Company at Usery

So my wife met someone at school who supposedly has a bike riding obsession like myself, so we figured out a time and went out for a go at Usery area Saturday morning. Turns out we are a pretty good fit, which is nice, as much as I like riding by myself and my rules but it's nice to have fun with others. He's a good rider as we rode into the trail system with quite a few other users, not used to that. Being I have rode a lot of weekday mornings. We did a good loop, pretty much all the goods, starve quit on me halfway thru for some reason, maybe cause it's not use to me stopping and chatting lol. Really good ride, look forward to more with company.

SOMO round 2

Headed back to SOMO since my wife wants me to ride safely as she has exams in two weeks and I need to be in top shape taking care of the boy and myself so I don't screw up her first round of exams. So with little cacti and critters and risk I have chose to ride South Mountain twice now. Happy to do it anywhere with dirt so I headed out for my third night riding. Legs were a bit sore after cleaning a tough climb at the beginning of Javalina, but they loosened up as I went. I decided to clean up my loop from the other night which had me ride the road up to Beverley Canyon and ride it's entire looping around the mountain and heading off for more Desert Classic. I debated on fooling around more on the south end of the mountain but easy sometimes fun miles lay ahead on Classic so I bit into it. Absolute beautiful sunset, pictures can do the talking for me.

Somo Round 1

    Well after a critter night in Gold Canyon I was looking forward to not so much cactus filled and more friendly area that is South Mountain. I decided this trip to do something a little different, I headed up the Pima Canyon Road. The hopped onto a piece of Mormon and down javelina for a fun easy run down. It's a nice bang for your buck in the beginning of the ride, then I linked a few trails. I got clustered real quick, trails spat out left and right, most not marked on my map but looked like fun. I headed up Beverely Canyon which I have never rode, it was soon nice to be on something different. Then I headed down on a ridge and missed what I wanted but got a good loop in and headed for Desert Classic. Desert Classic was bland as usual but still happy to ride it.

Chunkariffic

Well I got the down low on Geronimo trail that runs off the top of South Mountain, figured I'd climb my way up to it from National and give it a go. I attacked the mountain in the evening, a blistering 110F at 6:30pm evening! Hopping on my bike I felt the frame radiating heat, I really questioned if I should be riding. But with eagerness I chugged up the road to find it not all that bad. There was a strong breeze and that with the heat I didn't really sweat for awhile. I think it's so hot you don't get the chance to sweat like you do with humidity, it's dry as can be. I was going up Mormon scratching my head as to how I made that climb the other day, not that I desired to this day but still.... after about an hour from the car I was at the top of Geronimo. I dropped in and loved every inch of that 2 mile run down the mountain. I was hoping for something more high speed but the difficulty was there which I like. I made it the mission to link the roads once I got down to bike up the other side of Mormon. Not knowing what to expect, I was stuck with a brutal hike a bike. I mean so bad I could barely get my bike up the thing, would be an interesting ride down it for sure. One I made the ridge I happily rode over to national, still not as great of trail as people make it to be. A slow headlamp lit ride down and I was on the home stretch. Really fun night out on the bike, still looking for something different but that will have to wait till Sedona of Prescott.

South Mountain Showdown

      Snuckered on out after the boy went to bed nice and early for a pm ride into the dark. I chose South Mountain mainly for a mix and popularity of users for company I suppose. I headed out on a tear for sure, set personal records the beginning of the ride, it felt really really good to be riding. I still wish there was more flowy trails but Desert Classic has bits n pieces. Plan was to do 10 miles and head back. I wanted to ride a trail named Goat and the trail that followed it. As I was nearing the 10 mile mark I ran into a snake, right out in the middle of the trail chilling, another diamondback, he didn't seem very concerned by me, certainly different than last three encounters. I decided to make this the turning point and back I went. Turns out I rode the wrong direction up Goat, a rough hike a bike but man it would be nice on my YT in the right direction. A nice ridge ride from there back to Desert Classic. Threw in some other trails along the way home to rub out the monotony. Fun ride, nice to ride as the sun goes down, I should be doing this more often since school is over and the sun is the devil!

Golden Prick

Got myself out the door on a toasty Arizona Morning, had to start of the week right with a ride. Headed for Gold Canyon for a Memorial Day ride. The sun was not up yet when I got there and man did it feel nice to not have that relentless sun beating me down at least for a little while. I had an idea in my head for loops. I was feeling pretty good as I sped into sun rise, things were going great, man and machine were in tune. It was noticeably hotter as the sun came out and I was wanting to beat it back down the horizon.
      After riding all the way out to the end of the park I made my way back and out to Gila Monster. Making a corner I carelessly caught a a low lying cholla. The feeling at first was oh I hit something and then I looked down and let out a pretty good awwww and maybe some profanities. I looked down at my leg and could see multiple pieces of cholla. Every movement hurt my leg as the needles went deeper and more dug in. If you don't know Cholla, let me just say they are extremely sharp, sharp enough you could not pick it up off the ground without in instantly sucking itself to you, it really is alive. So anyway here I am looking at the daunting task ahead of me and decide that two big rocks will be my caveman tweezers. I attack the first one, it took a lot of pressure and pushing and screaming to get the first one off. With one off it left needles behind but the meat of the cactus was off. On with the others, each on very painful as I am out screaming in the desert getting this crap off of me. I get careless and one single needle sucks onto a finger, that lead to 4 more punctures on my digits. Now here I am with cactus on my forging leg and tigers, I am so pissed now, cause this one on my fingers is far worse than my leg. You have to understand if you even think about taking these things off like 5 more needles just attached themselves. I painfully positioned my shoe sole between it and the ground and pull as hard as I can to release the needles. It was very painful as the skin on my fingers is tough and well it just sucked a lot believe me. Then relieved but still two more to go, some more grunting and off goes the last of them. Now just 10 or so needles to pull out, some struggled to come out, borderline needing pliers. This is an experience I never want to relive, sadly I like will, hopefully not to this extent. The rest of the ride was great, big ol miles and lots of fun.

power half hour

    In laws are in town, I was itching to get out since I was of no use at home, just a 30 minute cruiser as the su went down was absolutely delicious!