Canyon De Chelly

My brother Dan and I planned to ride along the rim of magnificent Canyon de Chelly on Sunday morning. We spent Saturday afternoon and early evening driving and photographing a century route I've planned for July. After our explorations, we spent that night at the picturesque and comfortable Thunderbird Lodge, adjacent to the Monument. We carbo-loaded on Navajo tacos and Navajo stew.

When Sunday morning dawned, mostly clear, the temperature was 38 degrees. We knew we had to ride early, because there was a prediction for thundershowers later in the day. Indeed, the forecast for the day before was the same, and the skies had opened up - good thing we were in the car at the time, headed to our accommodations.

This morning, as we slowly stirred our ancient bones, the outside air began to warm. Suited up, we consumed some energy bars and trail mix. By the time we set off, the temperature seemed to have soared - we left arm and leg warmers and jackets in our room.

It felt good to challenge ourselves. At first, we gasped for breath as we climbed up from about 5,500 feet above sea level along the rim of the canyon, not surprising as we hadn't much of a warm-up, and we'd come from sea level two day earlier.

Although the sun was warm, the still-cold air we sucked in made our lungs hurt. Yet soon enough we warmed to our task, riding without discomfort.

Our 15 mile jaunt took us up gradual grades about 1,500 feet. We stopped at some of the impressive overlooks to view the massive, red sandstone cliffs, as well as the ruins of several cliff dwellings, lived in by the Anasazi Indians, who predated the Navajo. The views into the canyon were stunning.

We rode past Navajo residences, with their hogans, which are traditional and round-shaped ceremonial structures. We saw jack rabbits that looked about as large as a medium size dog. A small herd of horses, the stallion, not happy with our presence, crossed the road in front of us. When we stopped to make photos, the stallian snorted and whinnied his orders to the rest of the herd to move away from us - and they did.

Then we stopped to visit Harold Smith, a Navajo who owns and operates the Spider Rock Campground, about ten miles up the rim of the canyon from Thunderbird Lodge. I plan to camp at the campground on my next visit.

We pedaled on, another four miles, to the Spider Rock overlook. Here we found Philip, from Pegosa Springs, Colorado, who had somehow dragged an enormous canvas from his motor home two hundred yards to the overlook - as he had apparently done several times the past few days. He was working on his creation in the warm morning sun. He beautifully captured a sense of the canyon, including the amazing Spider Rock, jutting hundreds of feet up out of the canyon floor.

When we'd finished making some photographs of ourselves perched on the edge of the canyon, we let gravity pull us down to the Thunderbird Lodge. It was time to begin our trip back to Los Angeles, stopping at some beautiful locations along the way.

We would have additional non-cycling related adventures along the route home, but the telling can wait for another time and place.

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

Sometime around 1976, when I must have weighed about 155 pounds or so, I purchased what until now was my finest bike jersey, in terms of material, construction, and fit, if not looks. That would be my "La Grange - Peugeot" team jersey, which I wore for the few races I entered in Southern California, as well a plentitude of training rides over the next few years.

At the conclusion of the La Grange ride each Sunday, part of which went up Nichols Canyon in the Hollywood Hills, Raymond Fouquet would open his La Grange restaurant and serve glasses of ice water to the riders. (I first visited the restaurant, which featured a French "country" cuisine, as a teenager in the company of my family, because my parents enjoyed dinning there and eventually came to know Monsieur Fouquet on a first name basis).

My jersey was made by the Kucharik bike clothing company. Founded by John Kucharik in 1934, the company is still going strong, now run by John Jr. I can remember making the trip from my apartment in the San Fernando Valley, driving south through Los Angeles to the old Kucharik store in the town of Gardena, to order my jersey from the senior Mr. Kucharik.

I've managed to hang onto that jersey, but for many years it no longer fit. I gained too much weight - about 30 pounds - to even attempt to squeeze into the tight jersey's wool/polyester blend.

These days, while it's still a tight fit, just as it was more than three decades ago, I can again wear the La Grange jersey, and it looks good, even if I don't. The Peugeot-inspired graphics are basic, and so is the design of the jersey itself. It's not just vintage, it's classic.

Over the years, I've collected a number of jerseys, some of them commemorating hard-won finishes on organized rides, others coming as gifts. One is covered with lizard graphics, another features a turtle and a snow-covered peak, others have a lion, a frog, cows, and wildflowers. Single or muted colors are rare.

Now I've treated myself to another jersey that is not a gift, nor did I earn it pedaling up to a col in the Alps. Yet it is a jersey that, even if did nothing else, would still commemorate style.

It's a "Club Jersey" made by Rapha. I also ordered a copy of "The Rider," touted by Rapha and others as a seminal work about bike racing.

Is presentation everything? It's certainly part of the fun. Three days after I ordered them, the items arrived in a black box, via Fed Ex. Inside the box, the jersey and the book were wrapped in the ersatz pages of the pink-sheeted Gazzetto dello Sport newspaper. (Note the prominent article titled "Glory Through Suffering," a motto dear to Rapha.) It didn't take long to pull the jersey over my head and check out the fit in the mirror.

The Rapha jersey, like my old Kucharik jersey, is partly made of Merino wool and partly of polyester. It's soft against the skin, far softer than my old La Grange jersey. I want to think the good fit is probably due as much to whittling off 22 pounds I carried eight years ago, as it is to the jersey's race cut. (For more details about Rapha jerseys, see a couple of my posts back for a look at the "Country Jersey.")

I don't think I'd have believed, if someone had suggested it in 1976, that I'd still be riding a bike at my age, and that I'd be capable of riding one hundred hilly miles in a day. True, I'm not as fast as I was 30+ years ago, yet I can still wear the same jersey. The struggle over the years hasn't been with staying physically fit as much as it has been making a commitment to keep my intake of food down. And maybe that's reason enough to treat myself to a good jersey.