Night Ride

I somehow muster the ambition for these Tuesday rides, it's a 4am ride in the dark, luckil it's not winter here in the valley ever so these rides are easy and well. I can;t help but notice how slow I am, ever since getting the fuse there's a section where I use to clip a minute or two quicker in the first 15/20 minutes of the ride and I can't help but wonder if a more XC bike would make a difference or it's just me. Either way I am good with where I am at which is not a bar set at all, that's what lvoe about riding, it's just me and not competing against anyone else or myself.Luckily no night hawks swooped in and hit me this ride, I did spot some lights around 5:30 which is always kinda nice to know someone out there is getting after it and if by chance find my corpse before the desert animals take me. I went for a repeat from last week since it's a good one, my mind was on the trail mostly and moving forward. I got an email from magicshine and got 50% off new battery so boom back to 3,000 lumens soon and can't wait! I miss CT so much, I can't wait to move back there!

Veterans Day

The day has come where we thank our Veterans for their service, this day holds near and dear to my heart. The ride was solid and I guess I am back to normal, super duper busy out there and again so so warm but great ride and then off to celebrate some veterans in Chandler!

Back to trailing

Well it turn out I did end up going full blown cold. It hit hard that evening after Pine and went on for 5-6 days, all good to go now, was still just a tiny bit under the weather by this ride but it turned out I had what I needed to get me some 20 miles of Gold Canyon. Freak it's still so warm, but good to e out at Gold Canyon, I love that place, I hope it never goes anywhere, I know all it will take is homebuilders to wreck the area.

AZT Highline

    After seeing some ride reports of the highline trail up in Payson I have had it in my mind to make it up there sometime to ride it. Since I absolutely love that area and already knew how good it was I was ever to ride a nice simple brainer 20 mile section. From some ride maps it was common for people to run it as a loop with gravel road for a return. So I had a Thursday freed up and me and the bike went up to Pine! When I awoke this morning I was not feeling well, I felt congetion, body aches and not well. But with the whole day cleared for me I was not stopping, so the ibuprofen went in and up I went. The drive is an absolute pleasure and I was on the trail in under two hours from my house.

    The trail began at the pine trailhead and it got off to a very very nice start on smooth narrow trail. It was a good climb for a bit, nothing dramatic but I would call it comfortable. The trail then leveled out and views off the trail were stunning! The trail was way better than I expected, flowy with ups and downs. The terrain was mixed with Sedona vibes too, so yeah this was even better than expected. I was cooking good time and despite feeling like absolute trash I was focused on the task at hand and enjoying it and trying to ignore the symptoms as much I could. Did I say how nice it was to be there! It looks like some sort of fall happened, the woods were a strange mix of lush ravines and few red maples and lots of pine, the ground was obviously severely parched. The miles clicked on and by mile 15 I was really worrying what the ride back was going to be like, the plan was to loop it but I kinda thought about why would I ride dirt roads instead of this awesomeness back. I think I decided on the road since I was tired and thought it would be easier as my symptoms got worse to scary, I now had full flu like symptoms. If I did it again I would definitely ride it out and back. 

    The miles were coming slower by mile 18, I was almost at my turn around point and was still being blessed by spectacular landscape. I did eventually hit the road at mile 21 and then I would descend and ascend never ending boring roads with very light vehicle traffic for the next 14 miles. It sucked as much as I thought it would, next time out and back! 

    Once I hit the pavement section I was stoked after climbing never ending gravel roads I could see the finish line on a 30mph downhill pavemnt ride for a mile and hit my goal of under 4 hours for the 36 mile trek. This was so great and one of my all time favorites!

    

    

Night fright

 A nice cool halloween moring for a ride, my light setup is still lacking my bright magicshine but I got enough lumen to get the job done between a 900 lumen on the bars and 700 on the helmet. I was done with my climb up Saguaro and was making my way onto twisted sister when I felt an impact to my belly, it was a nighthawk! Scared the heck out of me since I never saw it but felt it, in that instant I knew it was a bird as I felt the wings and push of air as it took off me, no harm done luckily I stayed on the trail! Then later on I got hit by another one! I could not believe my luck, again, never got to see it coming but sure felt it, this time on the chest, again lucky I kept it together and onwards we went. The mornings are quite dark now, I am enjoying them more now that it's 70F instead of 100F.