Mountain Biking in Flagstaff

Antoinette, Jeff, Saeid, Steele, and Will

After last year's relentlessly wet and stormy winter, this year is so far completely dry, with not a bit of snow on the ground. With the midday temperature well over 50, it was perfect weather for a ride.

We met at the Schultz Pass / Elden Lookout Y and headed up the lower 3/4 mile of Schultz Creek Trail. The bottom part of this trail is about as wide as an interstate; below, Saeid and Antoinette spin up to the first rally point in the morning light.

Will arrived, looking suitably like a veteran trail rat.

We cut up and across Schultz Pass Road, to the easy, rolling singletrack cutting across to FR 164B. This curvy, smooth, and very fun trail is a credit to the skilled and hard-working crew that built it -- and it provides some beautiful views to boot! Here Will spins along through a gorgeous meadow with Flagstaff's most well-known vista in the background.

The trail hooks into FR 164B, which we rode out to the Snowbowl road. A brief clipless pedal discussion ensued here -- Antoinette has abandoned them after a few too many adventures with them. Her take on clipless pedals and mountain biking is the title of this travelogue.

A frayed derailleur cable forced Will and Antoinette to turn back, but Steele, Saeid, and I continued up to the Fort Valley Trail, an intermediate trail on the upper side of the Fort Valley network. This trail is comparable in difficulty to the kinder, gentler Rocky Ridge, and is about the same length. Steele took the camera and got a shot of me in one of the semi-techy sections (there are trickier sections than this, but this is where we decided to get the camera out)...

...and of Saeid, shortly farther along where things had mellowed out a little.

The Fort Valley Trail dumps you out on the nasty pipeline road, which plows across the topography. Below, Steele grinds up one of the swales, which is a lot steeper than it looks here (though not at all unrideable).

Steele on a stile! This was on the way back down the hill from 8000', in the secret trails area. Back to town and a cold one after this ride, which was a perfectly respectable 23-mile jaunt for the off-season.

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