Well, long ride season is upon us, and I have a particularly large one coming up - The unofficial AZT 500. I've long had my eye on the AZTR 750 course, but I just don't have the time to be out on the trail that long. I was thinking about giving the 300 course another run next April and was building towards that... but then the powers that be made the (wise) decision to drastically change the start date to October - with the next official running being in 2020. As always ITT's are encouraged and I didn't really want to wait until October 2020. At the same time I thought that maybe I could make a compromise from all the options. So at the end of the day, I'll be kicking off my "AZT 500". I'll begin at Picketpost TH (the northern terminus of the the official 300 route) and I will follow the new version of the northern "half" of the route - including the new addition of the four peaks area and if everything goes well, I'll also be able to ride the actual AZT past the north rim of the Grand Canyon since it won't be covered in snow.
While this route is not officially recognized by the organizers of the AZTR, I will for all intents as purposes be "racing" it, mainly because I'm slow as it is and I don't have unlimited time for this little adventure. Also, for clarity, I will be following the normal rules of the official race regarding support and route following integrity.
I've been getting in good rides and I'm feeling pretty good. I'm two years older, a bit fatter than I was in 2017, and a bit slower than I was back then - according to Strava anyway. I also think I'm a bit smarter now so we will see how that all shakes out. No matter what happens, I look forward to my adventure. All of that said, I know I need a few longer rides to get that all day riding experience back. I figured a long day on the full Prescott Circle Trail would help out with that.
The Prescott Circle Trail is just a wonderfully planned trail that, as the name indicates, circles around all of Prescott. You go from lush riparian areas to high desert brush to pines. It's rugged, and based on where I was going to start, most of the climbing is in the last 1/2 of the ride. It's a proper day adventure. My plan was to not really see how fast I could go on it, but rather test my "all day" pacing and also practice my fueling strategy and make sure the foods I was rolling with were still smart and didn't cause any issues on a long ride.
I slept in a bit longer than I wanted, but still managed to get to the walmart in prescott right at 8AM. A quick prep in the parking lot and I was crossing the road to access the circle trail from the auto dealership parking lot. Just a little bit of pedaling then it was a smooth fun downhill on sundog. It's these kind of starts that lull you into the day being easy. Haha. There are a few short climbs to keeps things a little bit honest.
After that it's very flat as you head towards Watson Lake to skirt the Dells...
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| The Dells are always spectacular no matter what time of day you get there. |
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| Riding more flat trails past Willow Lake |
After this, it transitions over to some cool trails near Embry Riddle and Pioneer Park. This was all in the high desert scrub with minimal shade and it started to feel pretty warm already. So weird how in Phoenix 82 would be like a dream but up here it feels warmer that that. Whatever.
This continues for a bit till you hit Williamson Valley Road which just blasts you down into a neighborhood. You go uphill on the road to connect to the next section of trail. It's pretty steep and beat up in there - again I was testing all day pace and just decided to hike quite a bit of it. This section is where the ride feels like it starts. From here on out it feels like a constant up/down kind of thing. Gain some decent elevation, lose a bit, repeat. But you start to transition to pines so that is rad.
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| Vegetation starting to transition to larger trees. |
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| This was the big transition point. You can see mainly desert trees here, but behind me were the big pines. Yes! |
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| Random. #ninjabikerAF |
From here, there just isn't much to say, climb a bit, descend a bit to lose some of that precious elevation. This seemed to go on forever until I got to the Wolverton downhill. It was definitely warm, and I knew I was going to be getting low on water so was looking forward to the White Spar campground where I could refill. I got there, and topped up on water knowing the last bit of this seems to drag on for quite a while with the significant climbing.
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| Upper Goldwater Lake. Right before the last big effort of the day. |
I crossed over Senator Highway and after a brief bit of HAB started the climb on trail 62. This was just about the perfect climbing grade. Just slow and steady here with every improving views of the areas west of me. Eventually, I topped out and began a long descent first through some very shady and dense pines which eventually gave way again to high desert brush. Even with the long downhill and minimal effort I was smelling the finish and ready to be done. Before I knew it, I was crossing a tunnel under highway 69 and basically back at the start.
A good day on the bike. Nutrition strategy treated me well, no issues there. Felt good at the end, not overly tired at all. Good have ridden much longer without any problems. Ready for October!
Relive 'needed_some_saddle_time_what_better_way_than_a_chill_spin_around_p_town.gpx'
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