We woke up today with out any specific plan, but there was talk of a ride. After eating breakfast we decided to get ready and head south to the Santa Ritas.
Hottie is off her training regiment, so she’ll ride too! We made the drive down 83 and pulled into Gardner canyon. It was a little warm, but we were soon moving and there was a nice cooling breeze.
I’ve been on more than a few ‘group’ rides on the east side of the Santa Ritas and it always seems like I end up waiting around quite a bit out there. I wouldn’t say I’ve ever really had any negative rides, but I have spent plenty of time waiting for people. It’s always enjoyable to get out here though, since I rarely do; there are nice rolling hills with trees and the weather is always nice. But, I was prepared for a bit of a patience testing ride.
Hottie kicked butt though, surprising me on many sections and keeping up very well. I was riding at a mellow pace anyway, but certainly not taking it easy. It ended up being an incredible morning. We saw no other trail users (except trucks/cars on the roads) so it felt like we had the trails to ourselves.
We started on the standard Kentucky Camp lollipop loop, then diverted to go down the ‘ascent of death’. After riding the ‘sweet’ part of the flume we kept going up Gardner canyon road to the Link trail. I haven’t been up this way for some time and I was very impressed at how nice the climb was, in the shadow of Mt. Wrightson. The link trail proved a nice wooded singletrack then we flew down cave creek back to the ascent of death, then took the AZ trail back home.
After many retries, Odin and I cleaned the “Steak lunch challenge” section. He big talked about how it wasn’t that hard, then struggled endlessly on the turn. I got the turn down fairly quickly, but could not get out of the jams I’d get into after the turn. It’s a good (but frustrating) challenge.
It was warm but never too hot, until we got back to Tucson. It made for a perfect ride.
More Crimson DVD’ng this evening. Some incredible performances; the Power to Believe material is quite amazing to watch. It still hasn’t hit me that I’ll see them live in a week. It seems to good to be true.
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