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Saturday, March 15, 2014

South Mountain

Phoenix Day 2:


Today we headed to South Mountain to try out the National Trail. We had a little bit of a rough start trying to figure out how to get to National Trail and asked another mountain biker that was headed our way for some direction. Well this guy, Mike, just happened to be a trail steward and super nice guy, and ended up riding with us, aka leading us, for my most spectacular and gnarly mountain bike ride to date.



We climbed up to the ridge line to get onto National and within the first 5 miles had already ascended about 1500 ft. The Epic's were AWESOME and I made it up chunky climbs and step ups that I never dreamed I could do. The pictures just don't do the trails justice.

This is what we just rode up...
...and this is where we are headed up next
Steep Climb to National Trail

The view from "the top" of that climb
I finally got over my downhill demons and road some sweet drop offs and descents. Although I was a bit more reserved once we hit an area with steep drop offs. And there were plenty of areas that all three of us had to walk down or hike up and over.




We made it all the way to Telegraph Pass Road (just past the Buena Vista parking lot) and then proceeded to hike the bikes down Telegraph to meet up to Desert Classic. Holy fast and flowy-ness! Mike told us it was a really underrated trail - I can't see why anyone would like it!?!? It is a cross country mountain bikers dream with the super fast and flowy, short and pop-y up and downhills. I would ride that trail over and over again.

National Trail Mountain Biking



The Desert Classic went ride through the back of Mike's neighborhood so he invited us over for a beer. He was seriously the nicest person we have ever met biking! And really everyone down here and completely blown us away with their friendliness!





We popped back onto the Classic and took it over to Pima and back over to Beverly to our car.


We headed straight to In-N-Out Burger and got a Double Double 'animal style' to split. It was pretty tasty! The burger, fries, and milkshake held us over until the rehearsal dinner for our friend's wedding. It was at a place called Bobby Q's - where we enjoyed some brisket, half a broasted chicken and some fantastic mac 'n' cheese. Gah, I'm getting hunry again just thinking about it! It was really fun to meet Emma's family too, they were super nice!


We are up in the air for riding plans tomorrow. We want to make it over to Camel Back at some point and visit Tempe and Papago park. Oh boy, there are too many choices and too little time!


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