Lee’s seen the AZT light. Have you?
Saturday was an awesome Redington Loop. Lee and I climbed Redington Rd together at about midday. The traffic was surprisingly low for a beautifully warm December day. No wind today. I rode with short sleeves the whole time.
At 3 feathers we turned off towards Chiva Falls. I haven’t ridden Chiva for quite some time, and probably never on my 29er. Something about it brought a big smile. Thanks to all the 4×4 enthusaists the trail is void of loose rock, so you can actually set yourself up for lines and carry speed on the downhills. This is unlike every other dirt road in southern AZ.
After riding most of the side door we turned off onto the connector road to hook up with the AZ trail coming out of the Rincons. This was a 2 mile section of AZ trail that we–gasp–missed on our AZT trip. We did ride the new stuff North of Redington, but not the (very nice) south side. So it was new AZT for Lee.
We continued on almost unbroken singletrack all the way from the Italian Springs trail to the Tucson Valley, riding the Belotta Trail(s) and finally Milagrosa.
I submit this loop as one of the most overall fun and satisfying loops in the Tucson area. It’s really hard to beat: the scenery, the riding, and the remoteness (despite how close it is to town).
35.38 mi
4977 ft total ascent
5:57:00 total time (4:55:56 moving, 1:01:04 stopped)
Sunday I rode the new Rincon Valley AZT with Mark Flint [et al]. Perfect day to be out riding in the desert. The trail is “riding in” well. It gets better every time I ride it.
Sunday PM – Grand Prix awards ceremony. It was fun to hook names to faces for all the results I’ve been compiling/fixing throughout the year. Paula walked away with the first place overall win, though there should probably be an investigation since I wrote the program that does the scoring.
if (strcmp(person.name,”Paula”) == 0) {
person.points = person.points + 200;
}
Off-road recumbent utility biking, it’s the new rave
Paula thought I was insane when I hooked up the Bob trailer to my recumbent. My reply: “No, what would be insane is to DRIVE around in this holiday traffic.”
It was quite fun. Suddenly Tucson was a very hilly place. 50 pounds of race fliers in a trailer will do that, I guess.
Of course I had to take it to the next difficulty level by doing a little off-road riding. Gravel was tough, but do-able as long as I didn’t turn too much.
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