I almost turned around. I had already been walking more than I wanted to. But as usual, I went as far as needed.
At first it wasn’t too spectacular. It’s the San Pedro valley. A nice view. But nothing too new.
I sat a few. Then as I stood to leave I looked around.
It’s the Tucson Mountains. Oracle Ridge. The Rug Road, Table Mesa. Green Mountain. The Santa Ritas, the AZT. The Tumacacoris. Mt. Graham. The Catalina Highway, Windy Point. Mt. Lemmon. The Haul Road, the Soul Ride. Kitt Peak. Copper Creek. Tucson (my house), Suburban Assault. Starr Pass. The Rincon Mountains, Redington Pass. Brush Corrals, Piety Hill. The Mogollon Rim — AZT and White Mountains.
A veritible who’s who list of my favorite places to ride, visible at once. So I sat a while longer as the memories flowed.
The name of the trail is Incinerator Ridge. The torching didn’t happen for a few hours, though. The climb had been good. The hordes of road-ies were absent this morning. My guess–all the hill climb races are over, so no more climbing Mt. Lemmon. That does not follow, though, because the hordes regularly get passed by a dork on an B-29, with numb hands, slime tubes and 140 oz. of water. How could they be racers?
Instead I settled into a nice sustainable pace. I opted out of ‘switchbacks & 190 BPM’ (the AZT) in favor of high elevation singletrack, which I found on Butterfly and Incinerator. It felt good.
The descent was a thrill, as usual, until it became old and I tired of wind in the face. Then I entered the incinerator that is the Tucson Valley. This week has been cool, but today was hot and dry. Extra water went to my head, periodically and to little effect.
I further refined my ‘low traffic’ route from Catalina Highway to home. It is looking very, very good. And that’s a very very good thing, because I was suffering today. Today’s addition was the low line out of Canyon Ranch to Cloud Rd. Go Cloud!
It might be a little early to call it, but I think I’m back. Anything can stop me now, but I’ll do everything to prevent it.
71 miles, 7300 feet of climbing, 6 hrs moving time
Leave a Reply