Flagstaff Weekend

The last couple years I have been able to get up to Flag to do the flag2gc ride. Both years Marcus and I have been able to go up the day before the event to get a ride in on Friday. Last year, even though we got up north early enough (usually the Monsoon storms brew a little later in the day), we got caught in some nasty conditions, but luckily came out unscathed.

This year, we ended up leaving N. Phx a touch before 5AM and were on the bikes off of Schultz Pass Rd at 7:15. We had pulled up a Schultz Trail loop that started on Lower Moto and decided to take that and then break off on the AZT heading North toward the snowbowl area... until we felt like we had done enough or the weather started to look iffy. We got about 6 miles in on the AZT section and then the clouds started to roll in a bit. Since we knew that we had about 16 miles back to the truck if we turned around right then, we decided better to be safe than sorry, so we turned back. 16 miles of awesomeness all the way back to the truck, with a phenomenal downhill run at the end. So much fun, and so beautiful!

As we finished up and were getting the bikes into the truck, the rain started. Perfect timing! Time to get the eff out and go get lunch. 

The next day we got up bright and early for the depart of the flag to GC ride. It went off pretty well, they added a bunch of AZT singletrack north of FR 418 which was a blast to ride. I hadn't ridden the section north of FR 418, but had ridden it south of there. Amazing trail. 

After that, there was a bunch of gravel grinding to be had. The sag stops were great, and overall it was a quiet peaceful day on the bike for me. I ended up helping Travis a bit and sticking around at the sags waiting for him to make sure he was doing OK mechanically. I don't think I'll do that next year. Marcus crushed it as usual. I don't have any pics of this day - I regret that a bit, but maybe next time.