The day I’d been anticipating with a healthy mixture of fear and dread finally arrived. One thing I know about myself is I am very goal oriented. If I have something to strive for, I put maximum effort into whatever it takes to reach that goal. My current goal is to learn to ride off road well enough to get me through the four thousand plus miles of rugged outback terrain in the Australian Property Centre rally in late July.

Somewhere along the way, I got it in my head that if entered a desert race, I’d be forced to learn how to go fast, how to make quick decisions on the dirt bike, if my months of cardio and physical training were enough to give me the endurance and stamina to finish a somewhat grueling off road race, and if I was any good at racing at all.

I raced my first US Desert Racing race on Sunday February 5th. Here is the little video I made to tell the story of my conquest:

I finished. Not well, but at least I finished. As I sat in line with the other Senior One Beginners waiting for the green flag to drop, every instinct told me to get the hell out of there. When the flag dropped, I fully expected to be left behind in a cloud of dust, which I pretty much was. But then I realized that I was actually keeping up with some of my fellow Seniors! The guy next to me sucked at racing just as much as I did. As soon as I realized this, I instantly started having fun.

The best thing about a race is there will never be traffic coming at you from the other direction,, the only traffic I had to contend with was the really good racers lapping me about three laps in. I moved out of their way, and enjoyed pushing my personal limts; sliding harder than I ever had through the turns, and even jumping my bike a bit. I managed four laps in an hour and sixteen minutes. My first lap took twenty one minutes. The number one racer finished his first lap in just thirteen. I have no idea how the hell he managed that.

I probably will never have any idea what it is like to be that fast.

As the video shows, I am pretty much a shit racer. Cyril Despres and the rest have nothing to fear from this mid-life crisis suffering Frenchy fool. Neither do the rest of the USDR racers. But it was fun, and I have already signed up for Round Two on March 11th.

My goal for Round Two? I am shooting for a top eighty finish.

During my forty-two orbits around the sun I’ve been fortunate enough to ride a bunch of different street bikes to a bunch of different places.

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“What a perfect night! The stars are so bright!”

Fiona was right, the stars were bright. It was a perfect night, the night before my birthday, just me and my lovely fiancee out in the middle of Jawbone Canyon OHV park, surrounded by rolling hills. We sat in front of the fire and watched the stars a while, noticing one that was particularly bright.

Then we noticed that particularly bright star was moving in a peculiar fashion, almost as if it was slowly coming down a mountain. It dawned on us that this star was in fact coming down the mountain, because this star was in fact a miners helmet light attached to… someone walking down the mountain path directly toward our little Mobile Desert Assault Base Camp.

Within minutes this strange, mountain climbing dude was standing in the middle of our camp.

“Shit! What a long way down!” he started. “My dog ran away and my truck is stuck up at the top… you know that cabin up there? Yeah, well I got a flat and then I had to walk all this way down and…”

And? And then, with no further explanation, he turned and marched out of our camp towards the main road, never to be seen again.

As the miners light disappeared in the distance, we both looked at each other, wordlessly saying, “What the hell just happened here?” Didn’t get much sleep that night.

Spent my birthday doing my second favorite thing in the world:

Later that day, my good friend Keith, aka Unleaded from the Great Unsponsored Nova Scotia Expedition and his son stopped by to help me and Fiona celebrate my forty-second year on the planet.

We shared the story of the mysterious mountain man. Keith immediately wanted to ride to the summit to see if we could find the dog, the truck, the cabin or anything at all.

Here is a video of our Ride to the Summit:

No luck finding mountain man, but the junkyard at the summit was pretty impressive!

Without a doubt, my APC Rally off-road riding training is coming along nicely, and of course, this was the Best Birthday Ever!

For my 42nd birthday, Fiona and I will be celebrating by riding some new desert trails. What better way to creep closer to the AARP?

I’m not even sure if my SPOT tracker still works, but I will have it on in case we need to call for help!

Track our progress here: http://bit.ly/j7IXer

If the track stops for a long, long time, it probably means we’re at the bottom of a mine shaft somewhere.

It’s beeeen such a loooong time….

Yeah, that’s definitely one of my favorite Boston songs, and also should be the subtitle for this blog. Some people on the Adventure Rider forum started saying that my silence must indicate that I realized that the Australian Property Center Rally was more than I could handle, and I must have taken up crochet instead.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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