Here's to Better Days

To say that 2020 was a funky year for everyone would be an understatement.  Obviously, COVID was in all of our collective consciousness.   Compound that with all of the political nonsense going on in the world, life has become a bit of a pressured cooker.  

For me, there was the added element of struggling with some very unexpected health issues, including a bout of Atrial Fibrillation and a Frozen Shoulder.   Pretty much the entire second half of 2020 was consumed with not feeling well and wondering if it was time to hang up the bike shoes for good.  By the grace of God, I seem to have gotten the health stuff under control.  

With the majority of the health stuff in the rear view, I have been chomping at the bit to go bang out some miles and hang out with the boys for a weekend.  Scotty B and I talked in Mid December about a variety of bad ideas including one to do an overnight to Tucson to check out their recently completed loop system that wraps all of the way around the city.  After consulting with Marcos and Ryan, finding a place (Thanks Marcos) and pinning down dates, we were all set.

Marcos, Robert, and I wound up getting to Tucson Friday night which gave us the proper opportunity to break in the place a bit before Ryan, Stratman and Scotty B made their arrival Saturday morning to get the main ride in.  The main criteria for the place was that it was close enough to the trail that we could easily get to it and that it would accommodate all of us.  The place was very comfortable and we could more or less fall onto the trail system from where we were at.
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The ride itself was pretty straightforward.  A couple notes of interest was that this was by far Rob's longest ride (Kudos Rob) and that we had the perfect day of riding other than the nasty little sting in the tail headwind at the very end.  Thanks to Ryan for making sure that we were properly plied with Tecate at our last stop.

Classic Riding Dirty Road trip.  Shit show on wheels...just the way we like it.

Saturday post ride showed up with steaks, mashed potatoes, aspargus and a substantial amount of beer.  After a hot tub, eating too much, not being used to alcohol and a sit around the fire pit, I shut it down fairly early.  Fortunately, there were a handful that took one for the team and burned the midnight oil.

With no real action plan for Sunday in place, I wasn't sure I was going to get a ride in.  Fortunately, I had a partner in Marcos for a follow up "bad idea" which was to catch a spur route off of the main trail system up to Oro Valley.  As it turns out, it was a blast.  Marcos rode like his hair was on fire.  I did my best to try and hold his wheel.

Looking back, I feel blessed that I'm finally back on the right track.  At the risk of sounding like a suck up, it also made me realize all of the things that I'm fortunate to have, not least of which are the friends that surrond me and have put up with my whining over the last year (some a whole lot longer than that).  With any kind of luck, 2021 will be a much better year for all of us...at least we can hope!!!