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After eight years in the valley, I finally rode the infamous Goat Camp Loop in the White Tanks. All those years I lived on the west side and was riding the competitive loops… all the while Willow, Mesquite, and Goat Camp were up there just laying around waiting for me… Sure I’d heard about them but when I asked the park rangers years ago, they said they were too rocky for bikes. Rangers.

Sure, Goat Camp is a rocky beast but it’s not too much for the adventure-hungry semi-insane or skilled rider. You’ve only got to be one or the other, but both doesn’t hurt at all (unless you fall). I made it out today with just a couple of scrapes, no hard crashes. Pretty happy about that. My first day of Christmas vacation and I have one epic ride under me.

Photo by Kathleen

Today’s ride consisted of a group of seven MTBR riders, including one Mike Curiak, the famous big wheel builder and Lenz rider. Left to right, DurtGurl, Mikesee, AKA Monkeybutt, Salty Dog, tonloc08, TheBarqsMan, and Cactus Joe. Scott and Chad were going to ride today but bailed.

There wasn’t as much HAB as I thought there would be, a lot of the tough stuff in the beginning was rideable. Once up above the initial buff stuff, the climb was incredible. For the most part, it wasn’t techy but, but it was at a pitch that motivated me into a sweet climbing groove. Around every bend seeing the next climb was inspiring. I could do this.

While Mike C. was taking pictures like crazy, I was enjoying the groove of the climb too much to stop and play photographer. Even with all his stops, he was back on the bike and climbing like a madman ahead of me. So not many pics from me on this ride, but I’ll link to some shots from the group later.

The descent is almost indescribable. With one adverb and an adjective I’d say it is dangerously incredible. If I want to keep riding this trail, I’ll have to consider a couple of things: body armor, a couple more inches of travel in front and back, and about 3 more inches of wheel. Watching the 29ers roll through the chunk was a treat. The combo of skills and bike (Mike C. + Lenz, DurtGurl +Lenz) made riding this stuff look easy. Christmas is coming up in a couple of days, I wonder if it’s too late to order a Lenz from Santa?

I was also amazed at the skills of Jeff and Cactus Joe. They nailed all the big stuff on their 26ers, a Turner and a Nomad. Spiral Staircase, Jackhammer, they rode through it like butter. I need to ride with guys like this more often. Thanks all for a great time.

Goat Camp MTBR ride 12-23-08 from DurtGurl on Vimeo.

Mike C. photos in Picasa

Mike C. mtbr report post

McDowell Park post T-day ride

Goat has my goat. I spent lunch out under the cloudy sky today. I wanted to give Goat a second go, and a third and a fourth… After almost cleaning the trail last week I thought if I adjusted the tire pressure, seat height and played around with gearing I could sail up the loose stuff and glide over the tech.

I was wrong.

The only sailing I did was on Desert Classic. It was the maiden voyage for my brand new Specialized Captain Control 2Bliss front tire. My Roll X blew a sidewall while it was just sitting in my office… you gotta love the Specialized tire guarantee. Credit 40 bucks, slap 5 down and I’m sailing with Captain Ned Overend. I’ll give a proper review for the Captain later, but for now, all I can say is this tire sticks to the trail like no other front tire I have owned.

Back to Goat. I cleaned everything up to the false summit except for the last bit before the saddle. That’s where I rode into Trouble spot #1. Five tries and I nailed it.

Trouble #2 came right at the top of the real summit. I made a silly slip, lost my groove and then couldn’t find any way over the last two sets of steep tech. It’s not lose there, just tricky. I sessioned this spot a few times before giving in to the “I gotta save something for next time” excuse.

I think I did everything right except warm up enough. Three circles around post marker 59 just weren’t quite enough. Maybe next time I’ll do four.

The ride down Helipad was true bliss. If only the trail was longer. Then I rode back up Helipad. Even truer bliss. Down Goat is a blast. As U2meetoo says, “it’s a hoot” and I fully agree. He rode up Helipad and down Goat a couple days ago. Here’s his sweet vid.

