I got so busy riding back in March that I fell behind on my documentation
(ahem, priorities) but lucky for you, our recent cross-country drive (we're now in Georgia) gave me several free hours to write up my rides all around the Phoenix area last month, so clip-in and enjoy a good long spin on yer screen...
As you may recall from
my last big post on mtbr, my introduction to Arizona riding came in the form of the Quadruple Bypass.
"Ouch!", sure, but it did make for one heck of a folding-bike adventure. After winning that day-long battle to keep the wee wheels rolling through endless stretches of loose rubble and painfully steep terrain (rather aptly described on mtbr recently as "the ultimate XC beatdown"), I was definitely in the mood to find some nice groomed trails and "recover" for a while. So we fired up the motorhome, and moved from Scottsdale around to McDowell Regional Mountain Park on the other side of the mountains for about a week.
McDowell Mountain Park
This is one of those great places where the trails start right from the campground, making it wonderfully easy to bounce back and forth between work and play. Clean, nice, warm showers next door didn't hurt matters any either. Definitely a nice campground:
Big, dramatic skies over the desert:
From certain vantage points, the improbably enormous fountain many miles away in the (aptly-named) town of Fountain Hills came into view:
There's a bit of mountain-biking slang that certain trails should be rated "ADA"--so wide and smooth you could ride a wheelchair on 'em. Well, that could apply literally to a lot of the singletrack at McDowell:
Debbie joined me on several outings. It's always nice to discover a place where we can ride together. We eventually covered all of the upper trails, including Pemberton, Granite, Bluff, and Tonto Tank:
Debbie's not exactly a technical riding enthusiast, but even she found herself seeking out rocks and waterbars to add some challenge to these trails. Pretty scenery and fine weather, though:
Springtime made the desert turn green like a golf course:
A matched pair of saguaros, and some kissing-cousin rocks:
Glistening chollas with red accent foliage:
These tubes looked to me like nature's attempt at making a carbon--fiber seatpost:
Big-eared bunnies were hopping around everywhere, ears aglow:
The desert flowers were highly scenic too:
Speaking of things scenic, one trail that was significantly different from the rest at McDowell was the so-called "Scenic Loop". I hadn't done much research about these trails and mostly just rode at random, but I'm pretty sure the Scenic Loop would be more fun clockwise. I concluded that after riding it counterclockwise, a direction which started out with a long descent on an ADA trail, and looped back with a long climb on a nasty, loose rocky singletrack that would surely have been a better descent. Nothing special either way, really, but worth a shot if you're looking for a "hard" trail in McDowell park proper.
One afternoon I got a slow flat and nursed it back to the RV. This turned out to be my first and only flat during my first three weeks of riding in Arizona. Not bad. I did later get three more flats during my final two weeks. Still, given that I'm running only liner strips and no tubeless or Slime, I was dreading getting flats constantly with all the cactus and sharp rocks around, so I can live with 4 flats during 5 weeks, 24 rides, and almost 500 miles of trails in Arizona.
McDowell Competitive Tracks
The Competitive Tracks provided a welcome contrast to the "ADA" trails elsewhere in McDowell. These are three loops in the lower part of the park that have their own parking lot, but can be reached from the campground by adding a 2 mile stretch of pavement. As the sign below says, these loops are meant for "high speeds, challenging one's skills, and racing" and to please "use trails for leisurely traveling". They're unidirectional, so you don't have to worry (too much) about running into anybody and can just let 'er rip, which is always nice:
I rode all three loops. The "Long Loop" is about 8 miles abound and has longer stretches of loose terrain than the others but is overall a good example of quality, rolling desert singletrack. The "Technical Loop" is hardly that, except for two short but steep drop-ins near the beginning and one medium climb that's only "technical" in that it's covered with loose rocks. My favorite was definitely the "Sport Loop" which was full of swoops and dips and rode like a roller-coaster:
Highway-type signs warned of steep drops, which seemed a tad overblown. But hey, safety first, I guess:
Here I go down the (not so) dreaded Double Dip--
wheeee:
Later, I joined a peloton of clone riders. Geez guys, you're freaking me out!
After a most pleasant week at McDowell, we parked the RV in the lower lot and put in a few more laps around the Sport Loop on our way out of the park. Below, Debbie grinds up the final climb, as our rolling home looms in the parking lot. We used the showers there, which were almost as nice as the ones in the campground, except for the bees.
(TIP: never step on a drowning bee with your bare feet):
Now, I am no bike racer, but I couldn't resist timing at least a few laps, you know, just out of curiosity. My best time around the Sport Loop was 15:00, which, best I can tell, would put me near the front of the "11-12 year old male" category
(which I reckon is appropriate given my "kid's" bike--heh). I also did a back-to-back of the Sport Loop and the Long Loop in 16:30+55:00. That one is harder to find a direct comparison to, but it looks like that would put me a little over halfway down the field in the "40-49 year old male beginner" category, which would be my real group.
Hmmmm... I think I'll stick with the XC endurance and adventure riding on the bike, and leave the racing for the car.
