Most people I know want to mark milestone birthdays in a meaningful manner. My friend Kara is no exception. For her 40th birthday, she wanted to do a “long ride.” Maybe a 40 mile road ride? Or a 20-ish mile mountain bike ride…which is somewhat equivalent in effort to a 40 mile road ride. Or….something else….well, thanks to my SAT’s (self-appointed trainer, a.k.a. my husband) suggestion, a little group of us ended up doing the AES Picketpost Punisher race to “celebrate” Kara’s birthday.

The Arizona Endurance Series, or AES, is a local “underground” endurance mountain bike race series. As the website says, the AES promotes grassroots, endurance races throughout the state of Arizona. “Underground” simply means that the race is not an official, sanctioned event. There are no fees and no prizes. The challenge is to finish! The AES offers a full calendar of events and most of the events offer 2 to 3 course options. For example, the Picketpost Punisher has 3 options: the A course (or, “Pulverizer”), which is 76 miles long and over 10,000 feet of climbing; the B course (or, “Punisher”), which is 49 miles long and about 7,200 feet of climbing; and the C course (or, “Pansy,” hahaha), which is a measly 22 miles long and about 2,200 feet of climbing.

Guess which option my group chose to ride?

It was actually a pretty fun day. We aimed to be at the Picketpost trailhead near Superior, AZ around 7am because the race started at 7:30am. My SAT initially planned on riding the B course, but changed his mind at the last minute and decided to join the “girl gang” on the C course. Here is the “girl gang” right before starting the race! Kara is on the very left, wearing a little birthday crown. 🙂 (Fun fact #1: Kara and I wore the same mountain biking shorts!)

The C course winds around Picketpost Mountain and includes a section of the Arizona Trail. The scenery is beautiful, with lots of fall colours, cool canyons and lush foliage, all connected by rugged singletrack. Overall, I didn’t find the technical aspect of the ride to be too difficult. There were a handful of spots that I walked, but I was able to ride most of the route successfully, even the last tricky descent with all of the loose rock on the trail. I kept telling myself not to brake too much and to keep looking ahead! My “girl gang” ended up splitting into 2 groups: me, my SAT, and Kara in one group and my other 4 friends in the second group. My group finished in a leisurely 4.5 hours and the other group finished their “social paced” ride in about 6 hours. 🙂

After the ride, we hung out with the other racers and enjoyed all the food we brought to share. I even brought a birthday cake for Kara because you can’t celebrate a birthday without cake! (Fun fact #2: the cake was allergy-friendly for Kara’s sake, i.e., gluten/dairy/soy/nut free and tasted pretty good!)

(Fun fact #3: the race organizer said that the ladies represented well: 9 ladies participated (I think that is the biggest number of women participants in this race?) and all 9 finished. Yay!)

Good day with good friends. However….it’s TOO SOON to say if I will do this again. So, quit asking me, my dear SAT. 😉