Arizona Winter Escape ’06
UPDATE : October 2011 –
Before we get started here, I have very, very good news for anyone visiting Sedona to ride the fantastcic trails.
Sedona now has a world class bike shop, Over The Edge Sports, Sedona. If you break stuff, they will help you. Need trailinfo? They have you covered.
Even of you don’t need any of that stuff, stop by and check out the vibe:
OTE Sedona
Another January and another trip to AZ to meet some folks from CO for the annual OTE retreat. What a difference a year makes. After massive rain last year we were treated to normal weather which meant sun, sun and more sun.
Eric “borrowed” a swank krautmobile and we headed out around 1am from Norcal, to avoid LA traffic (right…). We hit the SoMO parking lot before noon and shook out our legs with a rip up National to Buena Vista and then back down. The cameras stayed in the car so all I’m left with is this scintillating parking lot shot of the krautmobile disgorging bikes and luggage.
Despite last year’s pad in Sedona being uber-swank, Troy outdid himself and found this crazy mansion outside of Sedona as this year’s home base. 20+ folks slept,. ate, swam, drank, hot tubbed and drank very comfortably. Here’s a shot of some kind of meeting (vacation, and a meeting?) to decide who was riding where, and why, and when.
The first morning in Sedona we did a big group ride up to Munds. Once we hit the Cow Pies Keith tried to break a new demo bike.
While folks cruised around and soaked in the scenery.
Eventually the grouped fractured with some folks heading down and the rest of the group headiing up to find DamnifIknow. We ended up missing the portage up over the saddle but were rewarded with some cool bits of trail nonetheless.
Jason climbing on up our detour.
Jerry riding to and fro through a cool rock jumble.
We had one medical EMERGENCY when Mike showed us why you don’t want to stuff into the local foliage when you blow a techy crux move.
The aggressor.
The victim.
We finally hit a dead end, retraced our steps, found the portage and topped out at the saddle.
The sun was dropping fast and we discovered that the ink that was used to mark up our map had turned into a big green smudge.
We scouted back and forth and found the trail running along the contour in the distance and had a great descent , river crossing and portage up to the highway followed by a lightless road burn on the highway back into Sedona.
And that’s it for the pictures that are suitable for posting on the web. Folks who attended the costume party (especially “Sake Margarita” Paul) will be happy to know the photos from that evening are securely protected by multiple redundent firewalls. Maybe.
Day two in Sednoa had has doing a mellow ride on Turkey Creek and I manage to slap a video of that ride together.
turkey creek trail, sedona, az
37mb
Day Three in Sedona found us on some typical Sedona trails like Llama, Chicken Point, etc. Again, no pictures but some video.
On our last day in AZ we headed South to Phoenix and rode Goat Camp for the second time. The descent was easier than last year in the rain but was still the most technical descent that I’ve done in AZ. After the ride we drove home through the night to cold, cold Winter in Norcal.