I woke up to a great sunny day at 6.00am and had a very good banana Waffle with fresh OJ at the Hotels restaurant (Included in my rate), before driving to meet liteandfast and maadjurguer who I'd arranged to meet on line via the Arizona MTBR forums. We met up around 8.30am at a Walgreens car park near hawes, there was 1 other rider who had seen the post on MTBR about the ride. No one had a spare crank but the one bolt seem'd to be holding the crank arm fairly on well so we set off on the ride. |
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From the Walgreens car park we rode off along the rode and up to North Diamond point road where we hit the dirt. And started riding along the Hawes Trail, this trail was a mix of double track and single track which rolled up and down quite nicely through the desert. And turned into the Pig Trail. |
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We connected onto the Ridge trail, which had some great views of mountains off in the background. The temperature at this point was just right with a slight breeze. |
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We connected onto the saddle back trail from the ridge trail and trail got narrower with more rocks , and plenty of ups and downs. There were quite a few other riders out and about on the trails. |  |
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From the saddle trail we connected onto the twisted sister trail and Big Rock trail, which had some technical rocky sections. |
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Twisted sister was mostly great narrow singletrack, which rolled up and down as it crossed the desert. |  |
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The wild horse trail was a lot flatter and smoother than twisted sister and twisted and turned through the desert with some gradual ups and downs heading towards the NRA area. |
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The only time you'd really get into trouble on the trails is if you lost conecntration and rode of the edge of the trail or if you go too fast through the corners on the loose sand, as maadjurguer demonstrated as we headed down one section of trail. |
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From Twisted Sister we connected onto the wild horse trail, which was fairly narrow single track which wound its was through the desert toward the NRA. Along the way we saw some funky beetles and maadjurguer demonstrated how not to ride loose sand again 8-). When we reached the NRA area we turned around and headed back the way we had already ridden out on. |
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On the way back we took the Mine trail and headed up past old mine workings to a high point. By this time it as getting quite hot and even though there was a breeze it was quite hard going riding up hill. We had a breather by one of the mine shafts before continuing along to switch back descent back down |
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The Descent was fun with good views of the Salt Water river , it was quite hot now. |
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After a fun descent we split with me and maadjurguer taking a dirt route back to the bar and liteandfast taking the tarmac as he was bushed from doing a very long ride the day before up at Prescott. |  |
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We headed back on a different trail to the one we rode in on and eventually ended up at a bar called Indigo Joes. After eating me and liteandfast went to a couple of bike shops , but none had a spare bolt. So liteandfast kindly offered to help me get the bolt out of my cranks back at his place so I drove down to Tempe and he used his tools to get the bolt out for me and then gave me his crank bolt to make sure my crank arm wouldn't fall off.
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We rode about 30 miles in total on the ride - even though the GPS profile below does not show this, and trails were good fun epically with the great company. Next time I come out to Arizona I'll be sure to come back and ride again in this area. |
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I drove back to the hotel, stopping at a walmart and a target on the way to get some supplies and food back at the Hotel I had a swim in the pool which was great very large open air pool, then used my private Hot Tub before heading out for a Burrito at Baja Fresh. And then hit the sack. |