Arizona Sun = Super So Fun!
Author - Darcy Turenne
Date - 5/20/2009
My personal experience with Arizona hasn't extended further than road trips to Lake Havasue to visit my 90 year old great grandmother in her nursing home when I was a kid. My most distinct memory from those long car rides is of long, painfully straight roads lined with massive cactus, while Alanis Morrisette blasted through my walkman headphones. Maybe I had a discman by this point...I'm not sure.
As much as I wanted to break out of the iron grip of the car as a child and ride my bike, that opportunity never presented itself and coming to Arizona, I was completely in the dark as to what the riding would be like. Our Ride Guide itinerary had four set destinations: Flagstaff, Sedona, Scottsdale, and Sierra Vista, and in my mind they all yielded identical dusty, cactus strewn trails. Turns out I was way off.
Flagstaff is the complete opposite of what one would picture Arizona to be. It looks more like a Colorado ski town than anything else and the bike scene, whether it be mountain, road, bmx, or fixy, is huge there. We got there during their annual bike to work week festival which included a bike parade, and it was amazing to see how such a little town could bring out so many cyclists of all shapes and sizes.
The forest and trails in Flagstaff were just as impressive. They actually have a ski hill there, and although there isn't a developed lift access mountain bike park there yet,it sounds like it might be in the works.
The trails we rode were in the national forest and the shuttle up the dirt road was just as fun as the ride down. Okay, not quite, but it was nice and bumpy. I definitely didn't expect to be riding through pine forests in Arizona, but when fast, flowy, loamy trails through pine forests present themselves to me who am I to complain? It was easy to get a little loose because the trails were so fast and in sections felt like a natural pump track...that could abruptly end in a rock garden at any time. If that doesn't keep you on your toes I don't know what will!
Our next stop on the tour de cactus (although we had yet to see a cactus on the trail) was Sedona. Driving into Sedona is like walking into the gates of Disneyland for the first time as a ten year old. You don't really know where to look or which way to turn because everything is shockingly beautiful and alluring. Sedona is a picture perfect postcard anyway direction you turn. Funny enough, I didn't manage to get a single good picture from Sedona because no photo seemed to do it justice. A lot of new age healers, energy workers, hypnotists, and UFO watchers flock to Sedona because it is said to be full of energy vortexes that signify the heightened health and vitality of a place. I personally would just go back because it's pretty.
We met up with our guide "Chewy" from the Sedona Bike and Bean (also juggler extraordinaire and past circus performer) on our first evening and he showed us that Sedona is more than just a pretty face. The trails in Sedona are simply put, amazing. Long, fast, swooping (and sketchy at times) downhills speckled by patches of slick rock that roll up, down, across, and over ridge lines take you for a plunge into a tree lined gulch that you can ride in sections as if it was a halfpipe. It doesn't get much more fun than that!
Saying goodbye to Sedona was hard to do, but pulling into the Four Seasons hotel in Scottsdale definitely made our farewells easier. We arrived at sunset, and as anyone who has spent time in the area knows, the desert at sunset is spectacular! Being a bit of a west coast Pacific sunset snob, I can honestly say that there's not much the compares to desert sunsets. Sorry ocean.
Waking up at 4:30 am every morning to ride before the sun gets too hot may not sound appealing to most, but for us it was very conducive to taking advantage of the massive pool (and complimentary pool service) at the Four Seasons. Our days in Scottsdale started out with a hot desert ride and I can assure you that being on cactus and rattle snake alert that early in the morning is a stronger wake up call than any triple shot espresso on the market. After our rides I would work poolside and in the 5 hours that I sat next to the pool and plugged away on my mac one day (with the occasional dip to break the 105 degree temperature) my personal cabana boy brought me - for free - two smoothies, freezie pops, ice cream, cold stones to put on my neck, two personal pitchers of ice water. Then there was the guy who would come around and mist your face with cold water and clean your sunglasses for you. My Oakleys have never been cleaner.
Scottsdale was a great place to get your chill on, and if you are brave and don't mind waking up around the time you usually go to bed, has really fun riding! One shuttle outside of town at South Mountain was in the biggest city park in North America and you could drive a beautiful paved road to the top in less than 15 minutes. The trail network down seemed endless, but be sure to bring lots of water and a few spare tubes because the trails there are rough and not for the faint of suspension.
Our last stop on the tour was in a small town in the south of Arizona called Sierra Vista. When you drive into Sierra Vista the first thing you see is a white blimp that omnipotently floats over the city and mountains that share the border with Mexico. We later found out it is to catch illegal immigrants that try to cross over into the US.
Sierra Vista is an interesting place. It revolves around a military base and border patrol is probably the most likely job you would get as a resident there. They are everywhere. In fact, our guide Shane from Dusk to Dawn bike shop was driving to get our truck after the first shuttle trail we rode and he stopped to pick up a Mexican that had been hiking through the hills for days and was severely dehydrated. Shane gave him his Gatorade and then dropped him off to the border patrol pick up truck at the bottom of the road. OUCH!
Our day didn't involve being deported luckily, and instead we rode some really technical trails in the surrounding mountains followed by a stop to the local shooting range. The stereotype that all Americans own guns is actually true in Sierra Vista! Dylan Korba, Ride Guide's guest rider on this trip, has had a lot of gun blasting experience. Instead of Disneyland his parents would take him to the rifle range, so he felt quite at home at the gun club and was excited to shoot the highest caliber rifle he could get his hands on. Me on the other hand, grew up hugging trees, planting flowers, and tie-dying t-shirts for fun so guns are more foreign to me than Chinese food is to our Mexican friend who got a free trip back to his homeland the day of our ride.
Each gun shot made me jump and the recoil of the 22 rifle I shot (which I am now told isn't a real gun to begin with) made me want to cry and run away. I shot a few then sat in the truck and sulked for the rest of our gun range experience. Dylan though had a great time. There were several locals that displayed signs of sociopath behavior who were very keen on getting Dylan to fire their massive guns on camera. He thinks that was because they wanted to see him recoil backwards and blow up with each shot, but to their dismay he has a sharp shot and hit the targets almost every time. Sorry psychos.
With each place we visited it was amazing to see how much the terrain and trails varied. No two towns were alike and the riding there, although sometimes the antonym to the word "traction", was really fun. If you are looking for smooth jumpy trails, forget about it, but it was enjoyable to shred on such rocky technical terrain that none of us were used to. Oh, and if you go to Arizona, the best Mexican food we found was at the entrance of the Grand Canyon. Amazing churros. You'll need it after a hard ride in the heat. Just a little FYI for ya...
You can share in our Arizona adventures, on an upcoming Ride Guide
episode, broadcast throughout Canada on OLN, Rush HD, Shaw Video On
Demand, Rogers On Demand and Men TV, and for our US viewers, The Ski
Channel. Check Ride Guide out on-line at Dose.Ca and BikeMag.Com.
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