TR: Sedona, Aspen Asphyxiation, and Kingman

[406]

June 5-7, 2015 Evdog and I did 3 rides in Arizona.

Friday was in Sedona:


With the forecasted thunderstorms, we wanted to get the ride in before the rain started. The dark clouds made for some awesome lighting:






Few more pictures, because Sedona is awesome...




Seems like a good idea:


Ride was 16 miles and about 1300 ft up/down.


Saturday we entered an endurance race in Flagstaff, Arizona Endurance Series Aspen Asphyxiation. I wasn't that interested in the race part, more interested in the route, finishing, and having fun. The race was completely unsupported, no rest or aid stations, route markers...so heavy packs with lots of water, food, and gear. Ended up being around 60 miles and 7600 ft of up/down. Mostly on trail with 10 miles of it being technical trail and a few miles of hike the bike. Took us 12 hrs and 45 min, the fast guys did it in around 8 hours (obviously the locals have a VO2max and navigational advantage ). I didn't take any photos this day, but the gps track tells the story:


Or the strava fly over:
http://labs.strava.com/flyby/viewer/...NKBhoT5/AkEw==
( poor Phour, always in the back of the pack)

Sunday we checked out the trail system near Kingman, AZ.

Critter:


Rocks:


Doesn't seem like much food for the cows:






Fast flow part reminded me of Palm Canyon:


We got a little turned around and missed the turn off for the outer loop, but still got a nice ride in. Was about 11.5 miles and 1000 ft of up/down.


The End.

[powdork]

Nice. Got to get back to Sedona

[WaistDeepGroomers]

That is a serious race loop dude. Well done!

[evdog]

The main event for the trip was the Arizona Endurance Series Aspen Asphyxiation ride in Flagstaff. AES events are races to the hardcore racer types, but for most of us they are great adventures. There is no support, course markings or hand holding. And no fees, sponsors or prizes. You get a GPS track and a start time and the rest is up to you. They get you onto some great routes which tie together a lot of awesome trails that you may never ride otherwise. I had been wanting to do the Asphyxiation for a while now but timing hasn't ever worked out. This year's ride was postponed a few weeks due to storms that hit Flag, fortunately the revised timing worked out!

Being in touring mode we got some pics

Ray starts the group off with a speech


The ride had a neutral roll out for a few blocks on city streets til we got onto the trails.


Then there was a re-group, and we were off. Those wearing red jerseys were relegated to the back. I guess red isn't the fastest color after all?


Took a long time for the legs to wake up. The start of the ride had some climbing that was techy and steep enough to be painful. Walked some of those climbs.


A stout hike a bike on Jedi led us up into this Aspen grove


The traverse across to AZ Snowbowl road was mostly on rocky moto trails. Some I had ridden before, some were new. Only saw 2 motos....


A bit of fast descent




And back to the rocks


Made it to Aspen corner around 2pm, then on to everyone's favorite section of AZT from there north to FR418


It was thoughtful of them to cut down some trees so we can have a nice view


Switchbacks down to FR418 are always a blast


I was expecting to be on moto trails and doubletrack as the route back from FR418 but the route was more direct on well used forest roads


Back on the AZT soon enough, we got in some fast miles. AZT is such an awesome trail around Flag!

406 demonstrates why it took us 13 hrs to finish by getting 0mph ... :lol:


East of the bottom of Little Bear (RIP?), the AZT was new dirt for me, all the way to the end.


Lots of variety which kept the ride interesting


My GPS went into night mode just before we hit pavement. Proof we finished before dark!


We couldn't have asked for better conditions. Heavy rain the night before was a bit worrisome, but left the trails in perfectly tacky shape for the ride. Temps were great too. Aside from legs that took a while to get going I felt pretty good all day. No major navigational errors, but we had to ride past turns sometimes to confirm the correct way to go. We were at the back for most of the day. One other CA rider Devin rode with us on and off, otherwise we saw just a few trail runners, hikers and bikers throughout the day and mostly had the trails to ourselves. This was an awesome ride that was well worth the drive from San diego!

[evdog]

And my pics from the other couple days:

Given the length of the main ride, we planned shorter rides for the other two days.

I drove out Thursday night, 406 had a commitment that night so flew out to Phoenix Friday morning. Camping west of Phx I got to witness a massive and exciting 4am lightning storm.

I stopped briefly out near Yuma on the drive out as the light was fantastic





Bathroom farm


I passed a massive new solar farm going in out there too closer to El Centro. Progress!


Friday ride was Sedona, we did a loop in West Sedona of Chuckwagon, Meszcal, and Aerie





Last time we did the ride at Thanksgiving the trails were swarmed by hikers


Not many people out today though




Taking the "Extreme" (for bikers) route






Temps were nice and cool, and we got hit by a few rain drops


Not knowing my color patterns that well we didn't trying to pick this guy up in case he was an AZ coral snake. Turns out he was a common ground snake




Heading home... the skies would open on us shortly after getting back to the truck and it would rain into the night.


Always good to scratch that Sedona itch!

[evdog]

All kinds of weather had been showing up in the forecasts so I put together a few options for rides depending on what actually hit. For Sunday temps were looking to turn hot again. Figuring we'd only want a short ride temps would not really be a problem, so we hit up a trail system in Kingman I've been wanting to check out. Its far enough away to be tough to get to but makes a decent place to break up the drive to or from Flag.

The main trail there is Monolith Gardens, which looked very scenic with some nice rock formations. There is also a newer outer loop built by BLM/locals called Foothills Rim Trail.

We parked near town at a lower trailhead which meant we had a climb to start


Trail was pretty fun and flowy, and none of the climbs were hard


The distances between intersections were short and not that well marked, so we missed our turn onto the Rim trail and had to backtrack


Somehow we missed another turn onto the outermost loop and did not realize it til we found the other end.


Rather than do that loop we decided to just continue on, it wasn't getting any cooler out!


We got to re-climb this bit up to a saddle


For a climb it was really flowy




Cool rocks up top


And a fun descent down. It was pretty quick to connect back to the starting point for the loops, and then a short but fun descent back to the truck


Its definitely a fun system that I would ride again. The trails are rocky but not very technical, you can pretty much ride over everything. Scenery is great and there are a few places you can play on the rocks off the side of the trail. Lots of ways to put the ride together too, as there are a couple trailheads. Good for a few hours of riding.

Great little trip!