Tortolona

The first ‘wild’ poppy of the season — ones on highway embankments or other cleared areas don’t count.

As in everything, there always has to be a first, and I have a feeling that thousands more poppies are going to follow. Chad is first when it comes to exploring the Tortolita Mountains. I’m a total newbie out there, so when he offered a full Tortolona tour, I couldn’t really say no. I’m not so sure if thousands of riders will ever follow Chad into the Tortolitas, but yes, he is a unique desert flower. 🙂

Chad led us onto cow singletrack and barely-a-trail style riding. We dodged catcus and were rewarded with some nice piles and expanses of rock.

The classic quote of the ride was from Nathan, after noticing we had fumbled around for 15 minutes only to return to the same spot:

“Chad, are you trying to write your name with the GPS track, or something?”

Kurt, who is one of Chad’s Spanish students, came along for the ride, and is picking up skills fast. I don’t think he or Nathan really knew what they were getting into on this ride, but they were good sports about it.

We followed more ‘barely-a-trail’ for a while, when Chad got distracted by slickrock. The boy has a bad case of rock lust. I didn’t realize until today’s ride how progressed the condition has become. We need to get him 500cc’s of an extraterrestrial drug called Area 52, STAT. It’s the only hope for curing (read perpetuating) the disease.

Approaching the southern edge of the Tortolitas the ‘Como’ / Mouse trail takes a turn for the legit and also techy fun. The theme, in my mind anyway, was ‘float and carve.’

photo by Chad Brown

I love my new 4″ Leviathan. With the 9mm front axle it’s like a light and XC ready version of the Behemoth. Favorite comments I’ve received about my setup:

“Those grips… those are ridiculous.”

“What is that, a trash bag?” (referring to the feed bag)

From the 24 Hour race:

“Are you running platform pedals?” (looking at my shoes)

“What, are you going camping out there?” (in reference to the frame bag)

Chad and I continued through the fanciness of Dove Mountain and the Ritz Carlton.

photo by Chad Brown

This is the kind of riding the bike excels at, and also the kind of riding that really gets me fired up.

Climbing Upper Javelina / Mustang is now solidly in my top five climbs in the Tucson area. We didn’t come close to cleaning all of it, which is the way it should be. You never push your bike for more than a few moments, and those moments seemed perfectly placed to keep the heart from racing and head from overheating. My legs felt surprisingly good.

It was the perfect temperature — just warm enough that you can feel ‘too hot’, climbing hard in the sun. That feeling is quickly broken by a descent or a breeze, which if sustained, soon makes you too cold. Love the contrasts.

We topped out near the upper reaches of the Tortolitas and the hard climbing was over. The trail had a wonderfully remote feel to it. Tucson was invisible. Saguaro guarded valleys and unknown peaks surrounded us. Grasses grew into the trail, suggesting little, if any, use. It was like exploring a brand new piece of remote Arizona Trail. I couldn’t shake that feeling as we hooted and hollered our way down the trail. Not that I wanted to.

We dropped into Wild Burro wash, and it was time to ride sand. A planned trail will make this part of the ride unnecessary, but today we churned sand for several miles and my legs weakened.

Chad cleaned a steep pour-off in the wash, and I spun out. We ran into a windmill and I knew that meant a 4×4 road was likely in our future. I was right, and after spinning in granny gear for a few hills, we were looking at the Catalinas and the east side of the Torts.

From there it was a long and flowing descent, quite a bit of which was singletrack or twisty ATV trail, back to the starting point and the closing of the ~40 mile, ~7 hour loop.

It was deliciously warm back at the car, post ride bleeding and exhaustive bake in full effect (in reality it was all of 70 degrees). I am so looking forward to the heat of spring and many long days out on the trail.

For now it’s time for a few sunset recovery rides.