Mar 20, 2011

AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - Highline and High on the Hog in Sedona

Day four of AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - Highline and High on the Hog in Sedona.
After crushing down some pretty hard chunk, today was all about slicing up some nice red slick rawk in Sedona.

I met up with Tim and Gary over at Durtgurls house at 6:30 am and we carpooled up to Sedona, where we met up with the other flingers at the IGA Supermarket.

We had a pretty big group, the plan was to ride Highline and High on the Hog. I brought my little bike today, which my legs thanked me for. The pedal up Highline was super easy thanks to pedaling a bike that weighs 9 lbs lighter than my utter one.
Coming down was pretty dang fun on it to, but obviously I dialed back the aggressiveness a bunch because the tires were skinnier (less sticky) and not enough burly travel.

Both trails were in primo condition and the temps were perfect for riding. A little breezy up there though.

Our five hour tour was led by Zul and a couple other locals who are outstanding riders. Local knowledge is good to know. The best part of the ride was heading back around the eastside High on the Hog back to Chicken Point instead of heading west around the housing development.

Here is a vid of the day:


Mar 18, 2011

AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - National/Holbert on South Mountain

Day three of AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - National/Holbert on South Mountain.
Today was another gnarlicious beatdown on Somo, as the Flingers met up the Pima Canyon Lot at 9:00 to go pedal some of the best South Mountain has to offer.

I hung with Maadjuergers group, but I had no real intention of doing portions of his ride, one because I new my legs would be tired from the days before, two I wanted to have fun in Sedona the next day. I think it is safe to say that I was easily on the heaviest bike, so I was going no where fast.

The group today consisted of Tor-y-Fol from the U.K., Chuckie33 from Mississippi, Marky-mark-and-the-funky-lunch from Chicago, CTuttle from Moab, Maad, Dgangi, Theorem all from PHX and myself.

Basically the route I did was up National and down Holbert, back up the road and return via National. A few utter crazies threw a few more punishing miles in there.


Here is a vid of the day:



Bug Spring & La Milagrosa (Tuscon, AZ) AZSF 3/17/11

AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) Day Two – Bug Spring/La Milagrosa (Tucson)
Tor-y-Fol from the U.K. rolled on over to my house about 6:30 am, and we loaded up the bikes into my car for a two hour drive down to Tucson.

From there we met up with the other AZ Flingers (Ben-Jamin from Minnesota, Chuckie33 from Mississippi, Magro from PHX, Mad Max from Tucson, Steve from Tucson, Evil Patrick from Tucson and a few utter riders) at the usual meetup spot: Le Buzz.
We dropped off a couple cars at the usual spot at the bottom of Millie (Off of Snyder Rd - Corner of De Suzenu/Horsehead Rd.) and then we shuttled up to the top of Bug Spring trailhead.

I think we started the hike-a-bike out of the parking lot at 10:00.

I rolled this trail a month earlier, and there were patches of snow then, but none now. It was kinda warm out, but the breeze kept us from over heating.
We weren’t riding terribly fast, but the stops were short, so we made it to Prison Camp in about 1.5 hours. Bugs trail rawks.

Mad Max stashed some much necessary water at the beginning of Millie, so we filled our camelbaks, and we were off again to slay some gnar.

On the hike-a-bike up to the saddle on Millie, I dropped my sunglasses and since nobody behind me saw them on the trail, I figured it was fruitless to go back down to find ‘em. That meant heading down the trail with no eye protection. Oddly enough about 5 miles down Tor-y-Fol found a pair of cheap/nasty sunglasses that just so happened to colored silver, just like the ones I lost. (I ended up using there glasses all weekend.)

I had a little elbow dab on the ‘waterfall’, as I opted for the easy line to the left. No style points, but I got down without much thrashing.
The rest of the trail was a dream, but I was sufficiently fatigued when we got back to the car at the bottom around 3:00.

Here is a little vid of the day:


And here is an interactive Google Earth Tour of Bugs/Millie:

Mar 16, 2011

Hawes AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) Kickoff Ride


Here is the video for the kick off ride for the AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling)

We all met up at the Walgreens at the corner of Thomas and Power in Mesa about 5:00.

I don't ride Hawes all that often, but our 12.4 mile loop took us on a new (to me) trail know by the locals as TRW.

It was a really incredible sunset.





Here is the video of the 2.5 hour ride:




And here is an interactive Google Earth map of the area:



Hat tip to AZFreeskier for the GPS tracks and video soundtrack.