Agua Caliente

The Agua Caliente Hill is a beast. At a mere 4.5 miles, you scale a little less than 3,000 feet. Its path is littered with rocks and overgrowth. It is a nightmare for any mountain biker. For those that know Tucson, it's pretty safe to say that it would be easier to go up Milagrosa and Molino than to climb up Agua Caliente.

Those kind odds make it ideal for a person that is looking for solitude and very hard saddle time.

Granny gear..... check
120 ounces of water....check
Two chicken legs when you reach the top....check

Beware though, if you are not ready for this ride, you could end up walking a lot.



The first mile of the trail is everything you ever wanted in a trail. Technical water bar riding at a decent grade, even a few switchbacks that to keep you on your feet.




But then, woooooaaaahhhhh. The trail takes a turn (for the worst?) It seemed to get really hotter right about here.

Once again, the solitude. The kind of silence one dreams of. You could be down there in the city, but why would you? The pattern to ride this trail is simple. Do what you can, rest....then repeat. Talking to yourself even helps..."I can do this." Then draw a line mentally in your head. Then attack it!




Victory! I savored every bite of the chicken and the view.



Just a little section of the 360 view at the top.

Neglected

A sure sign that fall is officially here in Tucson is when you can begin to start riding late in the morning. Today, I woke up at around 8:30, enjoyed some coffee and began to get my bike gear ready. For the past few weeks, I have been curious to see how the trails over in the Tortolitas have held up to the recent rains.

Why the Tortolitas? Well, I consider myself an expert on neglected trails. Silly as it may sound, I get delight in solitude. Also by definition, these neglected trails are inherently harder. A good day is when you ride a rugged trail, sessioning those hard sections, sweat is dripping down faster that your pedal stroke and (above all) you have the trail to yourself.

Not a soul in sight for today's 2-hour spin...

\


I went up Wild Mustang to Upper Javelina. Any golfers recognize that green down there?



I took the snap a picture as you ride trick from JennyJo. She seems to be the master of doing this on her technical rides.



Yeah, to be honest, I am not very good at this. Maybe I should have brought a tripod.



This is one of the hardest sections of the climb. I tried it several times without success. Perhaps another day.



Here is the same climb taken in the previous picture, only opposite view. Do you see a rideable line in there somehwere?









The legendary Alamo Trail and the Catalinas in the background.






And, of course, some B-lines that help you in some tight sections.










It appears I may need to work on my solo, technical picture taking skills. They seem less than perfect.

Never get old

Ty and I had the perfect pace for yesterday's ride on Lemmon. We went up Bigelow and over to secret.



Some maintenance on the trail was in order. The large, unrideable log is now a fun up-and-over and there are a few water channels to help with some of the erosion this trail has seen in the recent monsoon storms.



We tried to only continue when everything was cleaned. A pretty daunting task at times.

Photo by Ty Brookhart

Photo by Ty Brookhart

Photo by Ty Brookhart

There were, of course, a few sections that we could not (ever?) clean.








On Sunset, we managed to clean this section but the next lip in the background denied us each time. Perhaps next time.



Amazing crepes, with less than enthusiastic service...Planet of the Crepes.



Roasted duck, arugula, havarti and olive oil....wow, it was superb.




Retracing our steps back up Sunset was a delight.













The front view of Secret's new up-and-over.



then down to the car by way of Bigelow.



This ride will never get old. My legs hurt this morning. Time for a quick recovery spin.

Apache Enduro 200

A few pictures from my attempt at bikepacking the first ever Apache Enduro 200.

















A few things happened. First, I had some saddle sore issues. I waited from Troy near Greer to get some chamois butter. That seemed to have fixed the problem, but not before I came up against the wall. Not sure how to explain it but after riding a little under 100 miles, I was ready to just be done. Lame, I know. But if you are not into the race and time is not on your side, better to jump out.

Lessons learned: bring more equipment and have a back-up plan for touring should your race-pace begin to grind to a hault.

Samaniego Trail Work

In cooperation with the Forest Service, Louis planned a trail day on Samaniego Trail. The plan was to strap on all the equipment to the bikes, ride down the roughly 4 miles, 1500k of descent to the that work site, work for about 4 hours, and then ride back up.



I had only ridden this trail once before, and that seemed like a failure. The brier patches along with a "trail" took my rear derailleur and hanger with it.




Evan with the Wilderness of Rocks in the background.






Zach had a flat tire about midway down. The rest of the group pushed on as Zach and repaired his tire. I got a few shots of him flowing down the mountain to catch up with the others.






We began the work about 45 minutes after we had left the Meadows parking lot.



Ty sharpening his machete. 8 of us worked, generally in groups of two on different sections of the trail. We had a pretty good system going.






Excellent work. I can't wait to ride from my house Lemmon Trails (Prison, Bigelow, Secret, 1918, Sunset) and down Samaniego, to Cherry Tank, Upper 50, and over to Catalina State Park and back to my house!





On the way back up, we had the opportunity of watching nature in some brilliant ways, like this rain and dust storm in Tucson.



Here is the Fire Lookout station near Meadows with the Bigelow Towers in the background.


The next day, Benji and I rode Lemmon again.



Having climbed out of Samaniego the day before, my legs were a bit sore We managed to find a small section of trail off of 1918, that allows a near pavement-free loop from Bigelow. Not really sure of the name of the short hollow which the trail spirals through, we decided to put the name "Apple Hollow" (I had an apple as we rested on the trail).