A crew that consisted of CactusJoe, Bike=Good, Chongoman, Durtgurl, Daugela, Yuri and I did a ride up Javelina, Mormon Loop and National this morning. I had a really great climbing day the other day, but for some reason, that confidence was spoiled by a skipping my in my favorite gears, poor nutrition the day before (including one too many beers), fatigue from this weeks workouts, and the heat. Don't get me wrong this was an excellent ride, but I wasn't totally on.
I've been having a tough time on the spine of the waterfall, and after about half dozen trips down it, I finally figured out that with my lefty, I need to hit it with much less speed and more control.
I left my camera on the day before, so I had no battery left. However, DurtGurl caught a bunch of really neat shots.
Here's her Vid:
Jun 28, 2008
Jun 14, 2008
Pedaling up Pinal Mt and down Six Shooter, Globe AZ
The heat is here, but that didn't discourage chollaball, Alex, skinnytire and myself from meeting up in Globe, AZ for a little pedal up Pinal Mt, and then down the sweet, sweet trail of Six Shooter. We split from the parking lot at about 8:20, under blue skies. We knew it was gonna be warm, but we also knew there would be nice long periods of shade and cooling from being about 4k vf higher than our starting point.
I did this pedaled this about month and half ago with Paul B., and we did the climb in 3.5 hours, but today with a couple stops along the way we managed to do the climb in 3 hours. Actually chollaball and Alex knocked it out in under 2.5 hours.
Skinnytire gets the guts award today for bringing the 40 lbs of Kona up the hill.
The trails were fast, but after the long climb up, I wasn't seeing the trail all that well. I struggled to track good lines down the trail. Today, we did some sessioning on some of the features on the trail. First tries didn't always meet up with success, but we also didn't get banged up either. I did take a stupid little spill, and cracked my knee cap on sharp rock. No blood, but it did kinda smart. I neglected to bring the bash pads up today. Last time I leave those in the car on this ride.
I got a 100 oz camelbak and sucked nearly the whole thing down on the roll up the hill, so I was outta water for basically the whole ride down. The bummer part about this was that it was getting hotter, and hotter again as we lost elevation. That and I had downed nearly my whole gatorade on the break at the top.
We found a new exit today, down by the windmill, thanks to some other doods that we came across that shuttle to the top of the hill. As hot as it was, I wasn't looking forward to the no momentum riding on the exit that I usually take, especially considering that it was prolly about 95 degrees outta water, and we'd been on the trail for about 5 hours.
Here's a vid of the day:
And for the patient, here's a high res - Six Shooter Ride Quicktime Version (it'll take about 3 or 4 minutes to load up)
I did this pedaled this about month and half ago with Paul B., and we did the climb in 3.5 hours, but today with a couple stops along the way we managed to do the climb in 3 hours. Actually chollaball and Alex knocked it out in under 2.5 hours.
Skinnytire gets the guts award today for bringing the 40 lbs of Kona up the hill.
The trails were fast, but after the long climb up, I wasn't seeing the trail all that well. I struggled to track good lines down the trail. Today, we did some sessioning on some of the features on the trail. First tries didn't always meet up with success, but we also didn't get banged up either. I did take a stupid little spill, and cracked my knee cap on sharp rock. No blood, but it did kinda smart. I neglected to bring the bash pads up today. Last time I leave those in the car on this ride.
I got a 100 oz camelbak and sucked nearly the whole thing down on the roll up the hill, so I was outta water for basically the whole ride down. The bummer part about this was that it was getting hotter, and hotter again as we lost elevation. That and I had downed nearly my whole gatorade on the break at the top.
We found a new exit today, down by the windmill, thanks to some other doods that we came across that shuttle to the top of the hill. As hot as it was, I wasn't looking forward to the no momentum riding on the exit that I usually take, especially considering that it was prolly about 95 degrees outta water, and we'd been on the trail for about 5 hours.
Here's a vid of the day:
And for the patient, here's a high res - Six Shooter Ride Quicktime Version (it'll take about 3 or 4 minutes to load up)
Jun 8, 2008
Riding Prescott, AZ
Got some riding up in Prescott today with a stack of 15 other MTBR riders today. We meet up at a the outa business Chinese restaurant behind Costco at 8:00 and then shuttle our bikes to the other side of town near Granite Basin. Not your ordinary shuttle though, because I think we actually started lower than our ending point. As Dave, Ionmuse, put it; "today is the anti-shuttle".
The temps were nice, and being back into trees again was neato. We kicked off from the parking lot at about 9:00, and from the beginning, the trail numbers became a blur. We basically did a a semi-circle around Prescott. The trails were pretty tame, except we managed to do a lot of climbing.
