(AKA Sedona Thanksgiving 2005)
Val and I headed out to Sedona, Arizona for a 9-day trip with a group of mountain biking friends. It's a repeat of last year's trip, but longer, and this time we have the Minnie.
We took our time getting out there, initially leaving later than anticipated, and we arrived in Sedona late Saturday afternoon. The drive itself was smooth and uneventful.
Sedona is absolutely one of the best places on Earth I've gotten to ride, and is really, really beautiful. Among the things to be thankful for this trip were:
- 70° weather with blue skies the entire week.
- Our bikes had only one flat the whole trip, in the only of our 4 tires that wasn't running Slime tubes.
- No other mechanical breakdowns, despite Sedona riding being very hard on bikes.
- Only one crash between us, and no injury or damage to person (me) or bike.
- Marvelous trail conditions, and not a ton of people using them besides us. :D
- Good company and good food the whole time. (Dave cooks the meals in the rented house each day, and everyone chips in for groceries. We paid $100 for both of us to eat home-cooked meals all week long).
- Getting to fly over Sedona in a small plane, courtesy of a guy who owned it and agreed to give us an aerial tour if we took his gear out for him in the RV while he flew. Awesome! I've got pics that I'll have up soon.
We rode four 5-hour days, and one 3.5-hour day. None of it was easy going and, while exhausting, I can't wait to get to do it again. The rides were epic every single day, and the other people were very high-quality riders that knew the area extremely well. I'd leave with a CamelBak full of food and water (and I've got a big CamelBak), and it would come back each day dry and almost devoid of food. I was completely spent at the end of each ride (and a couple of rides, I was spent before the end ;)).
A lot of the riders were shooting with digital cameras, so I didn't take mine on the rides. One of the guys (who is still out there) is collecting them all, and is going to give me a copy, which I'll share when I get it. I did shoot helmet-cam video on 2 days, and I'll put up some samples soon.
All-in-all, it was a great way to spend Thanksgiving. I'm lucky to have Val, who was a good sport on a trip full of hard core biking and mountain bikers (and the associated tech and trail talk).