Summer has hung on extra long this year with temps in the 100s into mid October. Finally the heat gave up and that meant a return to one of our favorite places to ride in the "in between" seasons. The forecast for the day was a high of 76 and sunny - perfection.
We needed to do a good long ride to get into the groove of all the endurance events coming up, so I created a modified Big Friggin' Loop around Sedona. Cut off some of the usual trails and added a couple more trails that we had never been on.
Started out from Oak Creek on Slim Shady.
Weeeeee
Gotta love rocks if you are riding in Sedona
Most times we'd head up Hiline, but skipped that today for a fun roll down Slim Shady
Then up to Templeton and across slick rock.
We made our way down to Oak Creek where there were more trees and fewer rocks.
Back out of the creek and climbing again.
At this point we normally go out to Western Civ, but decided to skip that for a straight shot down Girdner. That was actually pretty fun.
Seems like no matter where you are in Sedona, there are awesome vistas.
Rocks and more rocks
This took us down into the canyon/wash. And of course whenever you go down, you eventually need to come back up.
Back up and on Cockscomb - heading toward Aerie. Copious sunshine and great views.
This downhill on Aerie is always a hoot.
Out to Mescal
One of the new sections I wanted to check out what the Canyon of Fools trail and Anaconda.
It was certainly an interesting section. Has potential to be really fun and flowy, but is a bit on the rough side. Any improvements made on this would last until the next time it rains - so I'm no sure they can do much with this.
Over to Thunder Mountain. The next couple of hours would see some excellent view, but less than excellent trails. These sections had a lot of hike-a-bike. We were on and off the bikes quite a bit. That really slowed our pace. But at least we had lots to look at.
View from Wilson Mountain.
When we got to the Midgety Bridge, we stayed on the trail instead of hitting the road back into Sedona. We wanted to check out Huckaby, which we had never been on.
We are going to need to cross that water to get to the trail.
Climbing on Huckaby, out of Oak Creek
When we finished Huckaby there were only a couple of hours of daylight left. So we made a decision to cut the planned route a little short and head through the neighborhood instead of around the mountain on Broken Arrow. Finished off the ride on Lama.
We ended up with 44 miles in almost 9 hours. We were not going race pace, but were also not messing around - less than 40 minutes of stopped time for the day. That's just how Sedona is. So, we got the long ride that we were looking for and also got outstanding weather. Doesn't get better than this.
