24 Hours of bikes and photos

Well, we’re here.  California, that is.  We’ve made it to the former Golden State (I say former because there’s so much talk of California being a failed state; apparently their experiment with direct democracy has allowed the citizens of this state to vote themselves lots of government services while simultaneously voting to not pay for those services, hence Cali’s truly horrendous economy).  Golden or not in the political/intellectual sphere, it sure is a pretty place.  I’ll be shooting lots of photos, given the time.

I haven’t had time yet here to go out and find some good photo ops.  But on our way from Colorado, we stopped at the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo mountain bike race in Tucson, AZ, where I both raced my bike and took some photographs.  The race was really fun – our team had a few issues of the mechanical sort and thus we failed to place on the podium.  I guess maybe I should have done pre-race checks like I do professionally, but when I’m working, I’m working, and when I’m playing, well, I don’t want to work.  So I let everyone take care of their own bikes.

The photographs went a bit better than the race did.  Here they are for your enjoyment:

On the way to Tucson, we camped for a night at Elephant Butte State Park in New Mexico. This was at the break of dawn, looking over EB Res.

Another sunrise, this time at the race venue 30 miles outside of Tucson. Looks like a reverse question mark to me...

Sunrise on these boulders made for a colorful scene.

Didn't we see this same guy, in the same get-up, on the same bike, last year?

See all that cactus? Picture an entire 16-mile loop lined tightly with that stuff. Then picture riding it for 24 hours. No, really, it was fun!

More cactus, more trail, more nighttime fun.

Over the rock drop at night.

As always, more photos of more places in higher-quality formats are available for your perusal at www.panoramio.com/user/joeydurango , if you’d be so inclined.  Thanks and check back soon for Cali updates! -Joey

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