Searing heat, driving rainstorms, hostile rattlesnakes, and nearly 90,000 feet of grueling elevation gain along steep, rocky trail are just a few of the challenges in what is billed as the world’s longest singletrack mountain bike race.

Finishing the 750-mile Arizona Trail Race is an impressive feat for bikers on two wheels.

Bend’s Jack Mahler completed the race on just one.

Mahler, 23, became the first unicyclist ever to finish the Arizona Trail Race when on May 8 he reached the Arizona-Utah border just north of the Grand Canyon. His official time was 23 days, 1 hour, 49 minutes, though he bypassed about 50 miles of the trail due to a snowstorm that rendered the path impossible to ride or hike.

“A lot of people think of Arizona as flat desert,” Mahler says. “The Arizona Trail actually goes along the spine of five different mountain ranges. Up to 40 percent of the race is hike-a-bike. For me, it might have been more because I didn’t have any gears to shift into.”

The south end of the trail starts at the Arizona-Mexico border and passes through the Huachuca Mountains, the Santa Rita Mountains, Saguaro National Park, the Catalina Mountains near Tucson, the Tortilla Mountains, and then skirts Phoenix and heads into the Mazatzal Mountains. From there, the rugged trail continues through Flagstaff and Grand Canyon National Park, and it ends at Stateline Campground at the Utah border.

Neil Beltchenko, of Crested Butte, Colorado, won the seventh annual race on his mountain bike and set a record of 6 days, 12 hours, 28 minutes. Of the 39 riders who started the race, only 23 finished. (Bend’s Alice Drobna was the fastest woman in the race last year, finishing in nine days, 13 hours, 53 minutes on a singlespeed mountain bike.)

Mahler says his main goal was to finish, and to push himself to ride as many miles as possible each day. After the second day he rode the trail mostly solo because the two-wheeled bikers had surged far ahead.

“It’s kind of hard when you’re out there on your own,” Mahler says.

The race included a 24-mile stretch during which Mahler and the other participants, all self-supported, had to strap their bikes (or unicycle) to their backpacks while descending the south rim of the Grand Canyon some 4,500 feet and then climbing up the north rim about 5,000 feet.

“You’re just immersed in this giant canyon that puts you on a new scale,” Mahler says. “It’s just so massive. That was the section that made me stop and actually appreciate the scenery. The sections before that I was kind of just grinding out the miles.”

Mahler — who graduated from Redmond High School and is in the forestry program at Central Oregon Community College but is currently taking a break from school — began road bike racing in his teens. At 16, he started unicycling after watching online videos, calling it a “random hobby that I decided to pick up.” He was frustrated with how difficult it was at first, so he put the unicycle away for a couple of months. When he tried it again, something clicked. He was able to ride significant distances, and he began riding mountain bike trails near Bend and his parents’ home in Tumalo.

Eventually, he advanced to multiday trips of 20 miles or more.

Unicycles have one handlebar extending out from the saddle with a hand brake.

“You have to be tense but fluid,” Mahler says of riding a unicycle. “You want to be flexing your core but you have to contort your upper body, because that’s how you turn. It put more pressure on my upper back with the weight of the backpack.”

Looking for something to challenge his unicycling ability and with a burning desire to explore new places on his unicycle, Mahler decided to enter the Arizona Trail Race. An experienced backpacker, he was familiar with much of the gear he would need.

His unicycle weighs 16 pounds, compared with the approximate 30-pound weight of the typical mountain bike used in the race. Mahler says he was able to keep his backpack weight to 25 pounds at a minimum and 40 pounds at maximum, depending on the amount of food and water he was carrying. He also attached some of his gear to a small rack on the back of the unicycle.

He replenished his food supply every couple of days in towns or at gas station convenience stores. The longest stretches without places to stop for food were about 100 miles, so he was forced to carry three or four days worth of food through a couple of sections.

“Water was an issue in some places, but I usually found a water source at least once a day,” Mahler says. “A couple sections I had to carry a lot of water because it was about 95 degrees outside and I was in the sun all day. I was consuming about two gallons a day.”

Mahler filtered water he took from metal tanks for cattle and stock ponds.

For camping at night, he would find a spot just a few feet off the trail before dark, employing a bivouac with a sleeping bag and foam pad. Daytime temperatures during the first couple of weeks of the race were as high as 95 degrees, but after day 15, rain poured for nearly three days straight, Mahler recalls. During those nights he would set up a pup tent, which helped shed the rain and avoid condensation.

About 90 percent of the Arizona Trail Race route is unpaved, and 70 percent is on singletrack, according to Mahler. On those few occasions when he would encounter motorists or other cyclists on roads, the one-wheeled wonder received a wide range of comments and questions.

“Some people are just so surprised that they don’t say anything,” Mahler recalls. “They just stare at me. Road bikers would sometimes not even give me a second glance. But people were really friendly.”

Aside from the Grand Canyon, a memorable section of the course for Mahler was the 25-mile, 6,000-foot road climb from Tucson into the Catalina Mountains.

“From there you go onto Oracle Ridge, which is one of the most technical sections of the trail,” Mahler says. “You go up to 9,000 feet and start down the ridge, and you drop down to under 3,000 feet. It’s all off-camber, rocky singletrack trail. There are sections that no one will ride, even on a full-suspension mountain bike.”

Participants in the Arizona Trail Race carried GPS trackers to show precisely where they were at all times along the route and to verify their finishing times on the website trackleaders.com/aztr16.php.

Mahler observed lots of wildlife during his 23 days across Arizona, including a variety of reptiles. He says he saw three rattlesnakes, including one that was coiled and rattled at him, and many Gila monsters — foot-long, black-and-orange lizards.

“They hang out on the trail, and when they see you, they slowly waddle away,” Mahler says.

He calls reaching the finish at the Arizona-Utah border “a big relief.” But he is already planning his next adventure.

“I think it might be a on a bike, though, on two wheels,” Mahler says. “I feel like I could get burned out on the unicycling, just because it’s so mentally and physically exhausting. I want to keep unicycling as a fun activity I can do, without having to kill myself on long-distance trails.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0318,

mmorical@bendbulletin.com