Mellow BART Cup Sunday
  Last viewed: Dec 09, 2009, 04:12:09 AM (GMT)

Winnemucca, NV--Chuck got fifth at Sunday's BART Cup event, a feat considering there were only four of us.

Rendezvous'ed at the funky secret tunnel from the Victory Highway under Interstate 80, then out across the flats a few miles to park at Black Canyon Well, which has a neat operating windmill and pond. Or, "a lake and a waterfall" as Chuck described it, rural hyperbole at its best.

Blaine, too, we would discover, exagerated a little in describing our route as "35 miles of singlestrack."

The Trinities kind of ease up off the valley floor in a gradual and genial way, unlike most Nevada ranges. This makes for pretty good mountain biking. Also, brush here is rather sparse. Thus, you can ride pretty much anywhere you like in the Trinities, whether or not you have a trail.

There are plenty of trails, too. Cattle grazed here on BLM land are tireless in their efforts to buff out the internecine maze of trails lacing the arid landscape.

A long single- and double-track climb brought us out high up on a rocky ridge where a survey marker gave the elevation at around 6,500 feet. Across the short valley Star Peak and the Humboldt Range dappled in shifting cloud shadow set a majestic backdrop as we set out cross country toward Crab Claw and the rocky ridge.

"This is the real free-riding, Chuck said in joking self-mockery as we churned along through the soft loam in our smallest gears. My pedals needed lube pretty bad, and a couple of times my front wheel snow-plowed and I went down before I could free a foot. I let out a little air (I'd pumped to 50psi before we left) and soon enough had the knack.

The typical problem with mountain biking in Nevada is this: there are very few loop rides. Every canyon has a road that goes up a ways, maybe quite a ways, but it's rarely easy to connect up the canyons. Ridges in Nevada tend toward the formidable. So unless you're willing to push for an hour or two....

In the Trinities, you don't have this problem. The range is low and congenial, mushy even. Plus, the ridges offer rock gardens, puzzles for pedalers in search of tables and drops. Chuck can do that trials move where you lock brakes and hop around. I guess you would, too, if you'd ridden around here 17 years.

We circled every outcropping a time or two looking for juicy spots, gradually meandering down-ridge.

Soon enough, we cashed our altitude out down into the next drainage over, finding ourselves opposite and just up-hill of a bunch of grazing cattle.

Blaine considered. The cattle probably belonged to his in-laws, who were at that very moment getting up a BBQ Blaine would eat at later. "I'm out here running hundreds of dollars off their beef, and they're back home making barbeque for me."

"We gotta head 'em off," someone said, "Or we'll chase 'em all the way out of the valley."

"Cowboy up," someone else said, and we were off full on down the sandy drainage and the little trails alongside it.

The cows moved out, led by a rough-looking old bull with deranged horns and a wild look in its bloodshot eye. Blaine and Chuck got around the herd, but ol' deranged horn kept a'comin,' and they had no choice but to ride aside as the herd poured down out of the canyon and Kirk and I came up from the other side. Oh well, we tried.

Settling down on sun-warmed rocks we ate and waited for the herd to calm. Blaine's tire went flat so we fixed that. The day had warmed nicely and the rocks offered a wee bit of lee from a still-chilly breeze.

Heading on down we found more rock gardens to bounce through but mostly stuck to the sandy drainage. Coming out of a sharp elbow bend we startled a pretty large herd of antelope, maybe twenty head, including a youngster who ran right past us, 30 feet away, to get back to the herd.

Next came the best part saved for last, the long singletrack run-in down the mouth of Black Canyon back to the trucks. Big-ringing singletrack, feeling almost feline, legs pushing, pulling, a big kitty kneading an earthen udder.

"Now THAT's the way to end a ride," Blaine said. While not "35 miles of singletrack" the day had had its moments. And for my 50 cents, even mashing over the ridges in the soft stuff has a certain charm. There's something neat about being able to just take off and ride anywhere you want to go. Not to mention getting to do a loop with smiley singletrack on either end.

We dressed and headed back, Blaine and Kirk toward Lovelock, Chuck and I on the old Victory Hwy out past the pretty new Rock Canyon Estates development ("complete homes with land from $60,000") to Rye Patch store for Wavy Lays and fountain pop, another tasty feast earned well by physical feats.

And Chuck definitely got fifth. No one said anything about it; no one had to. I'm sure even Chuck would have agreed had the topic come up.

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