Non-Traditional Thanksgiving V2

Yeah, it's way past T-Day, but I felt like I should put this one in the old blog...

Another crazy year passed, a brutal one for all of us in so many respects with the pandemic and the ramifications of that. As is the case with years that are even, I didn't have my kids for Thanksgiving day, so I had a clear day of availability in which I didn't really want to sit at home. 

Given that there is really good connectivity around the Phoenix metro area if you bother to take some time to figure it out, it is pretty easy to put together some really big rides. I've played with a variation of this over the years and I've had thoughts of trying to expand my effort, but committing to it is tough for reasons I'll explain as I tell the story.

I knew this would potentially be a big day, so I set my sights on a 4AM start right from my front door. Actually managed to start riding at 4:07.

Ready to roll, early AF!

It's easy travel early on for the early stages of the route, neighborhood streets and dirt bike paths.

Skirting the north side of deem hills via the CAP access road

So thankful for this bridge over I-17. I've crossed it countless times. Without it, connecting deem hills and the Phoenix Sonoran Preserve would be much more difficult and dangerous.

I had a big day planned, so that doesn't leave a lot of time or effort to be spent at PSP. There are easily 60 miles of trails here, and lots of steep climbs. I would be hitting more of the tame flowy stuff on the way to Cave Creek. 

I started at the Desert Vista TH, and made a pretty direct route to the singletrack connector between the southern loops and the northern loops/apache wash area.

Apache Wash TH, still early and a little chilly.

Again, I decided to make a more direct route to hit up a C4 loop, so I just hit the relatively flat and smooth trails until I hit the carefree highway. Man, it got cold in there and I was kinda wishing for the sun to come out and warm things up a touch.

Once I reached Carefree Hwy, I had a decision to make, I didn't really want to do C4 in reverse, and I also didn't want to have to access C4 by dealing with some rugged stuff (and that terrible steep climb out to get to Surrey Drive). It was still very quiet with minimal traffic, so I decided to just hop on Carefree Hwy and ride up to Cave Creek Rd which I would remain on until I turned off onto Spur Cross Rd.

Turnoff for Spur Cross. Grabbing a snack and watching the sky light up.

It's a decent little grunt up to the Spur Cross TH, but it was quiet and a good warm-up. Paid my entrance fee to the iron ranger to be legit, hit the restrooms and got ready for the first real efforts of the day. The last time I was here, I realized how out of shape I was. This time was much better, no records broken, but rode everything pretty easily and was surprised when I got to the downhill. I thought there was more climbing lol. 

After completing the climb, the descent starts out pretty rocky and rowdy, but then smooths out at which point I decided to pull over and have breakfast.

Burrito power. And yes, I am using a gel flask for green sauce. I had two burritos. One for now, one for dinner if I decided to make the day stupid long.

C4 went down pretty well. There were some reroutes that have happened since the last time I was through here, but all in all, still a good time. My least favorite part is right at the very end when escaping up to Surrey Drive. The last little bit a a kick in the nuts, the old routing was so much better but at least users have legit access, so I won't complain, I'll just push my bike like I have done countless times.

Done with C4, and this is a big decision point...

 So right after this was the choice I would need to make that would take this route from big ride to epic ride status. Get down to Cave Creek, turn right and head to the Reach 11 area or.... turn left and start the road spin to Brown's Ranch. I was still feeling great, so I decided to go ahead and make it a stretch day. I turned left to spin up to Brown's Ranch. I knew by making this choice that I was in my mind committing to getting through BR and also the entire east side of the McDowell's.

The spin to Brown's Ranch was easy enough, though it was a little further than I thought just based on a map overview. Some rollers on pavement and then a cruise through a beautiful housing development in which I took advantage of some convenient trash containers from the trash I had been accumulating. Before I knew it, I was linking into BR.

I've really only ridden the Brown's Ranch stuff as part of bigger rides - one day I just need to have a regular ride out there haha. It's a great area really, cool stuff to see and fast, flowy trails. Some tech stuff here and there if you know where to look, but I wasn't looking today ;)

Funny story, I was stopped for a lunch break and I ran into a local rider (Brian) - we have developed a weird thing where we run into each other in really random trail locations. Funny stuff. We parted ways and I was in need of a water top-off. I needed enough to get through some rugged stuff in the McDowells, and there wouldn't be any more water until I reached the end of them.

