Arizona Mountain Bike Ride #3: Black Canyon Trail

Black Canyon Trail, Black Canyon City Trailhead



Nice singletrack above the New River



There's something like 65 miles of trail out here!



Wendy being a real trooper. Still smiling even though she crashed into a patch of cholla cactus and had a handful of thorns. It was her first get off in three days of riding unfamiliar trails. Not bad!

March, 2010, Arizona Bike and Hike Trip

March 14th, 2010, Tucson AZ Mountain Bike Ride

On the 12th of March, my girlfriend Wendy and I packed up the Subaru wagon and headed south to Arizona for a week of hiking and mountain biking in Tucson and Phoenix. We left Boulder at 8 P.M. and arrived in Tucson at 10 A.M. the next morning.

After visiting with friends Saturday evening and Sunday morning, we headed up to the Catalina Mountains and rode the 50 Year Trail. We parked at the east end of Golder Rd and headed north on nice smooth singletrack that twisted and turned through the saguaro, cholla and ocotillo. As the trail climbed gradually it gained in its difficulty level. As we reached the northern end of the trail, we were riding up and down narrow trails that were deeply embedded, "The Chutes", in the bentonite clay soil. Thankfully it was dry.

The weather was fantastic, a nice 60 degrees with warm sunshine. Just what the doctor ordered for two winter weary Coloradoans.

From the north end of the trail, we retraced our route back to the car. All in all, we rode for a little over two hours. A nice warm up ride.

 

March 15th, 2010, Cave Creek, AZ Hike

On Monday, we headed over to the Cave Creek Recreation Area in north western Phoenix for a hike with Malmsey the Wonder Mutt.

It was another beautiful March day in the desert, 75 degrees and sunny. As you can see, the saguaros were huge.

 

March 16th, 2010, Phoenix Mountain Parks Bike Ride

On Tuesday, we rode the 100 Trail in the Phoenix Mountain Parks.

We started the ride at eastern end of

trail #100

at Tatum Rd. and rode west to the Dreamy Draw trailhead. After a lunch stop we turned around and rode back, but instead of retracing our steps,, we detoured to the north on a nice singeltrack, which took us up near the 40th street trailhead where we then rode south and picked up #100 and took it back to Tatum Rd.

 

The ride was rocky but not very technical. Just a lot of loose rocky double track. There were a couple of good climbs on the western end that made the ride worthwhile. That and the unnamed singletrack.

 

I definitely recommend a good full suspension bike on this ride.

Snow Commute

Thursday evening's ride home turned into a bit of an adventure. The morning was cold but dry so I headed out on my commuter bike, an old Mongoose Team SX carbon mountain bike, shown here with summer slicks. The weather forecast, however, was for possible snow showers in the evening.

The ride is only 2.5 miles on bike paths, access and residential roads so I usually just ride in my street clothes. This was OK for the morning ride but was a poor choice for the evening ride, which ended up being very snowy. It was snowing so hard it was sticking to the front of my body. I was wearing a good weather proof jacket and gloves so I was fine on top but I had cotton pants on with no foal weather protection. Within a mile my pants were completely soaked through on my thighs. Fortunately the ride is so short I only had to deal with it for ten minutes or so. With such a short commute I can overlook the weather to some extent, but I still think I'll dig out my Gore-Tex pants the next time the forecast calls for any precipitation.

Chilly Ride

My first morning bicycle commute in a few months was a chilly one. 15 degrees when I left the house. At least the sun was shinning brightly and the winds were calm. All in all, not a bad little ride.

Initial blog post

This blog will be for, well you know, what ever I want it to be for. Mostly I'll post write-ups and pictures of my various trips and adventures. I can't promise I'll totally avoid political rants, but that's not really my style, so chances are you won't be seeing too much of that here.

More to come later!