Hawes Dragon Loop

Hawes DRAGON Loop at EveryTrail

It’s 4 am. As I reach over to snooze the alarm I am already thinking of excuses not to ride today. I went to bed late last night…it’s going to be hot again today…I blew off yesterday’s ride, why not make it two days in a row??? As I struggle for what feels like an eternity I check the snooze button and I have two minutes left to decide…

How about if I just get up and walk outside to see how hot it is…yeah, that’s what I’ll do. If it feels too hot I’ll just come back to bed and chalk this up to another Arizona summer blow my ride off day.

The door creeps open and I am welcomed to a surprising beautiful morning. Temps must be in the low 80s! I look across the street and see that my roadie friend’s garage light is on…he must be up and getting ready to leave for his ride.

At this point, it doesn’t matter what the temps are, if he’s up and riding so am I. Back inside I grab a banana and some raisin bran and I’m off.

Today I felt like climbing, so I hit the road through Las Sendas to get to the Tower Trail. No roadies even in the vicinity to chase down. Tower was a good climb. It will be better after the next rains though.

Dropping from tower down Hawes is always fun and always fast. The trail was a blur until I came to the lookout point. I got off the bike, opened up a package of Shot Bloks and watched a rider make his way up the climb below. He rode steady and climbed without dabbing. As he approached I could see he was riding a Lenz. Watching this magnificent steed climb sent me into serious bike envy.

He rested at the saddle while I saddled up for the descent down cardiac hill. We exchanged greetings and I was off. My next encounter was a couple of seasoned riders at the top of the ridge climb. Most conversations with riders on the trail are either about the weather, bikes or both. The weather was so fantastic it was hard not to talk about it. The clouds kept the rising sun at bay while we enjoyed amazing first of July riding conditions.

Choices, choices. Keep climbing, or roll through the hills back to the car? It was still early at this point, just past 6:30. I opted to climb the Mine trail. I met two more riders coming down the Mine, I pulled off to the side to let them rip. And rip they did…

As I started down the backside of Mine I saw the Lenz rider again. This time he asked me “are you TheBarqsMan” to which I replied “I sure am.” He said he reads my blog. Cool. It’s fun to get recognized out on the trail. That plus the magnificent cloudcover and the post ride chocolate milk from Walgreens, made my day.

My roadie friend rode a loop around Hawes at the same time. Though I never saw him we came within a few hundred feet of each other at precicely 6:25 AM (as shown in red). I named this loop Dragon Loop because as you can see, the MTB dragon is going to breath fire and consume the skinny roadie…

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