LIfe Goes On...

Havn't blogged in a while, but that doesn't mean we havn't been riding. We have been trying to find a good trail for Lonna to learn gears without having to worry about crashing, and we finally found what turned out to be th e best trail for that purpose in the state of Arizona! It is the Rim Vista trail off of sr260 on the Mogillon Rim above Payson.

We arranged a Friday off work and headed out Thurs. evening looking for a great ride. I don't know what steered us toward Payson... yes I do! The romantic "Majestic Mountain Inn" in Payson was our destination for the night, with a plan to ride on Friday somewhere. The inn has rooms, they call them "luxury rooms", that have a jaccuzzi right in the room! We reserved one and had a great evening.

Friday morning we had breakfast at a cool cafe and headed for the rim. Not exactly sure where we were going, we opened our minds to "explorer mode" and ended up at the rim trail. The area isn't heavily used during the winter since its 6k feet elevation or so, and we had the place to ourselves. It's not often that you really feel alone in a national forest, but we did that day. Entering the parking/lookout for the military sinkhole just off the rim road toward Woods Canyon Lake, we unloaded and started riding.

The first short part of the trail is not paved and was a bit of a challenge for us. You are litterally riding right on the edge of the rim and really could ride off if you lost control. Once the paved part started it was great. It's basically a paved bike path for several miles in the middle of the forest! (check out the short video above). We rode all the way to the lake and only saw 3 other people the whole time. The terrain offers great practice for gear selection and Lonna made great strides, and boosted her confidence. Whoo! Hoo!

Here are some more pix from the ride....Days like these make it all worthwhile!

ON the racing front, Zac raced in the "Dawn to Dusk" race at Mcdowell mtn park this weekend and did great. Placed 4th in his first attempt. I personnally think its an insane race - 15.5 mile loop, all day, whomever does the most/fastes laps wins. Zac rode in 2 man team and they each rode 4 laps (thats 62 miles cross country mtn bike in one day!). I really gotta hand it to them for there perserverance.

In other news, Devins school (Saguaro High) won the state 4a football championship saturday. WE rode the bikes down to ASU to watch the game (but really just to watch Devin march in the Band at halftime). We can ride all the way to ASU from our house (about 10 or 11 miles one way) and only have to negotiate 2 traffic lights! I do love the greenbelt idea. Devin looked great marching, and the band performed well. The final score was 38-0, but any astute observer could see from the first few plays that Saguaro was gonna win. They played great.

Will get out more this month while the weather is so great, and I hope you all do as well!

Get out, Get on, and Get Riding!

CycleFreak!