the dirty water was fine.

"Do you know what we use this for?"

"Uhh, checking sleeping pads?"

"Keeping the javelinas happy. Otherwise they knock over all my bird baths. You don't want to be sleeping in javelina spit."

With the help of another rider, I found and patched the main holes in my pad. The lone rider warned again about the javelinas and suggested I hang my food. "With a group this size, they'll probably stay away. Then again, with a group this size, they may smell all your snacks and be unable to resist." I've lost my snack bags to woodland critters enough times to know it's a real drag, so I hung my food dutifully. Melinda, Kristen, and I got our laundry started at the RV park next door, and when we came back there was a cyclist camped next to me who was fidgeting with her shifting.

Though my mechanic skills have been getting rusty over the years and my confidence is thin, I offered to give it a shot. I rode the bike back and forth along the road, shifting and adjusting, until all their gears were back in action. I still needed to shower and get my own bike sorted, but it seemed like enough headway to make the fine-tune adjustments for themself. I passed the bike back to them and explained how I retensioned the cable by the derailleur and adjusted the tension and limit screws, and which ways to turn the barrel adjusters for more or less tension, and what more or less tension aught to do to the cable.

For one reason or another, my social feelings of being a hanger-on can really get amped up despite my experience, so being able to help another rider even in this small way helped me feel like I had earned my spot in the field.

We had a big communal dinner, part of the TerraSol experience, and hung out by the fire drinking tea until it was suddenly very late. The temperature dropped fast and it was freezing out. I boiled water for my large Nalgene to use as a hot waterbottle — a trick I'd been utilizing this whole trip as a luxury but now felt like a survival necessity — and crawled into my cocoon.