Topping off water and taking a break at the beautiful BR trailhead.

With my fluids topped off, I headed out to link into the McDowell's and my last real challenge of the route. 

All kinds of unique saguaros out there, but this one captured my eye.

Four Peaks seems really close from here.

I always think this link between BR and the trails in MMRP is quick, but it always takes a while...

Really cool trail routing just north of Rock Knob. Made for a perfect snack break location. Ate half of my dinner burrito and enjoyed some shade.

It's mainly a rocketship downhill ride on Pemberton, but then the tough stuff started and my legs stated to get mad at me almost immediately. The terrain goes from buff trails to pretty dang rugged. And when it wasn't rocky, it was steep. 

I didn't take many pictures for a while because the day was catching up to me. I was 10 hours in on the day and had arguably the toughest part of the route upcoming. I rode quite a bit of it until I got to the Sonoran trail segments (yes, there is Sonoran here too). I hiked a ton of that stuff, trail surface was good but steep, and I was just tired. 

Mercifully, I got spit out for a very quick blast down promenade trail, but had one last battle - a pretty quick HAB followed by some beautiful but at times steep climbing on the Andrews-Kinsey segment which would lead to the descent down Sunrise.

Walking my bike trying to get to the fast descent down sunrise

It has been years since I have been on Sunrise, and it feels like some sections have degraded a bit. I was just tired enough that I walked the more technical features given I was pretty darn far from home at this point. About 75 miles in so no reason to do anything stupid now. 

With that in my rear view, it was a pretty easy cruise to the Lost Dog Wash TH

I was pretty beat, but time for the rest of my dinner burrito and fresh/cooler water in my bottles.

I was about 80 miles in on the day, and the rest of the ride would be primarily on bike/canal paths with some small sections of trail and neighborhood streets. I wasn't even aware of some of these connections until I saw some of the routing used by the AZ 1000 route created by John Schilling

Passed through an underpass and came out with this view. Stunning!

I had to break off of the Maricopa Trail to start to make my way West/Northwest. I didn't really want to deal with real traffic so made my way through the fancy house developments until I was able to access T100 at the Tatum TH. I really had no desire to be riding this at this point, but I had less desire to deal with real vehicles at night on Thanksgiving evening. I had an idea to make this as quick as possible, I just had to get it done. 

Dark AF, tired AF, but there is a bench nearby to eat a snack. 

I figured I better get moving if I want this night to end, so I made my way up T100. This section seems to change every so often, and I haven't been on it in a while so I saw a cool singletrack option that went left, maybe it was easier or cooler than the normal way? I started to ride it then after a few hundred yards I realized it continued to climb and was trending further south. This can't be right. Ugh. I cut my losses and turned around, annoyed at my decision. Found the fork where I broke off and went the correct way. 

I had zero intention of being on trail any longer than I needed to, so quickly made my way to the 40th street TH and got off. Just had to get to the dreamy draw bike path which would lead to easy access via a neighborhood road to the AZ canal. 

The AZ canal is a fantastic bikeway that connects large pieces of the city, though it has its downsides. Not really issues during the day, but it does go through some rough areas so be advised when it is dark. I did make it a point not to take the underpasses and instead cross the roads where possible. The big exception being the I17 underpass. Everywhere else I crossed at the road until I got more firmly in the avenues.

This was a long trek and I was ready to be done, but it was cool to have my first century in hand and plenty of riding to still do. Eventually the neighborhood street that leads to the  junction of skunk creek and its bike path came up. Made my way up that for a bit until it led me again to a convenient loop 101 pedestrian bridge. From here, it was more neighborhood roads all the way back to the house with only two major road crossings. 

All in all, I was really happy with the route. To be able to ride this far in such a variety of places with minimal vehicle interaction makes it great considering the proximity to the city. This is by no means a backcountry route, though the eastern side of the McD's can be really desolate. 

This ended up being my biggest day from a mileage perspective at about 125 miles. I matched my longest time at 18 hours.