Category: Life’s Adventures

Last week I took the opportunity to explore two really cool roads, the Coronado Trail and the Salt River Canyon.

Coronado Trail

The Coronodo Trail (scenic highway 191) starts in Alpine at 8,000′ and heads south to Clifton at 3,500′ swooping through forests, amazing vistas and large trees that slowly turn to shrubs, then cactus.

I did this as an out an back, but you could do it as a one way from Clifton to Alpine, for a 90-mile 12,000′ climbing day (it’s been added to my list!). All in all it was an awesome ride. 4.5-hrs 8,000′ of climbing and I only saw 4 cars all day.

Salt River Canyon

On Sunday I capped off the week with a ride into the Salt River Canyon, a road that drops off the Mogollon (pronounced Mug-E-own) rim towards Phoenix. I got stated at sunrise and again there wasn’t much traffic. Rollers take you up and down from 6500′ down to 4,500′ and then the road drops you into the canyon bottom at 3,500′.

The climb out was pretty cool, steady climbing for about 1.5-hrs, then a few rollers, and the final climb back up to Show Low where I began. All in all another great ride capping off the 22-hr week on the bike with a total of 29,000′ of climbing!

24-Hrs Old Pueblo

The weekend prior Evie and I participated in the 24-hrs of Old Pueblo with some friends from Fountain Hills and McDowell Mountain Cycles. We did the 5 person coed and ended up 2nd on the weekend. All in all it was a good time, we got some miles in on our new race bikes and most importantly we stayed healthy. The real racing begins in 4 weeks with the Fontana ProXCT.

New Team for 2015

And finally, I’m proud to announce that I’ll be representing McDowell Mountain Cycles for 2015 with support from Scwhwalbe tires and Mike’s Mix Recovery drink. Looking forward to an awesome season!

Finally getting around to a blog update, first one of the new year!

Winter in Pinetop has been downright balmy as compared to Wisconsin. We’ve only had 2 snow storms pass through that dumped 6-8″ each, but with the sun shining, the roads were clear the next day. The ski resort has had its fair share of snows, but we haven’t been over there yet.

Evie and I spent Christmas with my parents back in Antioch, it was nice to visit, but I’m pretty sold on Arizona at this point!

3 reasons you should move to Arizona

1. It’s always sunny!
2. There’s lots to do!
3. Everyday feels like a vacation!

I’ve explored a handful of the roads in the area and when you add in the 200+ miles of singletrack plus endless fire roads there’s a ton of riding options right from the house. Driving 45-mins gives you tons of more options from 2000′ climbs to bombing DH style singletrack.

Adjusting to Arizona life has been pretty easy. Along with exploring the White Mountains we’ve spent a few weekends in Sedona and Phoenix, both within a 3-hr drive (for those familiar with Sedona’s “White Line” trail (stunt) I marked the turn with the blue arrow!

The MBAA (Mountain Bike Association of Arizona) equivalent of WORS started up last weekend. They have a 7 race series that includes a wide variety of courses from desert to dirt. I’m by no means ready to start XC racing, but with Whiskey 50 and Grand Junction on tap for this year, I’ve definitely shifted my training up to be on form in late April.So far it’s been pretty easy to train here with 40 & 50′ degree temps during the day.

We also got a fat bike! We don’t have any snow right now, but riding on the frozen trails is a blast. Looking forward to taking it out on some snow pack soon.

In other bike related news, we’re riding Scott’s this year. Evie and I both got Scott Spark 700 SL’s along with a Genius 740 their 150mm trail bike. Both bikes rock! 650b wheels and 120mm of travel on the Spark makes it a super fun bike to ride. A great climber and awesome on the descents.

More in the coming weeks…

Thanks for reading!

Living in Arizona has so far been pretty awesome! Not only is Pinetop a cool place, but we’re super close to many other great destinations.

Hang On!

A few weekends ago Evie and I took a trip to Sedona for the weekend to do some riding with Chad and Tricia. We’d both been to Sedona before (that’s where we got engaged), but had never ridden there. We left Saturday morning and headed out for the 3-hr drive. We made a quick stop in Flagstaff where we rode to the top of Mt. Elden for a quick trail ride down the Upper and Lower Oldham trails. After our ride we stopped at a few breweries to refuel and fill our growler. Finishing out the day with the remaining  45-min drive put us in Sedona for the night.

The next day, Chad, Evie, Tricia, and I headed out for some Sedona fun! We ripped around all morning and then met up at Over the Edge bike shop downtown where the guys and girls split off into their own rides for a bit. The day kept getting better with more exposure, awesome rocky descents, and amazing views. In 4-hrs we just scratched the surface of what Sedona has to offer, but being so close, we will definitely be back!

Colorado Rendezvous

After a fun weekend it was back at it, getting caught up on work stuff and finally feeling like I have some sort of routine again. My parents came to visit the next weekend and my dad and I did some projects around the house including building the best bike workbench to date. This is our third one we’ve build and I think we have it dialed. From the depth, width, shelf height, it’s just about perfect.

Then it was off to Durango to meet up with my good buddy Dave, who was spending some time on the front range in Denver. About a 5-6 hr drive for both of us, Durango made perfect sense. We had great weather and explored some awesome trails including Horse Gulch, Telegraph, Sale Barn, and my favorite, the Colorado Trail.

We made it up to “high point” on the Colorado trail, about 9500′ before the snow and setting sun had us turning around for the 3000′ descent. Along the way we rode some rally cool side trails that had some wicked fun berms. The dirt was perfect all day and we rolled back to the car by moonlight. Hard to stop when you’re having that much fun!

Big Lake, Thompson Trail  & Mt. Baldy

Sunday we drove out to Big Lake, which is an hour east of Pinetop. We found this really cool trail along a river that we hiked for a while, Thompson Trail. Makes you forget your in Arizona. We also got some good views of Mt. Baldy, the highest peak in AZ outside of the San Francisco peaks in Flagstaff. Mt. Baldy rises to 11,400′.

Let the adventures continue…