11/18/04
Out the door, late, heading off on my hardtail for the Rincon Valley. I sped through town around 17 or 18 mph until the slight uphill on Old Spanish Trail. As always, I underestimated how far it is from my house to Saguaro National Park and onwards down to the ‘valley. Try about 25 miles, genius.
So the whole ride was fast paced. My body grew tired of constant pedaling on that lovely surface we call pavement, so I jumped at my first opportunity to head onto dirt. I had no idea if this looping option would pan out, so it was definitely a risk–Mark F and Steve A were meeting me in about a half hour at Pistol Hill / OST. I turned left onto camino Loma Alta, then right onto Doretea. Ah, some dirt and a reason to move around on the bike.
Next was tank traps, or rather ATV traps, some fun bumps and quite a few up/downs into washes. Hey, this is pretty cool. Then, the dreaded, the cursed, the bane of all exploring, route pioneering cyclists: no tresspassing. But, it was not clear — was the road private or just the land? There was no gate, so I rolled on. Due north, due east, a big wash to cross, then, I saw it on my GPS — the new Arizona Trail was approaching. The scene became very familiar (my position with respect to the mountains). I wanted to ride out/back to Rincon Creek, but instead turned right towards Pistol Hill rd.
Twisty, a little too tight, but overly fun singletrack ensued. The wash drop that my crew worked on works nicely. The wash after that (that my crew also worked on) doesn’t work as nicely. Mostly I tried to evaluate the alignment (Mark and I are largely responsible for that) in terms of what might have been a better line. I only found a couple of spots I thought could have been designed a bit better.
I crossed X-9 and Pistol Hill onto more fresh singletrack. At the road to Papago Spring I turned right. Left was a little adventure for another day. I coasted down Pistol Hill, no hands. At precisely 12:45 (our meeting time) I rolled across OST to meet Mark. Steve was, big surprise, running late.
A burrito from La Salsa prevented my stomach from consuming the rest of my body (instead of food). It really revitalized me.
A few minutes later we had quite the group forming at the intersection: park ranger, recreation planner, local old-timers, roadies passing by, local rancher, mountain bike advocate hero, and dorky mountain biker (that’s me). After some delays we were off to Colossal Cave Mtn Park to scout out a place for the Arizona Trail to call home.
I’ve never been to Colossal Cave before, so I was in for a treat. Posta Quemada canyon is a beautiful area. Nice geologic formations and 75 million shin-daggers (or diggers?). We hiked out of the picnic area up the old road to the saddle. Here we connected with the trust land alignment that I GPS’d back in January. There are some steep side slopes, so I guess it’s going to be SWECO time (mini-trailbuilding bulldozer). I’m not a fan of dozer trails, but it does look like a perhaps insurmountable amount of work otherwise. In any case, this section of trail is going to be fabulous.
Most of our group wanted the trail to drop quickly, then join the road. Steve A had scouted the area exentensively in the past and concluded there was no way to take the trail across all of the side drains. I had to see for myself, so I scouted ahead of the group. I took us to one very gnarly but still do-able crossing. I didn’t think it would fly, but together we found a line. Either a crap-load of pounding or dyno-mite will be required. Good stuff.
After that crossing Steve and Mark were fairly determined to drop to the road, but I still had not seen anything impossible. So I kept the highline, trying to maximize how much singletrack we can build. Since this is county land we essentially have permission to build as much singletrack as we want–so let’s make it work.
I crossed two more gnarly, but not bad washes, then found myself dropping right to the picnic area on a very old trail. Perfect. But we still need to go back and have another pair of eyes on it, then flag it out for construction. I think it’s going to be a very nice section of trail.
39 miles, 4000 ft of climbing (riding and scouting)
11/17/04
Lee came up to town, so we headed out for a quick ride on the FSA loop. Nice afternoon.
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