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Thursday, March 13, 2014

Phoenix Mountain Preserve

Phoenix Day 1:

 

Aaron and I headed to Phoenix to see one of our good friends get married. Since the wedding date fell over Aaron's Spring Break from school, we decided to make a little mountain bike vacation out of it. I was a little nervous to leave with my sister's due date a week away... And of course my niece decided to make her appearance the night we left - little stinker! Aghh, I can't wait to hold her!!



Now to "keep myself distracted" with mountain biking until I can see my sweet baby niece! We booked a hotel within a couple miles of North Mountain and rented some sweet Specialized Epic Expert Carbon FS bikes (somehow I managed not to take a single photo of the bikes!). We headed out on the N100 trail.


This is my first trip to Arizona and the trails out here are crazy chunky! I thought the trails at Clinton Lake in Lawrence Kansas were rocky, but whoa, the trail today was pretty much all rock! It was a mix of chunky rock and loose gravely rock which made for interesting (read scary) downhills. It took me a minute (or maybe an hour) to get used to the 29er full suspension and new terrain - I'm used to a 26" hardtail and used to not having to worry about landing on a rattlesnake if I crash or have to hike a bike. 

  
While some of the descents were a little sketchy, the climbs were great. I couldn't believe how well the bike climbed and got me over uphill rock sections. Talk about a huge confidence builder!


There were so many beautiful plants and cacti to see. Definitely a little different scenery than what I'm used to in the Midwest.


You can't tell very well from the photo below, but it looked like a field of glass in the sunlight. Turns out, it was glass left over from the 60's when this area was a trailer park and people used to shoot bottles out here... At least that is what a local told us who was walking by.





It was a great first day of riding! I can't wait to see some more trails tomorrow!

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