We are going on a journey to the desert

   What a journey it was. Team Vagina Monocogs departed around 5 in the morning on Friday. Well I was 15 minutes late. ;) So we loaded up the truck and got moving round 5:30. It is just over 500 miles to Tucson. We left Santa Fe and followed 25 down to Hatch and the turned right and went down 26 to Demming and hooked up with 10 and took that into Tucson. Driving on 10 bout 40 miles out of Tucson the snow started coming down pretty hard. All of the sudden we saw about 4 cars flipped over in the middle of the median. Then we had to lock up the brakes and pray that the tractor trailer behind us didn't smash into us. Once in Tucson we needed to find a grocery store. The first we came across was a lovely Albertsons. Then we proceeded to get way too much food for a 48 hour period and made our way to Willow Springs Ranch. Driving up north of town was a sweet looking mountain called Mt Lemmon. I was thinking to myself that there has to be some trails up in there. Also I have heard of Fantasy Island there in Tucson. I can't wait to get back there. Seemed like A real cool city. By the time we pulled onto the dirt road heading into the 24 hour town it was raining and snowing fairly steady like. The dirt road was a big ol mess. I took the canon with me and captured some shots. Since we can never rely on the faulty camera in our minds.
   Results for The Vagina Monocogs are here.

This was the ominous view we got as we headed into the 24 hour town


   First order of business was to set up camp before it started to rain and snow even more.


Ben and I took turns pumping up the air mattress.



Some of the local cacti


Communing by the fire. Scott eats a kielbasa.


   Nate, a friend of Mikes, on the right in the picture set up camp with us and rode solo ss. The other guy(MC I believe) is also a friend of Mikes and rode solo RIGID SS




The view from my bedroom

   Soo off to bed I went. It was a rather snowy night and cold to boot. I will never forget having to get up at 2 in the morning to pee in the snow and then get back in the tent.
   The morning brought dry skies but it was very foggy and cloudy. I decided to venture down to the expo area with Ben and get a cup of coffee. Since I smashed my french press in transit.


It was still cloudy.


   In the expo area i spied a bearded gentleman with a Yarder hanging out at the Ergon tent. He said he had just gotten the bike built up and was going to ride it one lap then ride his 29er the other lap then repeat. Notice the double disc up front.



There was a frame builder named Siren there as well doing some cool stuff. I believe SSportsman was camping with them.

Then we meandered over to the Spot tent and they had a bunch of those belt driven bikes.


They even had a SS cross bike with the belt


I liked the saying on the seat stay


   These Jack-o-Lanterns marked our street that we were camping on.
   So it was now to time to start the race. I didn't get many racetime pictures but I did bring the camera up for the Lamans start which had Mike Raney from our team making it round 8 th in the run and then he proceeded to make it about 8 th in the first lap.





I thought of my buddy Dom back east who rocks a dirt fixie vulture.


Where'd they escape from?



One of the many faces of the Ol' Pueblo



Scott getting ready for his first lap.

   The Los Nativos saved us a spot next to there fancy 5th wheel. They were great neighbors. They had some illness in there camp. I know Jamie was bummed he had to turn back on his lap when he got to the bitches he was sooo sick.


Ben's bike looking all clean and pretty


As I was getting ready for my lap The clouds began to lift


Someone took my picture with my camera as I was finishing my first lap


Once the sun was out you could see the beauty of Tucson


The Rig ran like a champ The new Intense 29er tires really felt good


The sun sets in the desert


the sun rises in the desert

Like me, This woman was obviously very happy to see the sun rise on Sunday.

   SO after my fourth lap. We decided to try to get MIke to do 2 laps in a row to try to catch a few teams in front of us that were only a few minutes apart from us. I decided to go catch a few shots of people coming into the back end of the lap.





Mike on the last leg of his journey in the ol pueblo


This is Kevin. A friends of Mikes. He decided to get a lap in at the end for fun.

   While I was getting some pictures I backed into this little bitch. These things are brutal. It is like it burrows into your skin. I made it the whole race without getting any cactus in my body and then get one while I am taking pictures. Unbelievable.




I had to get a few shots of the most photographed rock in the Pueblo



   This race was really fun. I hope to get back to do it again. It is a long drive from Santa Fe though. We did get to go to an In-n-Out in Tucson on the way out of town which was delightfull.
   What is in your audio player? In anticapation of there new album. I have been listening to Death Cab for Cutie. I can't wait till that album drops.


ohhh myyy, FLESH!

Ella made quite a hat

                  Kurtemtka