R.I.P.

Randy Johnson

September 08 2009  -  April 08 2014

My first blog post is a eulogy for Randy Johnson: my trusted partner for thousands of miles and the better part of five years.
He finally succumbed to old age, but he led a very, very full life, and may even warrant a spot in a museum one day . . . .

Rescue Bike
When we met, he had been sitting for eighteen months.  All his 2008 friends left him behind, and he wore a cascading series of price tags.  Tires and suspension were flat.  Ten meters in to the least welcoming test ride experience I've ever had, I figured out why he had languished for so long: the rear wheel and tire had been badly damaged.

The Ghost
By the time we were in Albuqeurque a few days later at the  Elena Gallegos trails- the heart of my old urban singletrack loop- I had the suspension and fit dialed in & the rear wheel wobble cured.  Knowing the trails so well, it provided a perfect comparison for all the new tech on my bike.
The verdict?
Randy was simply the best I've ever had.  He was a trail-slaying monster.  A madman, he blew me away with his speed, especially in the rough sections.

That was always Randy: the crazier the trail, the trickier and longer the ride, the faster he wanted to go.

I decided he was a man right away, and I was leaning towards some sort of a ghost name, because he seemed haunted, with his calamitous initial assembly & subsequent unwarranted detention.  He was a big, black, intimidating bike.  The shifting on the 3x9 system was proving impossible to dial in, I had three or four flats in as many rides.

Randy's Name
Eventually though, the curse faded and his personality emerged: he always had a knack for coming home just filthy, every ride, even the rides where I'd go with other people and their bikes would somehow be clean.

With my riding style, & the fact that he always had drivetrains in testing, that was inevitable.  But Randy also seemed to enjoy it.
There was also his given name: 69er.  I can't believe any bike company, much less a big corporate one, allowed that name to go to market, and it never even made sense: a 69er would have a 26" front wheel and a 29" rear; Randy was actually a 96er.  Regardless, even with the 69er sticker covered up, the stigma remained and it seemed appropriate to own it instead of hiding from it.
Plus, some of my favorite South Park episodes are the ones about Randy.

Randy Grows Up

The Widgit; Randy chewed through
these like a dog with a bone.

By the spring of 2010, Randy had his name, and he was a 1x.  At the time, there weren't many  bikers running 1x anywhere, much less on the super steep, techy trails in Montana.  It was tough to even find a product.  Struggling with the front chainring eventually led to the Floating Front Chainring.

Randy also had a very progressive cockpit setup for 2010: a 50mm stem, with raked-out suspension, and big bars.  He was tubeless; riding a 69er, you have to, or carry at least two tubes + a patch kit.

He was in a lot of ways one of the most unique bikes in the world.  His frame was a relic of a bygone transitional era by the time I bought him, but it was great, and it was built up with geometry and gear years ahead of his peers, with one of the world's most advanced derailleur prototypes.

Resume at a Glance
With that equipment, he did the 24 Hours of Rapelje, and of Moab.  He conquered trail after trail out here in remote Stillwater County where I'm pretty sure he was the first bike to ever tread.  He slayed the Morrison Jeep trail, maybe the gnarliest, most dangerous descent I've ever ridden in full.  He was with me when I failed him and pulled out of the Butte 100 after 67 miles.
In the Taylor Fork area we startled two adolescent griz shredding a termite-infested log, and another young one only ten feet away in the Deer Creek drainage.  Coyotes, elk, deer, moose, a wolf once, he's seen a lot of animals.  He killed a grouse one night, and a big mouse at Rapelje, also at night.
Once on Iron Mountain a huge badger charged us, and we found ourselves in the middle of a lion screaming match at night near Dead Indian Creek by Limestone.
Curt Gowdy state park in blowing snow, Pueblo Lake State Park (his favorite trail network), many of the 50 Great MT Singletrack rides, from that cool guidebook. . . .

Downtime
Randy then waited patiently, while I spent much of 2011 & all of 2012 overseas, riding rarely.  When I did it was on another bike, my Asian bike Bob: an entry level Gary Fisher bike that came plastered with stickers warning of death if I attempted to ride off road or aggressively.

Teaching English in Bachang, Malaysia, 2012

My Hawker Stand, Jonker Walk Malaysia 2011

Back for more

One of my PE classes, Skudai Malaysia 2012

Still Randy didn't take offense.  He heard stories of what happened to my poor Giant AC Air when I took her to France.  So he waited & was rewarded with a bunch of new gear.
I should have gotten a new bike then.  I knew it, but I couldn't do it.  He in turn rewarded me with one of my best biking summers.

Butter Coffee & Crystal Water
After 15 years of health issues, I am finally getting my fitness back by switching to way less calories, almost no carbs, and butter coffee for breakfast.  By the time we hit Crystal Lake for my last real ride of the fall, things came together for probably my best bike ride ever.  It's world-class flowy, curvy singletrack & I cleaned the uphill in one nice run.  Atop the snowy mountains, we were treated to sections of scree and high alpine plateau punctuated by soft but tall snowbanks we could charge right through.  The views were vintage MT: hundreds of miles of topography, half a dozen separate mountain ranges, four or five distinct storm systems swirling around, sliced apart by swaths of golden sun shining on fields laced with silvery stock ponds.
Going down the loamy, bermy trail topped with snow through a forest that looks just like Endor, it was a run I'll never forget.

Passing of the Baton
Technically Randy's last ride was this spring, in late March.  It was also my first real ride with Kip: my new dog.

We went from the Stillwater River, up over the divide and down to the West Fork of the Bridger Creek draw.  It's all county roads, but conditions were typical winter '13-'14: crazy.  At the bottom of the ride we shared a once-in-a-lifetime moment.  When he caught up to me, his eyes dazzled with this expression- it was pure joy, admiration, excitement, exaltation.  In less than an hour he became the perfect little trail dude.

UPDATE:
I've been slacking, & I haven't properly eulogized Randy, & I"ll be damned if he didn't come back from the dead to haunt again.

Randy's last pic, as he fades into the background for a new generation of Johnson bikers.

It's April 20th (Happy Stoner Easter) as I write this.  I have long since ordered his replacement, but, sixteen days later, I am still awaiting a new bike.
The behavior of Scheels in Billings was inexplicable- it can only have been the curse.  I ordered my Mukluk 2 from them, they took my money, but somehow just never actually ordered the bike.  Only after 12 days and complaining directly to Salsa did I get my money back.
So now I'm driving to South Dakota to buy a bike.  To the Black Hills.  And the bike I'm getting?
It's another black bike.  A jet black Trek no less.
Was Randy just born again???  Is Randy like the Dalai Lama?  Each time he passes away he rises in some bike store out there somewhere, and I'll have to roam the range, carrying a selection of his favorite components, maybe his trusty stem cap, and waiting for a bike to pick it out of a pile of other stem caps.

Friday we got home from an unrelated trip to the Black Hills, a family vacation to Mt. Rushmore; I got a bunch of unexpected good financial news, including a random check from Costco.
It was a check for exactly $69.00!!!
Either Randy is back, or he's spiriting around my life somehow, acting as he always did: his dumbass rear wheel screwing up all the time, but his big front wheel pulling through in the end.

Love you Randy!