Mountain Biking in Flagstaff

Antoinette, Bill, Jeff, Kate, Rusty, Steele, and Will

There is a veritable litter of new bikes at Lowell lately, and today, Rusty joined us for the first time in a while, riding a spanking new Kona Blast purchased just the day before at AZ Bikes.

We broke our record for largest group ride with seven today. Antoinette and Will and their visiting friends Bill and Kate enjoyed a nice spin around the Easy Oldham area, and then Steele, Rusty, and I continued on up and over the Dry Lake Hills.

In typical Arizona fashion, we went from winter to summer in 48 hours, with record heat on this day. Here Kate and Antoinette emerge from the woods after the fast cruise down 251 Trail (aka Easy Oldham).

The Hidden Hollow crowd posed for posterity on the pipeline trail. Due to a helmet shortage, Will was slowly sizzling his brain with full face armor.

On Fence Trail, Steele cranked out the uphill side of a small dip. Here he is making a heroic effort to steer into the rock, but missed it at the last minute.

Just a few seconds later, Steele crested the top of the rise, as Rusty reached the bottom and Antoinette (just under Steele's elbow in the pic) started the short drop into it.

Here's the brand new Blast (and its rider).

Steele, Rusty, and I continued after the others peeled off, and went up beastly steep Lower Brookbank trail. The first half of this 1-mile, 600 foot climb isn't so bad, but then the grade in the rock-strewn second half increases to 15% and hangs there all the way up. At the top, we stopped for water, gel, and anti-bonk bars, at the eastern edge of Dry Lake meadow (elevation about 8200'). At this point, the trail becomes completely tame, heading off into the meadow.

Dry Lake isn't totally dry yet; there's a wide and very shallow lake in the basin. We stopped and listened to the croaking of innumerable frogs.

At the top of Gnarly, the aspens are starting to leaf out -- a good sign that summer is on the way!

We flew down Gnarly; here I am near the top.

Probably it will be only one more week until Schultz Creek trail is fairly rideable. The creek is still flowing but the rate is way down and all but a few traces of snow are gone.

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