Usery Mountain Park
Speaking of adventure riding, our next stop was the Usery Mountain Regional Park, home of the beloved Pass Mountain trail (beloved among mtbr forum dwellers anyway--the county lists it as "not recommended for bikes"). The Pass Mountain loop itself is fairly short at around 8 miles, but is quite difficult throughout. It would be a pretty worthy destination ride all by itself, but when combined with a few other trails in the area, this made for one of the most scenic and interesting rides of our whole Arizona trip. Highly recommended.
The general idea is to circumnavigate the extra-wide mountain below, climbing to a high saddle on the backside then dropping back down and closing the loop:
Several miles of rocky trail across the front side crawled painfully up and down through wash after wash after wash:
From the left shoulder of the mountain, some fantastic scenery came into view to the backside:
Fanciful flower formations flourished:
And a lone saguaro stood out against a stormy looking sky:
The long climb was mostly narrow, bench-cut singletrack that was often challenging, often breathtaking, and almost always rideable. However, one stretch grew too steep and chunky and I had to finally admit defeat and push for a few hundred yards:
Eventually the backside saddle was gained, and the singletrack I was headed for next appeared far below:
The trail positively plummets from the high point and heads down to a knob which it wraps almost 270 degrees around. It's really cool:
The super-steep chunky section below is undoubtedly the crux of the descent and it surely has some colorful name. I'm also pretty sure it's great fun to master for experienced "gnar" specialists on bikes with bigger wheels and/or more suspension travel than mine, but I wanted to live to enjoy the rest of this great trail, so I scrambled down with my rig, carefully:
Mighty fine, mighty fine:
The descent gradually flattened out and wrapped back around to the front of the mountain, and the tread transitioned to loose babyheads for what seemed like several miles. Normally quite frustrating on 20s, it was really a lot of fun to be able to "power" through the darn things for a change thanks to the slight downhill slope which helped me maintain momentum and keep my undersized hoops turning.
A giant arrow on the mountain across the highway shows the way back to the big city, so it's impossible to get lost (we'll see about that):
We stayed at Usery for almost a week and Debbie rode some too. One day we decided to test the "impossible to get lost" claim by letting her navigate solo. I gave her the map and just followed. Turned out to be a pretty interesting ride, and since I'm here posting pics, you can conclude we found our way back and the claim is therefore "confirmed":
Later in the week I set off across the highway on a big exploratory tour of Hawes, and Debbie solo'ed the lower trails at Usery, including Moon Rock, Blevins, and the like, which look something like this:
Hawes
Just a mile or so down the highway from Usery is an abandoned pit which has been transformed into a freeride playground, complete with several lines of jumps and numerous big drops into the pit. I rolled up to some armor-clad guys on long-travel bikes who wondered if I was there to do some BMX-style jumping with them.
Heh, maybe next time. They pointed me toward the trail around the pit that led into Hawes from the backside, and I was on my way:
The Wild Horse trail turned into the Big Rock trail which turned into the Twisted Sister trail. Despite the name changes, the trail was consistently excellent. It was narrow, interesting, and slightly downhill most of the way, which made for almost 5 miles of fast, swoopy, and utterly delightful cross-country mountain biking:
A series of steep switchbacks led up to an old mine on the aptly-named Mine Trail. I made it past the shaft without falling in, and made it down the other side of the mountain without falling off (not exactly a given given how steep and narrow that descent was). Just after taking the photo below, I heard a weird noise and turned around to see a massive swarm of bees heading right for me. I ducked down and thousands of bees buzzed past me for a solid minute or so. The air was thick with the little migrating devils, but lucky for me, they must have just finished lunch and they left me alone. Crazy stuff out here in the desert:
I was surprised to find that a giant reservoir had been hiding just over the range from our desert hideaway at Usery:
At one point near the bottom, I had stopped to eat a Clif bar when the bees showed up again! Had to be the same swarm, having made their way down from the top of the mine. I hit the deck and hoped to stay under them again, but this time a few took an interest in me and I had to do some swatting to get 'em off. Thankfully they weren't persistent and rejoined the swarm which passed by a few inches overhead, but it was a scary few minutes, for sure.
I explored most of the "front" side of Hawes, including the Ridge, Saddle Back, and Saguaro trails. A lot of good climbs with occasional technical features to keep things interesting. The main trail up the hill here is called Hawes and includes sections nicknamed Cardiac Hill and Mudflaps. Like many things in mountain biking, it's easy to figure out why they got their names. I was huffin' by the top, but was pleased to have made it up both Cardiac and Mudflaps in one long continuous grind. To get back to Usery, I needed to keep going all the way up the mountain and drop down the other side. This route took me up through Upper Mudflaps, which proved seriously steep and I had to push some of it:
The trail stayed really steep but also turned really rocky near the top as the trail approached the microwave towers. I did a lot of pushing and carrying of the bike through this part, and now understood why the few people that ride this route at all usually do it in the other direction. Also now understood why this bit of double-black trail is called the "Tower Drop" rather than the "Tower Climb". Tough going!
Finally made it to the top and joined the paved maintenance road that leads up to the towers, and cruised that down to the highway just across from Usery park to conclude a nice 23 mile loop. If I were to do it again, I'd probably take the long way back on the excellent singletrack of Twisted Sister and such rather than pushing up the uber-gnarly tower drops, but hey, I wanted to see what it was like for myself:
Whatever hung in the air to the west probably made for unpleasant breathing in Phoenix, but it definitely made for gorgeous sunsets from Usery:
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