Grand Canyon, AZ

I did two mountain bike rides here.  My take-away message (to myself) is:  stick to hiking at the Grand Canyon.  I mean, how do you top that?  I used the book "Biking the Grand Canyon Area" for my guide.

The first ride I did was the Vishnu Overlook Loop.    First I misread the instructions and ended up on a nature walk--nice for a nature walk but a boring mountain bike ride.

Then I decided to climb the tower:

It had two good consequences:  nice views, and I discovered the real mountain-bike trail started just underneath the tower.  Here are some of the nice views:

I had a nice short 1.5 ride on single track, with a nice bench and views at the turn-around point.

A few days later I rode the Tusayan loops.  I should have stuck to loop 1 as it is shorter and I suspect had more single-track.  I did loop 2 because I wanted something longer.  It was about 10 miles long, but not terribly interesting and I was wishing I were at the Grand Canyon seeing the magnificent views.  So scratch that from the plans next time.  But one nice thing is I was all alone and it was peaceful.  You don't get much alone-time at the Grand Canyon.

Here's the start of this trail:

On it's own, it's actually pretty and nice and there are some fun spots.  I think the shorter loop would be better so I can have some fun, but then get to the Grand Canyon to see the great scenes.

Flagstaff, AZ

I'm so jealous of people who live in Flagstaff.  If Marc is still reading this blog, I hope he is pissed at me for not stopping to see him, because that means we are still friends.  Unless he is so pissed that we aren't anymore.  Anyway, I'll explain in an email, Marc.

We got lucky to ride here.  We were driving through at 4:50 pm on the way to the Grand Canyon and saw a bike shop on the main road with a closing of 5 pm.  We stopped in, got lots of great advice and a map, and I was able to do an hour-long ride on the Schultz Creek trail.  For future reference, we also got a map of Sedona, AZ trails.

Here's the difference between mountain biking in the mountains vs the midwest.  In the mountains you go up, up, up, up, up, up, etc, and then down, down down down down etc.  In the midwest you go up, down up down up down up down etc.   Both are fun.  But it's hard to beat the thrill of down down down down down down etc.   In the midwest though, the local clubs often put a lot of effort into making really nice trails with these things called burns or berns, I don't know how you spell it but it's curves that you make on hills so you can take them fast, and lots of up/down fast stuff.  So the midwest can still be very fun.

Anyway, back to this ride.  I stupidly didn't wear my elbow pads and then I was just sitting on my biking and fell over right on my left arm (where I broke my elbow 5 months previously).  oh man.  That was dumb.  My arm was a bit sore for a few days.  So I wore the elbow pads the rest of the trip.

The ride was fun!  I don't mind going up up up up up.  I just get in a groove.   It helps that I'm a crazy health food nut so I have seemingly infinite aerobic capacity.   The rocks were a challenge, especially as I was spooked after falling on my arm.   But the down down down down etc made me forget everything but how much fun I was having.