black canyon trail

i got a note from lw that he was going to be in the valley and wanted to ride. we made plans to ride the BCT. there were plenty of idiots shooting serious firearms 25 ft from the road. par for the course at the table mesa rd trailhead. sadly.

it was otherwise a beautiful morning albeit a bit windy.

lw gets introduced to a common AZ experience.

the rain we have gotten this winter turned the agua fria into a raging torrent and made things interesting.

the first crossing wasn't too bad

at the top of little pan loop i thought i heard something and looked up to see riders.

one last cool off

glendale family bike ride

it's getting to be bike month here in the valley of the sun.

the city of glendale was first.

i love these rides.

there is typically police support and good routes making it ideal family riding time.

at the end there are events, info, freebies and snacks to keep the kids interested.

break time at marshall ranch

the flowers at the house are poppin.

maricopa trail

we have had our overnighters out to the tonto national forest via spur cross and such.

it was 90% trail.

we have long been thinkering on connecting to the black canyon trail from gordy's house.

with a weekend of passes it was time to go check it out. sorta.

i'll skip to the highlights.

1 traffic light 99% non-road. 80+ miles for the easy option simply from

gordy's house in phoenix to anthem and back.

maricopa trail.

sun circle trail.

things are coming together nicely in the valley.

early departure.

smudge on camera.

the facts of life when you take your kid's camera.

the new carousel designs seat bag was great.

we took our usual route to carefree highway.

we hung a left at the powerlines until we hit cave creek.

take a right

flowers

we linked into a trail that took us to the flume trail

32x21 on the john henry was perfect.

we linked the slate trail to go john at cave creek park which had restrooms and water.

blessings of the urban overnighter.

go john was groomed and single speed bikepacking friendly.

a ripping descent took us down the other side and north out of the park to the maricopa trail.

we hit a junction with signs going two ways.

north and west. we went west for a bit but so no more signs.

we went up a goat trail and turned back around to the junction to follow

the signs north.

we should have kept going west.

we did get some good exploring in and a dozen bonus miles so we got that going for us.

if you do keep following the signs you'll end up at an entrance to spur cross.

the new way into the tonto nf.

confused we ended up taking some dirt and paved roads to get back on track a bit sooner.

this was the very unassuming right turn gordy and his gears should have taken.

but we found what we needed.

we dashed into civilization in anthem to refuel a bit

and then found some shade to relax in.

knowing the west side of i-17 was not going to offer great camping we opted to head back east

to camp in state trust land.

we rode the trail proper back east and connected the unmarked stuff to the pass.

50 some miles later it was time to camp.

it got chilly and emergency measures were required.

dinner

ripping single track down to where we should have connected thru yesterday.

luf balloons

the climb up the north side of go john was sublime

under carefree highway.

fin