I seem to write this almost every time I ride in the Redington area, but it’s always what goes through my mind. The desert spoke silence to me as I rolled dirt on Redington Rd. There’s just something about it up there, especially on an early weekday morning when it’s empty. (Redington is far from silent on a weekend)
I left my house just after 5am. For some reason I’m really enjoying road riding on my B-29. Maybe it’s just that I enjoy riding and getting out, period. The fact that it was cool and I had a cloud magic show to watch as I headed east surely helped as well. The road riding is nice, but my thought are always to getting away from the city and the cars.
Easy to do. After the turn off for Solider Trail I saw a grand total of one car and two hikers until I returned to the Tucson valley some hours later. The car was a truck and it startled me at first. I wasn’t riding on the right side of the road (that happens when you haven’t seen a car for an hour) so he had to slow a bit. When he accelerated around me the truck unleashed a smokescreen that nearly knocked me out. Dark black exhaust.
I didn’t feel very good until about 2 hours into the ride. I woke up very thirsty, so I downed some guava juice and a lot of water. Apparently my stomach didn’t respond well to that. I just accepted that I wouldn’t feel well during the ride, so I’d keep it moderate and just enjoy the ride.
It worked, for the most part. Thankfully the dreaded Thistle Forest on the Bellota section of AZT couldn’t withstand the searing summer heat. A few of the monster thistles were still standing, but they were all withered and brown. Logic told me they’d all be gone, but they were so thick and so strong on our AZT thru-ride that part of me wondered if anything could get rid of them.
The AZT from Belotta Ranch to Milagrosa was quite overgrown (even the 4wd road after it was full of sharp nasties). So I still got cut up fairly well. All in a good day’s ride, though.
Milagrosa started well. I chatted with a couple hikers heading down from Molino, including one Indian professor type who complimented my ability to ‘balance’ my bike as I ride. I told him to tell me that when I’m at the bottom.
Indeed my skills were not exactly impressive or worthy of compliment. I’m not sure if it was my hands, my fork, or just being out of practice. But I just didn’t do very well. I’m not too happy with my fork’s performance as of late. But that’s pretty much just a lame excuse.
At the last gate my hands were getting sore and I wished I hadn’t chosen to ride Milagrosa. There was also nothing else I could do but ride out of there, at that point. It was only getting hotter and the humidty made standing in the sun pretty unbearable.
I hit pavement and joined the low-traffic Mt. Lemmon route. A sweet valley cloud rolled in to protect me from the sun for most of the ride back home. It felt good to stand and hammer a few short hills. My stomach turned on me near home, but I still felt fairly strong.
I’m pretty beat up from the ride. Hands and feet are sore and I’ve been sleepy most of the day. This might have been one of those days where I should have listened to my (lightly protesting) body during the first hour. But it was also satisfying to keep going, feel better, and have a blast riding some nice trails. The descent down Milagrosa was just a bit more than I needed at this point.
Given the humidty I thought for sure I’d see a couple snakes. There was a lot of grass covering the trail, so perhaps I missed them. I did hear one rattle near the bottom of Milagrosa. I think it was on my left side, but I just stayed focused on maintaining momentum and getting out of there. It was at a fairly technical spot.
55 miles, 5100 feet of climbing, 5:30 moving time
Leave a Reply