During the annual Jeep Safari that takes place on Easter weekend in Moab, Utah, seven friends got together to appease the interdimensional Safarians and their unquenchable hunger for Bingos. For 24 hours, they challenged all those who dared to accomplish as many scavenger hunt tasks as they could. Spencer Harding joined the fray, all the while photographing and being part of the winning team at this year’s Sleepless Jeepless Bike Safari. Don’t miss his embedded front-line reportage below…
It was the Friday before Easter weekend of the 60th annual Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah. If you thought there were usually too many Jeeps and side-by-sides rolling around on a normal day, holy shit, were you wrong. I’m at the start of the second annual Sleepless Jeepless Bike Safari, a 24-hour chaotic scavenger hunt filled with silly tasks meant to cross-pollinate the bike world with the “Jeepers.”
I am on a team with my friends Sam, Audrey, and Molly. Not knowing when we’d next have time for a proper meal, the team is making a carb-loaded dinner at Molly’s house – “Dog City” to the locals. The night before, we had a team meeting with a single bullet point on the docket: WIN. While I typically avoid competition like the plague, my teammates’ enthusiasm was infectious. This kind of event is truly choose-your-own-adventure, finding fun at your own pace to enjoy all the whimsy.
With a belly full of gnocchi and excitement, we roll over to the local community center to find the yard littered with bikes ranging from enduro rigs to ramshackle townies. The organizers stare ominously through locked glass windows. Once we are seated, we are handed a bingo card. Evan begins deadpan, rolling the bingo cage and calling out number/letter combos. The other organizers start chanting: “All hail the Safarians! Bless us! Grace us! May we serve you on two wheels!” Slowly, we start to see hands pushing up through the stage as we approach our first bingo. Like pink pitch flowing in reverse, the Safarians emerge from the bingo table to plead for our bingos to satiate their interdimensional hunger. We are handed our manifest – a bingo card filled with tasks – and our quest begins…
Our next check-in is at midnight at a park, where we assume we’ll receive further tasks for the rest of the event, but to say this event is chaotic would be an understatement.
The tasks generally fall into three categories:
- Get Jeepers to do something silly, usually with you, to encourage interaction between the two seemingly opposing groups.
- Feats of cycling strength: long rides, obscure high points, or laps on a prescribed route.
- Crafty activities that can be done at home.
I was surprised by how well-balanced the whole manifest felt – not overly favoring any one group, so everyone could have their own kind of Bike Safari.
We immediately begin digging into our bingo card’s tasks. We boulder around a lifting Jeep without touching the ground (3 pts). Hold hands while bathing in the confluence of two local creeks (2 pts). Eventually we split up to pointsmaxx as much as possible. Molly and Audrey head out for the 30-mile ride to Ken’s Lake to fake an orgasm at Faux Falls (3 pts). Sam and I head up toward “the route,” a 1.1-mile lap on technical singletrack that can be completed as many times as possible in the 24 hours. We find Diego already on his 5th lap of the evening. I’m riding my touring bike and nearly careen off a cliff on my first lap on road slicks. Collectively, Sam and I bang out ten laps before heading toward the midnight meetup.
Most of the event convenes for a party bike ride out to Lions Park, where we sign up for an unknown competition. Our fate is sealed by a spin of the wheel adorned with various challenges. Our team is second to compete, and our spin doles out “Mime falling down a well” – in which I absolutely obliterate the competition. Other challenges include a pie-eating contest, a compliment-off, lullaby karaoke, sock wrestling, and a catwalk contest. As a reward for our participation, we receive our next tasks: a new outer ring on our bingo card. It seems that every six hours at subsequent meetups, we’ll receive an ever-expanding new ring of hell.
At this point we already have double bingo and are feeling quite confident, but the new ring throws things into disarray. We accomplish a few minor tasks on our way back to town, where we agree it’s time for a nap. I know it’s SLEEPLESS, but I’m almost 40 – and jeez, we all needed some rest. After a quick team meeting and some morning planning, we lay down for about two hours before the next meetup at 6 am.
Molly sleeps through her alarm, and I barely make it up after my second snooze. We pile on as many layers as we can – spring has decided to go in reverse, and it’s 35 degrees outside. The meetup is at the local baseball field. I’m greeted by the familiar sound of a large propane stove making camp coffee; any river person will know that blissful noise.
We mill around comparing exploits, only to find out Humjune and Diego haven’t slept and were out riding all night while we rested – and a panic rises in the team. The challenge for this stop: kickball spelling bee. Spell the word correctly and you get a pitch; mess up, and a teammate takes your spot until you kick a home run to the grass. I fumble “ungulate,” but Audrey clinches the win with “succession.” We receive our new ring of hell, and the bingo card exponentially expands. We make a move toward Gilly’s for breakfast burritos and a pointsmaxxing planning sesh. The scale at which the challenge expanded in those six hours was mind-boggling – or maybe it was just sleep deprivation.
