Black Canyon Trail-Arizona

The Black Canyon Trail-Arizona.
I have been hearing a lot of talk about this BCT so I had some convenient days off during the week again and met Shawn Gregory down in Arizona to ride the BCT point to point. Shawn was already in AZ at his home in Fountain Hills so it was good timing to do this ride. It is a shuttle and a pain to do it but worth the effort. I drove straight through after work on Monday night and slept about 2 hours before I met up with Shawn. I suppose it is good training with little sleep. Right. We started just North of HWY 69 that heads to Prescott and rode to the Carefree highway. The ride was 67 miles point to point and 5500 feet of climbing.  Ride time was 7 hours and 9 minutes according to my Garmin. The single track is amazing. It flows so well and the climbs are cut just right. The single speed is a good option on this ride as everything is rideable. Get out and ride it.

Sunrise outside of Phoenix on Tuesday morning.. Ride time!

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Tire issues at mile 45.

Arizona Forest.

Arches Nat Park Roadie Style and a SS Ride in Moab

I had some days off during the work week and made a trip to my favorite winter riding area; Moab. I brought along Shady and Nacho as well. I have never ridden Arches National Park on the road bike and decided to give it a whirl finally. It is a great ride with great climbing and good miles not to mention the scenery is world class. I ended up with 44 miles and 4k of climbing (2 hours 54 minutes pedaling) starting at the Arches visitor center. You can add more miles by including the newly paved bike path as well that goes out to HWY 313. I rode it during a week day so traffic was minimal. I would expect the weekends to be a bit busier with more traffic to deal with. Now is a great time of year to go. The temp was between 40-50 degrees.





The next day Shawn Gregory and Steve Reiter came over to meet me for a ride. Since Shawn and I had ridden the Mag 7 trails the previous week we decided to do a good size loop which included Sovereign, Klondike Bluffs, Baby steps, Mega Steps, EKG and back to Sovereign where we started. It turned out to be a 40 mile loop (4 hours 14 minutes pedaling time) which can be made longer depending on time and how you are feeling. Endless possibilities on the North side of Moab.

Shawn getting his groove on.

Steve having some fun.

Shawn looking way too serious.

Steve and I on the Mega Steps trail.