A few minor hangs up happend, but the we did have a pretty serious crash around mile number 21, where Kennith from Prescott had a high speed crash on a rutted out jeep road. He hid really hard, and bashed up his face and shoulder pretty bad.
At this point, we got back down the Highway, and made some phone calls to see if he could picked up and taken back into town. And this kinda killed the mojo for me and bunch of other riders, so some Helimech, a Prescott local, called in for support, and had is wife pick us for the trip back to our cars. A few hardy soles did manage to complete the full meal deal, but I ended up with about 23 miles and 4,400 vf of climbing.
Anyhow, here's vid of the day and a link for other pics:
And for the patient, here's a high res - Prescott, AZ Ride Quicktime Version (it'll take about 4 or 5 minutes to load up)
The temps were nice, and being back into trees again was neato. We kicked off from the parking lot at about 9:00, and from the beginning, the trail numbers became a blur. We basically did a a semi-circle around Prescott. The trails were pretty tame, except we managed to do a lot of climbing.
A few minor hangs up happend, but the we did have a pretty serious crash around mile number 21, where Kennith from Prescott had a high speed crash on a rutted out jeep road. He hid really hard, and bashed up his face and shoulder pretty bad.
At this point, we got back down the Highway, and made some phone calls to see if he could picked up and taken back into town. And this kinda killed the mojo for me and bunch of other riders, so some Helimech, a Prescott local, called in for support, and had is wife pick us for the trip back to our cars. A few hardy soles did manage to complete the full meal deal, but I ended up with about 23 miles and 4,400 vf of climbing.
Anyhow, here's vid of the day and a link for other pics:
And for the patient, here's a high res - Prescott, AZ Ride Quicktime Version (it'll take about 4 or 5 minutes to load up)
May 31, 2008
Alta: South Mountain - Phoenix Mountain Biking
A group of MTBR riders meet up at 7:00 for a little ride up and down and up and down Alta this morning. As I've written before (here and here) this is a pretty sketchy trail . We started our ride at the San Juan - Telegraph Pass Rd Gate, which was fine, but I was oblivious to the fact that the gate was open. Meaning we could've started the ride at the end of San Juan Rd. This is nice, cuz you finish the ride with a downhill.
We've put off the heat so far this year, but I think all this coolness came to an end today. It is time to acclimated to riding in the heat.
The ride up was super fast, and it was nice to be on top. Except there was no breeze, and no shade.
The ride across the ridge over to the other pass pretty uber fun.
The ride off the second pass got turned a little sour about 2 minutes into the ride down, as NoelG took nasty fall on a switchback. His hand was really messed up. He kept calm, knowing his hand might be broken. And here's a look at his xrays. We still had a lot of riding down, so this wasn't a good place to have a hand out of commission. I didn't get to see him off, cuz I had my first flat tire in about year to tend to. Some how, I tore a whole at the base of the valve stem.
This wasn't the only flat, as DurtGurl, who was running tubeless went totally flat too. Forcing her to drop a tube in. The only problem was that her replacement tube freakin' a nasty whole in it. And I had used my spare. Her patch didn't take, so Dgangi road back up the trail and hooked her up with a spare.
From here, we made our was back down to the end of San Juan road. We then road National back to the other side of the hill. From here half the group jumped on the Bajada Trail, and the others (myself included) took the road back to the car.
Heal up Noel!
With all the carnage and flat tires, I missed some really choose vid shots, but here is vid of the day:
And for the patient, here's a high res - Alta Trail Ride Quicktime Version (it'll take about 4 or 5 minutes to load up)
We've put off the heat so far this year, but I think all this coolness came to an end today. It is time to acclimated to riding in the heat.
The ride up was super fast, and it was nice to be on top. Except there was no breeze, and no shade.
The ride across the ridge over to the other pass pretty uber fun.
The ride off the second pass got turned a little sour about 2 minutes into the ride down, as NoelG took nasty fall on a switchback. His hand was really messed up. He kept calm, knowing his hand might be broken. And here's a look at his xrays. We still had a lot of riding down, so this wasn't a good place to have a hand out of commission. I didn't get to see him off, cuz I had my first flat tire in about year to tend to. Some how, I tore a whole at the base of the valve stem.
This wasn't the only flat, as DurtGurl, who was running tubeless went totally flat too. Forcing her to drop a tube in. The only problem was that her replacement tube freakin' a nasty whole in it. And I had used my spare. Her patch didn't take, so Dgangi road back up the trail and hooked her up with a spare.
From here, we made our was back down to the end of San Juan road. We then road National back to the other side of the hill. From here half the group jumped on the Bajada Trail, and the others (myself included) took the road back to the car.
Heal up Noel!
