![\"SteveBackFlips\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mountainbikebill.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/SteveBackFlips.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSo I know Steve has been indeed working on said tricks, but not whining about no riding and bad fitness, that\u2019s just classic Steve sandbagging.<\/p>\n
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Not that Steve and I race up Anderson, but I can count on one hand how many times I have gotten up that trail ahead of Steve so I was expecting to call him all sorts of synonyms for sandbagger on the ride.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 When we left the trailhead it was 89 degrees and we have gathered enough brain-boil data over the years to safely assume that there a few spots along the climb that are typically about 5 degrees warmer than the trailhead.\u00a0\u00a0After the initial bit of pavement spinning and the opening section of\u00a0descending the climbing started in earnest.\u00a0\u00a0 What the Hell? Steve\u00a0was already waving me around.\u00a0\u00a0 I declined and decided to just ease up and chit chat some.\u00a0 The kind of idle chit-chat that kills me when I\u2019m struggling as\u00a0it\u00a0demonstrates the person behind is not completely winded and its\u00a0some subliminal pressure to give moving you slug! Steve was talking about the heat.\u00a0\u00a0Now the heat normally kicks my ass, but I had just spent nearly the last month working in the middle-east\u00a0where the daytime highs got up to as high as 108 and the night-time lows got down to maybe 98 at best.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0These low 90\u2019s were just downright refreshing!<\/p>\n
After the next wave around, I took\u00a0Steve up on the offer and he\u00a0slowly started tailing off.\u00a0\u00a0I was feeling pretty strong and the while I was not trying to\u00a0push myself up the hill,\u00a0 I was aware that I\u00a0gears were ticking over easier than they have in the past.\u00a0\u00a0 I\u2019m having and good day and Steve is having a bad time with the climb.<\/p>\n
About a little more than halfway up the climb the trail has been jacked by some four-wheeler folks who got themselves stuck off the trail.\u00a0 There solution was to bring in a dozer and widen and \u201cclean up \u201d the trail.<\/p>\n So I made it up Pistachio Point\u00a0well ahead of Steve and had\u00a0time to document the lack of any fresh Steve\u00a0droppings.<\/p>\n Shortly after arriving Steve was curled up in fetal position and he even had to use the emergency binky that up until now had only been used to taunt the riders behind him.\u00a0 Shortly after this picture was taken the thing fell apart from dry rot after it first only usage.<\/p>\n Once the climbing was done, the tables were turned and life popped back into Steve and he was right back into the airborne routine.\u00a0 I was a completely different story.\u00a0\u00a0 I had not been riding any \u201cwheels off the ground\u201d technical stuff as of late and I had not been out here in a long time.\u00a0\u00a0 All the rocks looked bigger and more menacing while the ruts looked deeper.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n