We stare at the expanding ring of possible challenges and decide to split up again. Sam and I will knock out several tasks with a ride up the Moab Rim Trail and Captain Ahab. Audrey and Molly head up toward Sand Flats to charm the Jeepers and accomplish as many tasks as possible out that way.
Before I know it, I’m sweating my ass off, calves burning, shirtless at 8 am, walking my bike up the Moab Rim amid a running race. Sam is a demon – I watch his small form disappear into the distance. We top out and video chat our teammates from opposite canyon rims (5 pts).
Our next destination is the famous Amasa Back trailhead. Sam recites the shortest chapter of Moby Dick in front of the trailhead porta-potty (5 pts). I set up a lemonade stand (4 pts) with electrolyte powder in Jeep cups for the low, low price of a high five. Sam dresses as Captain Ahab and rides Ahab (4 pts) – don’t miss that Voile peg-leg tech. Already exhausted, I slog behind Sam back to town. It’s barely 10 am.
Back in town, we find Audrey and Molly furiously knocking out crafty tasks before the noon meetup. We rig Sam and his bike to rappel (3 pts) out of their backyard tree, which was surprisingly difficult for a group of experienced ex-climbers.
Noon arrives, and we head toward Moab Cyclery. We’re greeted by stacks of hot dogs and 30-racks of Mountain Dew. The challenge: bike tug-of-war or a hot dog eating contest, with a side of shotgunning as many Mountain Dews as you can for 1 point each. The previous year’s victory was chalked up to the Mountain Dew shotgunning challenge, so our team starts chugging like frat bros. Something switches in Audrey’s brain – and throat – as she demolishes Dew after Dew. I’m usually a soda monster, but the constipation from last night’s gnocchi plus four quickly chugged Dews builds up in my belly, and I feel like I’ll burst from both ends. The next hour is rough. I wander the aisles of City Market trying to be useful to my teammates, but I’m not sure how much gumption I have left. The whole team starts to slow, and we make a concerted effort to finish strong and have fun with these last few hours.
After many trips to the Cyclery’s bathroom, we roll over toward Mill Creek and the famous Potato Salad Hill. Throngs of Jeepers sit watching rigs challenge the steep, ledgy line. By this point, many onlookers have caught onto these weird bikers doing silly, inane tasks – some are amicable, but most find us to be the strangest thing they’ve ever encountered, more because we’re on bikes than because of anything we’re asking them to do.
We got winched over an obstacle (3 pts), power napped (1 pt) and power snacked (3 pts) at the power dam, cooked an egg on a hot Jeep hood (4 pts), kissed a Jeep with red lipstick (3 pts), got five Jeepers to jump with us simultaneously (harder than it sounds), and replaced a rock with a potato on Potato Salad Hill (3 pts).
We rolled back to town for our final tasks as Sam went to bang out a few more laps on the route for last-minute points. We frantically updated our Google Drive with proof of our exploits and double-checked all our bingos. Once we felt confident in our card, we rolled up to Old Town Park.
One final feat of strength awaited: a short-track sprint, culminating in tagging a Safarian. Not wanting to leave any points on the table, I sprinted my heart out on my 28t chainring, only to find myself in a foot race to catch Ethan. After tagging him, I collapsed on the ground, profoundly exhausted.
During the point-tallying process, teams flaunted their weirdest bikinis for the crowd. The Watermelon/NRS strap combo took the crown – truly rigged to flip.
The tallying process was arduous and overly complicated. Molly and Sam used their last brain cells to get everything sorted. We watched intently as the competition tallied their mountain of points, then huddled to compare totals, having been tasked to audit each other’s score sheets. We both revealed a score of 387 – a dead tie. Immediately, we agreed: no audit, we share the win. A proper audit would have taken hours, and we were running on little to no sleep. I’d ridden almost 60 miles, and I’m sure others had ridden further. We appealed to the Safarians for a tie with no audit, which they graciously accepted – ever pleased by our combined nine bingos.
After a champagne shower, Acid Wrench kicked off the afterparty. They came down from Durango for what I was told was Moab’s second-ever punk show. Imagine Amyl and the Sniffers, but everyone is a public defender. Pretty rad, huh? Circle pits broke out (a Moab first?), people crowd-surfed, and Acid Wrench sated every thirsty punk’s unquenched desire for a rowdy show.
You know when people say, “You should have been here ten years ago”? Yeah, well – that’s right now in Moab. There are so many creative and fun events happening thanks to an amazing community. The organizers treat whimsy, debauchery, and absurdity as love languages, and their hearts are bursting. I’ve witnessed many special moments in history with truly captivating communities, and what’s happening in Moab right now is one of those moments. My heart was full, my head was empty, and I was so happy. Thanks to everyone who made the weekend so special.