With all the carnage and flat tires, I missed some really choose vid shots, but here is vid of the day:
And for the patient, here's a high res - Alta Trail Ride Quicktime Version (it'll take about 4 or 5 minutes to load up)
May 25, 2008
Boyce Thompson Arboretum: Superior, Arizona
My wife, two doggies and I split from the house at about 10:00 for the Boyce Thompson Arboretum, located about 3 miles before the town of Superior, AZ. The drive from our house, in Phoenix, took about an hour. This was a later start than you can usually get away with in Arizona this close to the end of May, but today was an exception. The skies were clear, but the temp was a somewhere in the low 80s.
I've been wanting to check this place out after my prior few trips up to Globe, AZ for some mountain biking. That, and I knew my wife would really dig the place.
I was really surprised on how big maintained grounds are. Not big time mileage, but I'd say the loop we walked around, including the High Trail, was around 1.5 miles. Filled with manicured beds that transitioned to natural landscape. We kinda lucked out, because being it was late in the year, the blossoms were still out.
Anycow, Here are a few special pics my wife took and a vid I put together.
I've been wanting to check this place out after my prior few trips up to Globe, AZ for some mountain biking. That, and I knew my wife would really dig the place.
I was really surprised on how big maintained grounds are. Not big time mileage, but I'd say the loop we walked around, including the High Trail, was around 1.5 miles. Filled with manicured beds that transitioned to natural landscape. We kinda lucked out, because being it was late in the year, the blossoms were still out.
Anycow, Here are a few special pics my wife took and a vid I put together.
May 24, 2008
Mormon Trail: South Mountain - Phoenix, AZ
I don't think of Phoenix as having extreme weather, but I say this last week was interesting. It was a record setting 110 degrees on Monday (I think Tuesday too), and then a day later the high was around 55 degrees. We had a pretty good dump of much needed rain yesterday and this morning was kinda wet, gray and cool. Very comfortable conditions.
Chongoman and I met up met up at the Ramadas at the Pima Canyon Parking lot for a little roll up Mormon Loop and bashfest down Mormon Trail.
We originally plan to hit Mormon Trail (proper), but his for was leaking air. Once we got up to the top of Mormon Loop, I suggested we exit stage right down Mormon Trail. I was thinking he could just walk down the big drop sections. But the kidz got mad skillz, he road darn near the whole thing on hardtail 29r while a malfunctioning fork.
I didn't vid much today, and Chongoman snapped a few pics. And he just happened to be snapping a pic when I was going over the handle bars. Drat!
Here's the pic of me eating it!
Anycow here are few pics of Chongoman:
Here are a couple pics of me rolling a techy section:
Chongoman and I met up met up at the Ramadas at the Pima Canyon Parking lot for a little roll up Mormon Loop and bashfest down Mormon Trail.
We originally plan to hit Mormon Trail (proper), but his for was leaking air. Once we got up to the top of Mormon Loop, I suggested we exit stage right down Mormon Trail. I was thinking he could just walk down the big drop sections. But the kidz got mad skillz, he road darn near the whole thing on hardtail 29r while a malfunctioning fork.
I didn't vid much today, and Chongoman snapped a few pics. And he just happened to be snapping a pic when I was going over the handle bars. Drat!
Here's the pic of me eating it!
Anycow here are few pics of Chongoman:
Here are a couple pics of me rolling a techy section:
May 16, 2008
Six Shooter / Ice House Canyons - Pinal Mountain
It’s been a pretty busy spring, so I took sanity check day off, and met up with a few other MTBR riders for some shuttling on Pinal Mt. I did this ride the first time a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t wait to get back up there.
I met up with DrinkRideEat (Jamie), his buddy Ted, and Honemastert (Tim) at 9:00. We drove to the top of the hill, and when we got to Ferndell, it was kinda chilly. A good chilly. Our first run was down Six Shooter, since I knew the path down and we also new some other MTBR riders had done a little maintenance on it. And boy, did they do some work. The kickers were an absolute hoot. We blasted down the hill, but behind me, Tim had pretty bad fall. A few flesh wounds, but the worst at the time was his brake rotor was bent outta shape. Once we all got back together at the comfy couch rock – creek crossing, I pulled out my pliers so Time could bend his rotor back into shape. That's when we notices his rear triangle on his frame had a broke clear through. The break was about an inch above the weld. Bummer dood! Jamie pulled out his first aid tape and Tim did a few wraps to secure it. Luckily we were about 100 yards away from the trail crossing a road Tim could safely take back down to the cars. He got some pretty good riding in, but it totally sucked he was outta commission. Ted, Jaime and I continued down Check Dam Trail and Toll Road. I had blown a couple of turns, but I pretty much remembered the route out.
