Another Arizona summer has come and gone. We made it! The air conditioner is off at night and hopefully soon it will be off all day as well. Who am I kidding, it’ll probably be November before it’s totally off for the winter. Until then, I’m going to enjoy the sight of the back door open and cool air in the mornings.
The cooler weather also means it’s time to ride; both our road bicycles and our dirt bikes. With overnight lows in the upper 80’s all summer in addition to the daily heat; we don’t get many opportunities for a long bike ride. Mornings after a monsoon storm sometimes bring relief from the heat but many times we end up dodging downed tree limbs and other debris in the bike lanes. We had a nice little cool spell in August and boy did we take advantage. We ran outside three times that week and got in a 30-mile ride. It was glorious! It’s been nice to get back in the saddle. The Tour de Scottsdale is this weekend; both a 30 and 70 mile race. I’m bummed to be doing it solo this year and a little nervous. For me, it’s a tough uphill for the first half, then a fun 15 miles back downhill. Mark recently had knee surgery and isn’t cleared to ride yet. I know I will be happy and proud of myself when I’m done though. It will definitely be a “yeah me” moment.
It’s also time to put the gear and helmets on for riding our dirt bikes and the RZR. I need to brag for a minute; we are blessed here in Arizona with lots of places to ride. We can ride in the mountains all summer long and in the fall until the snow comes. And, we can ride in the southern desert all winter. Put the dirt bikes and RZR on the trailer and we can be riding within 30 minutes. How cool is that!
The ride up to Four Peaks is a fun one, albeit pretty busy on the weekends. I didn’t like that ride as much on my dirt bike as I do in my RZR. There were too many cars for my comfort level on the bike; many times I felt like they were trying to run me off the road. I wasn’t going putt-putt slow either yet many times I could almost “feel” the front bumper behind me. In the winter you’ll find snow at the top! The stopping point for bikes and vehicles is the trail head to hike to the top of the mountain. I don’t know why we’ve never brought a backpack and hiked to the top on one of our rides. That would be awesome to combine two things we love to do.
One thing we have done is gone down the backside of Four Peaks into the little town of Punkin Patch for a late breakfast/early lunch. It’s a nice trail offering great views of nearby Roosevelt Lake. After you travel down the mountain, you cross Arizona Route 88 and take back roads over to the restaurant. There are a few restaurants clustered together for you to choose from. We haven’t had a bad meal yet and it makes for a fun day out an about among nature and not sitting in front of an electronic device; win win.
Another close and fun ride is out to Queen Valley. But, make sure you’re toy is in tip-top shape. The one trip out there ended in a dead battery followed by hiking partway back then getting a ride. I wasn’t part of this portion of the day but I was part of the rescue crew. Mark and Kevin took our Rhino out for some fun on the trails while Jeff and I hung out at home. Fast forward a couple of hours to a phone call from Mark asking me to come out and bring the trailer to them on the trail. They stopped for a snack and the Rhino wouldn’t start. Not a problem because we always carry a portable battery booster; except it had long outlived it’s usefulness. Hence the phone call to me. Jeff and I hightailed it over there and they were lucky enough that a group there 4-wheeling gave them a ride. Turns out, they were more than 15 miles back on the trail. That would have been an awful long hike had they not gotten the ride. We all hopped in the truck and drove to the Rhino to simply jump the battery from the truck. Uh oh, that didn’t work. Now we have a small problem. They towed the Rhino with Kevin’s truck and we were in Mark’s truck 15 miles back on the trail without the trailer. Never fear, tow strap is here. We ended up slowly and carefully towing the Rhino back with the trusty ropes Mark keeps in the truck. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the trail as it was getting later in the day.
We belong to a couple of RZR Facebook pages and I encourage you to find and/or start such a page in your area. Group rides get organized and published plus individual members share many great rides they find and enjoy. We now have several local places we want to explore.