I’ve ridden Desert Classic as an out-n-back from Pima plenty of times. But how far “out” I go varies…since I’ve never made it out all the way, I decided to shake up the normal routine. With a hankering for fresh, steep, and technical Goat, I set out yesterday at lunch from the Telegraph Pass lot and rolled through the west end of Desert Classic.

The west end of DC out to the Corona Loma loop is awesome. It’s more technical than the heavily trafficked east side. While the east side has Secret and Warpaint alternate loops,, the west side has Goat and Helipad. I’d heard stories of these two trails…so actually riding them after so many years was nice.

Goat: It’s name says it all. If your name is Billy you’ve got a good chance of staying on your bike. It’s been a while since I got worked by a hill. I got bucked twice but got back on the Goat and kept climbing. I’m certain the entire trail is all rideable. I guarantee Ill be back again and again until I clean the Goat. From DC post marker 59, you climb south. Only a half mile, but 400 feet elevation gain.

Helipad: From DC marker 54 head south down to the wash and then comes the climb. Steep and loose at first but then the singletrack appears carved into the mountain, steadily climbing the ridgeline to the namesake helipad. I climbed Helipad first, descended Goat, then turned right around and climbed Goat to descend the glorious Helipad singletrack.

U2metoo took some video footage coming down Helipad last year. It’s a great climb and a really fun downhill. South Mountain continues to amaze me.

From Goat-Helipad

Wednesday I had lunch on Desert Classic: It consisted of a Power Bar Berry Blast Fruit Smoothie, Cherry Kool Aid and 14 miles of dessert. Kool Aid’s not your traditional performance hydration choice, but when I’m thirsty on the trail all I have to do is yell out Hey Kool Aid and you know what happens next…

It’s been almost one year to the day since I rode Desert Classic last. Why don’t I ride it more often? This year was the year of exploration. I spent my time in the San Tans (no return on my investment) the Goldfields (very profitable…I need to post up my maps of the primitive singletrack up there) and the base of the Superstitions on Lost Goldmine.

Back on Desert Classic it felt like I was riding it for the first time. See, I was on my singlespeed. The trail takes on new character with only one speed to propel me in-n-out, up and down over and under. I still have yet to complete the entire out-n-back. I ran out of time (again) but I got a couple miles past the Corona Loma jct this time. I was surprised how the tech steps up a notch in places way back there. I’ll have to try riding DC backwards from the Telegraph TH to Pima. Throw in the climb up National to telegraph and it sounds like a Double Double animal style.

Out at Hawes last weekend with my brother-in-law. It was his first time riding the loops. He was demoing a 2008 Fuel EX8. The trails were nice and tacky from the rains on Thursday night, but some sections were a bit chewed up from all the flooding…The great part about Saturday was the canal was running water down through the trail system. It was a cool sight to see Hawes river flowing. We made it through the first crossing up on top, but down below the water was too wide and too fast to cross.

I’d been warned by five or so bikers coming back up that they couldn’t cross…but I still had to check it out for myself…not too often you get to see that much water on your backyard trail. So I went down, scouted for a safe crossing but found nothing.

It was a great day of riding, so many bikes out early. We hit the trail at 5:10 AM. Perfect conditions. No hikers, bikers, or bugs for about an hour. By 6 am the trails were swarmed with group rides, group hikes and large quantities of gnats. Yummy. I saw plenty of sweet bikes out on the trail… lots of Santa Cruz, a Turner, and plenty of Trek. Good times on the Hawes River.

UPDATE: There is no singletrack left in the system. They widened the corridors and added more lanes… The map below is now obsolete.

I have finally put together a map of the San Tan Mountain Regional Park trails. This is an MTB friendly map as it will tell you where to go for the singletrack, where doubletrack and old Jeep roads are, and most importantly…where the SAND is. While there is quite a bit of Jeep road and doubletrack, there is a smattering of young singletrack in the area, primitive in spots but skinny just like we like it.

I’ll be updating the San Tan Park trail page soon with more detailed descriptions of the trails. Until then, download the map for a visual layout of the system.

Download the PDF San Tan TOPO Map (PDF 1.3 MB)

I’ve been on a San Tan kick lately. I’ve been out to the park five times since I first explored the area in December. The unknown trails keep calling to me. Last weekend I rode all the newly designated trails on the new map. There are a couple of sweet singletrack segments that just may make the southern San Tans a destination.

