Only 1 balloon this AM & it was aways away. Rat chewed a small amount of insulation last night.
Today is Sedona’s day to host the AZ Spring Fling ride. Drove down to VOC IGA parking lot for 10:00 AM start by am undeclared leader riding a described ride. Steve from Texas told me he found my blog awhile ago. Local Scott joined in. After 10:00 a collective mass left the parking lot heading up canyon to B & B. Short stop pooling of riders and about 40 riders headed out to ride Double H: Highline and The Hogs. Congo line of varying abilities bunched up whenever a rider missed a technical move. A rider set himself up as traffic director and sent us up a steep hike a bike that was to be entry into Highline. Wrong. Turn around down hike a bike, some rode most walked. Single track single line so it was 1 rider at a time. Group fragmented and segregated when we entered highline. Somehow I ended up leading w/ 5 other riders that stuck with. We were able to ride almost everything w/o getting bunched up. Somehow we got way ahead of rest of group. We were almost on Baldwin and looked back up and watched all these riders contending w/ steep switchback trail . Lot of exposure made for visibility from below. Baldwin up nasty switch backs to templeton. Lots of riders out going in opposite direction. Took short food break @ HT junction. 2 guys called on cell phones then dropped out. 5 of us. Next stop is climb up to Chicken Point. Riders all over, beautiful day. Short break & Chicken Point & another rider dropped off, down to 4. Ride Broken Arrow to Hogs trail junction which is unsigned. Hogs is a social trail, built by bikers, again exposure and dicey tech moves. We climbed to high point and were looking for Hogwash drop off. Another rider proffered knowledge and showed us where it dropped off right where we were. Trail was almost a climbers way trail and the only tracks were javelinas. Nasty down climb. Trail intersected another well worn social trail heading towards Broken Arrow, i added more new trails in this last piece. Climbed Broken Arrow trail back to chicken point. 2 guys dropped off because of cactus flat, Scott & I were on our own. Scott’s a bit younger as were the last 2 guys, they made derisive comments out how hard I rode. The ride was wearing on us. We added more miles once on Bell pathway to ride Slim Shady & made in the Shade. Brutal decision.
Made B & B where the place was packed w/ riders. Apparently there was still beer in the keg. Greeted Tae from Hurricane and he disappeared.
The rides were loosely structured. An attempt was made to break out by ability & duration. I rode a B++ for the H2 route. 7 guys rode H3 for 30 miles. The 3rd H is Hangover that to me was the hardest and most exposed of the 3 Hs. I had a stellar Sedona ride of 22 miles, 3286′ climb in 3 hours 52 mins. of ride time. Sedona riding is very technical which burns lots of energy on short climbs, step ups, floating over rocks, walking the tough ups & downs. I heard that the downhills in Sedona is 51% down, 49% up. Really going to miss riding here.
Back out @ Deer pass camp. Sunday MBH ride if it doesn’t rain per forecast.
Tonight is Spring forward. AZ doesn’t do daylight savings. Big jump going east