This ride conceived a couple weeks ago. The idea was Alex and I would hit Flag for a few days based out of Rancho Relaxo. But high-country weather and busy schedules reduced this to a day-trip I’d yapped at Alex since last year had to be on his ’10 Must-Do list.   We hooked up with my MTBR friend John, the TrailDoc, Sedona’s Self-Appointed Ambassador.

The difference between riding some trails, and getting a tour with a local, has become the most profound difference in the world to me.   I simply don’t want to stop and consult maps, and wonder, and push when i should flow, and be scared and walk what i could nail following someone’s line.   Mountain biking is about the total experience of skill and power and energy and stoke and rhythm. Rhythm is complicated, but the bike is easy, and the mountain bike offers up a broad spectrum of goodness to the rhythm. Follow a guy who has helped build the Sedona renaissance I’ve enjoyed the past few years, and one of the best days all year was nearly guaranteed. Thanks Traildoc!

We had 6 riders, from various connections and with various skill sets, and spent a buoyant 4 hours in the autumn desert, only an hour idle, everyone pleasantly blown but not blown up, no mechanicals or blood, resulting in a buzz that has lasted Alex and I all night long.   The trail was engaging from the bell, and almost 100% of the time.   Minute-by-minute a glorious ride. Climbs and descents, rolls and grunts, ledges and whoopdees, tech and gnar relaxed and puckered together amidst spectacular scenery i almost never had time to gaze at. We had too much fun to take many photos.

Starting top right, across a narrow, off-camber dusting of apple-and-cantaloupe-sized rocks. We launched next to the high school…the trail was named Special Ed, and my bud built it.

we quickly broke into our legs and our balance, it reminded Alex and I of the north face on Pass Mtn.   We could only snatch quick views of the rim country as the trail traversed a blue\black course

smile, Bruce!

Seats dropped for a steep knobby slot, that felt scary and smooth and comfortably numb, got easier as i went faster, and gave me a giant woody. A great way to feel after the day’s first double-black move, grinning down and downward til we crossed Oak Creek

Silvan creekbed climbed into switchbacks and ledges, just about when we got complacent with the shade and harmony of red rocks and leaves falling on flowing water

topping out and traversing on Templeton, til we turned down the scour path along one of the buttes

5oo yards of uneven rockface down

reaching the bottom, we pedaled several miles of gradually ascending feeder washes, sandbars, soccer balls, dropins, charge-outs and ledges. does it sound complicated? it was, and each turn inspired a fresh challenge. Low speed tech crawling abided the occasional very-hard move, which didn’t seem so hard from this consistent chunky baseline.

aided by a new chain, new bearing cups and a freshly greased freehub, the Heckler felt almost new, and I felt great climbing back up the butte to the Highline

this photo is way too greek, and i am not that fat

We were all primed for the descent off Highline. Really primed.   When i first heard the route, i grinned at how it would end with a gnar-candy descent, but now after 2.5 hrs of mostly climbing and traversing with just enough descending to tease, every biker’s sense down to my semicircular canals screamed out for going down.  The steady ledges and chunks and lines up to this point, punctuated by the final mile of handle-bar wide singletrack with dropoffs into the red rocks far below, had tweaked the techy muscles into resplendent focus and fatigue and readiness for gravity.  Really primed. The last time I felt this good was 4 runs into the Telluride bike park.

John led us through the descent’s creamy frosting of undulating slickrock. Several times i approached a lip and wondered when where if i would see the bottom, but i saw the other guys go over, so hung back and trusted my technique, while all that potential energy started to pick up momentum and lubricate my conservatism.

Recollections of a scary descent crept in, but another year of double-blacks and a 30mm shorter stem pushed them away. i plunged down the first steep slot so close on Bruce’s wheel on John’s wheel, that halfway down when i got scared, i realized Alex must be right on my wheel, and if i wadded up we would all get hurt.   I didn’t, i didn’t need to, no matter how bad i wanted to.

Alex descending off Highline, this was an “easy” part sandwiched between 2 imposing double-black slots
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Alex and I stopped to scope the hardest move down a bouldery pitch facing over the edge.   He went, and standing at the top i heard him clear it, which after so many rides with Alex means I too can clear it, if i can focus.   Track-standing at its bottom trying to carve a hard right while not obsessing over the void in front of me, i momentarily basked in the power of reason over instinct, then clenched seeing a 4 foot uneven drop into the next steep narrow line, then just kept going, and going, launching ledges down Baldwin til all the gravity flowed out and left me at equilibrium.

back across Oak Creek for the 2nd time

the perfect ending to this perfect rhythm ride was waiting for us across the street – a cargo van with 10-bike trailer, shuttling us up back up to Special Ed, and drinks at John and Janet’s house nearby.

this trip was about Beckie doing the marathon, so I didn’t get bummed not riding Gooseberry and Hurricane. I was just content after arriving hella late to   get out before daybreak and ride the Zen trail, close to everything on the south side of St. George.   A guy i met in Sedona at Spring Fling 2 yrs ago responded to my post on MTBR and showed me around.

We parked above the eroded bottom of a bluff, and i nearly went ass over elbows riding the steep down to the base of the Zen trail’s mesa, not awake or focused on the rising light.

a mile approach of mild ledgey doubletrack led us onto the sandstone mesa for some mostly-intermediate techy goodness

classic Utah views in all directions

fun in the hoodoos

Tae looking southward

rolling swoopy descents through the slickrock with some small drops and jumps mixed in

Zen took just a bit over an hour, so i next went off the adjacent bluff onto the Bearclaw Poppy trail

the drop in was fun, but i only got one chance to spot and hit the coolest lines

then it was several miles out-and-back of rolling spidering trails along the toes of the mesa that Zen traversed.   There were some really fun moments, but the big bike and the spiderweb of trails led to a lot of indirect wandering where i was not always able to use gravity to my advantage.   It was kinda like Desert Classic, but with steeper dropins and no hikers.

i should have headed back to the hotel, but it was still cool out and i wanted another loop on Zen, and to push myself into some fitness on the big bike. i moved pretty steadily without many pics, until i nearly ran this guy over on the one steep rocky slot on the trail. I took the left line.

4 hrs and 23 miles made hauling the Heckler 3 states and 400 miles worthwhile.