Cross country and singlespeed riders will find rolling singletrack that winds through amazing Sonoran desert with views to the south of Rock Peak and the Malpais mountains.

There are still a few sand traps that could use an MTB friendly re-route and there are spots of doubletrack connectors in the mix. But overall the southern San Tan trail is ready to ride.

I hit the San Tans again this week, the day after the big rains. I was back to explore the new singletrack I found last week.

At the Park entrance I spoke with a ranger and she gave me a new map of the park. The south side of the park has three newly designated trails: the Malpais trail, Hedgehog trail, and Rock Peak trail. She said they haven’t officially opened yet, meaning there is no trailhead signage, but they do have trail markers and are open to hike, bike, and horse. The Hedgehog trail we’ve been riding for a while now. It just the new name given to the second half of the singletrack that wraps around the mountain. The San Tan loop trail got an extra 2.7 miles added as well.

I headed back to finish off what I started on the Malpais trail. Just knowing the name of the trail made it less adventurous. Being less adventurous, there seemed to be more sandy spots as well. Good thing for all the rain it made the singletrack (sandy or not) nice to ride.

I still had to explore the section of trail from the boulders down to the big wash. It turned out to be good stuff. More technical than the other segments of the trail. It is a modest descent on various gradients of desert earth – Loose stuff, sandy stuff, some granite, some hardpack. It didn’t last long enough though before the fun ran right into an endless beach.

I walked the coastline for more than a half mile looking for signs of an escape route but to no avail. The scenic nature of the wash was amazing though. It follows near the base of the Malpais mountains which shoot right up in to the sky. The solitude, the scenery, the sand… I made it as far as a fallen cactus strewn across the wash, then turned around to salvage the ride with the singletrack back to the San Tan trail.

I still have a couple more segments to ride along the new San Tan Trail, as well as the Rock Peak Trail. Although Rock Peak looks like it’s going to be a beach. There are still a few other unmarked spurs that beg exploration out there. It looks like exploring the San Tans is going to be a longer adventure than I thought. Good thing I live close.

From San Tan Malpais Trail

After a couple of weeks out of the saddle fighting colds, flues, and viruses, I made it out to San Tan Park this week for a short “see how I feel” ride. I opted to drive out to the park entrance on Phillips and pay the extra 5 bucks so I didn’t have to gruel through the rite of passage over Goldmine Mountain. The best 5 bucks I ever spent.

I warmed up over Moonlight trail and connected with the San Tan singletrack. Conditions were dry, soft and sandy in more places than the last time I rode out here. Still rideable, it just takes a bit more energy to push. The horses sure chew up the trail as they klopp, klopp, klopp. I saw more horse tracks than tire tracks on this ride. Riding after the rains is San Tan’s finest riding.

I was planning to just ride the singletrack CCW around the mountain till it meets the sandy doublewide back to the entrance. Here I’d turn around and ride CW back the way I came. It’s a good thing I had a game plan, because there is nothing better than ditching your game plan when you see fresh new singletrack, especially in the San Tans.

A couple of small yellow flags and a herd of hoof prints caught my eye one mile into the singletrack on San Tan trail. I didn’t see it last time I rode out here. It looked so inviting – all the hoof prints and all – I just couldn’t wait to leave my tracks over the top.

I rode the “new” trail for about 2 miles out. The connection to the San Tan trail looked new but there were stretches that looked and felt like old trails. It had a Wild Horse kind of feel – winding through the desert in and out of washes. Occasionally more in washes than out. There were at least two long stretches I could have broken out the beach towel. No worries for me though, exploring new trails trumps sand.

I ran out of time before I could drop down into what looks like a big wash in Google Earth. No signs of any trail looping back, other than the big wash. The original trail plan for the area shows a trail named 1-9 that looks like the route I followed. I know the original plan has been changed a lot, but maybe 1-9 made the cut. All I know is the 2 mile stretch I rode was fun. It needs a lot more bike traffic to pack the trail. I know I’ll be back finish the loop and do even more exploring.