I owe Tim big time for this one, cuz he shuttled us back up to the top of the hill for run number two. This time, we decided to head down Icehouse Canyon. I hadn’t heard much beta on the trail conditions, other than I heard it was pretty steep and it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. It was steeper, and the leaves and pine needle did obscure the trail so much on the we actually blew right by a switchback. The rest of the forest portion of the trail was awesome, except for the twigs on the trail. I was a little concerned about this cuz I broke a spoke on the first run down Six Shooter. We weren't entirely sure if we were on the proper route down, because the trail turned into a gnarly jeep road. After looking at the map for a few minutes to make sure we didn’t miss a recent turn, we threw our hands up in the air, and continued down the road. From there we ran into CCC picnic area and found the traversing trail that connected us back into Check Dam and Toll Road.
We got back down to the cars about 4:30, and then we scratched our heads on how to get back up to the stranded cars at the top with out scratching Jamie’s truck or damaging our bikes. Since we didn’t have blankets or any other padding, throwing the front wheel over the upright tailgate wasn’t an option. We ended up pulling every bungee cord, strap and rope Jamie had and secured things the best we could.
It was 6:00 by the time I got my car back down into city of Globe, and exhausted and hungry I headed for Sonic for some sustenance. It was a way longer day than I had planned on, and it was getting late, but running late really was a an awesome reward, because I gotta witness the sun going down while passing thru Devils Canyon and Superior. I’m easily amused, but the lighting at that time was some beautiful, especially while driving this magnificent portion of highway. With light like this, I could sit for hours, just looking at the rock formations.
With 8,000 vf of downhill I certainly feel at peace. Tim posted up some pic's, video and ride stats here and here
And here's a link to the High Res version (note: it will take a few minutes to load up): Six Shooter / Icehouse Canyon Quicktime Version
I met up with DrinkRideEat (Jamie), his buddy Ted, and Honemastert (Tim) at 9:00. We drove to the top of the hill, and when we got to Ferndell, it was kinda chilly. A good chilly. Our first run was down Six Shooter, since I knew the path down and we also new some other MTBR riders had done a little maintenance on it. And boy, did they do some work. The kickers were an absolute hoot. We blasted down the hill, but behind me, Tim had pretty bad fall. A few flesh wounds, but the worst at the time was his brake rotor was bent outta shape. Once we all got back together at the comfy couch rock – creek crossing, I pulled out my pliers so Time could bend his rotor back into shape. That's when we notices his rear triangle on his frame had a broke clear through. The break was about an inch above the weld. Bummer dood! Jamie pulled out his first aid tape and Tim did a few wraps to secure it. Luckily we were about 100 yards away from the trail crossing a road Tim could safely take back down to the cars. He got some pretty good riding in, but it totally sucked he was outta commission. Ted, Jaime and I continued down Check Dam Trail and Toll Road. I had blown a couple of turns, but I pretty much remembered the route out.
I owe Tim big time for this one, cuz he shuttled us back up to the top of the hill for run number two. This time, we decided to head down Icehouse Canyon. I hadn’t heard much beta on the trail conditions, other than I heard it was pretty steep and it hadn’t been cleaned in a while. It was steeper, and the leaves and pine needle did obscure the trail so much on the we actually blew right by a switchback. The rest of the forest portion of the trail was awesome, except for the twigs on the trail. I was a little concerned about this cuz I broke a spoke on the first run down Six Shooter. We weren't entirely sure if we were on the proper route down, because the trail turned into a gnarly jeep road. After looking at the map for a few minutes to make sure we didn’t miss a recent turn, we threw our hands up in the air, and continued down the road. From there we ran into CCC picnic area and found the traversing trail that connected us back into Check Dam and Toll Road.
We got back down to the cars about 4:30, and then we scratched our heads on how to get back up to the stranded cars at the top with out scratching Jamie’s truck or damaging our bikes. Since we didn’t have blankets or any other padding, throwing the front wheel over the upright tailgate wasn’t an option. We ended up pulling every bungee cord, strap and rope Jamie had and secured things the best we could.
It was 6:00 by the time I got my car back down into city of Globe, and exhausted and hungry I headed for Sonic for some sustenance. It was a way longer day than I had planned on, and it was getting late, but running late really was a an awesome reward, because I gotta witness the sun going down while passing thru Devils Canyon and Superior. I’m easily amused, but the lighting at that time was some beautiful, especially while driving this magnificent portion of highway. With light like this, I could sit for hours, just looking at the rock formations.
With 8,000 vf of downhill I certainly feel at peace. Tim posted up some pic's, video and ride stats here and here
And here's a link to the High Res version (note: it will take a few minutes to load up): Six Shooter / Icehouse Canyon Quicktime Version
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