Fresh and Chunky

The southwest side of the Tortolita Mountains is all new to me. Trails have been built by the City of Marana, and the word was that they were mostly hike-a-bike.

We’ll see about that. When Chad invited me and said it reminded him of South Mountain, I was skeptical, but couldn’t resist.

I was surprised how much it was like South Mountain, only steeper, tighter and about three times as hard to ride.

Good by me. Plenty of sessioning. Somehow I made it across that wash crossing. Harder to commit to than to actually ride.

I actually wished I had pads. Opportunities aplenty for pedal slams, rock ring bashes, shoulder checks, derailleur ‘adjustments’, elbow scrapes, and on and on.

photo by Chad Brown

You and your bike will not exit the trails in the same condition they entered.

It’s mountain biking, you know?

I loved the feeling of inching around a rocky corner, peering through the boulders to catch a glimpse of the trail ahead. Invariably it looked impossible, but with a positive mental attitude, sometimes the initial impression was wrong.

Chad knows how to twist and shout.

Upper Javelina looked hard, and sure enough we walked our bikes through ‘unrideable’ fields of car sized boulders, and up acute switchbacks.

But we were rewarded with a never ending descent, full of switchbacks and chunk, somewhat reminiscent of Alta trail on SoMo, but without the exposure.

Simply beautiful trail.

A few less people around than at SoMo.

Chad grabbed my Behemoth and took it for a dive! Atta boy.

I’m definitely looking forward to getting to know the many lines that didn’t ‘go’, as well as the ones that did. I love it when people build new trails, especially chunky ones.