San Francisco Peaks Training Loop ~ Super wicked fun

 

The Two Crazy Cats, Matt and I went up for a ride of epic proportions to San Francisco Peaks a couple of weekends ago. This total bike wound up to be 47 miles of fantabulous doubletrack blanketed in yellow, often canopied too, from the surrounding Aspens. If you’re looking for something that’s not technical, but that will work you at high altitude for endurance, this is a good one.

 

This ride started at the Shultz Creek trailhead per Cosmic Ray’s “Around the Peaks” ride and quickly began a rocky jeep rode whoopty woo (translation=rolling rocky rubble, yeah like Barney) for the first 5 miles or so. Somehow one of the Two Crazy Cat girls just happened to go over her handlebars a couple of times in this section so be careful! Once you get past all this Barney rubble you’ll start a nice paved road climb that goes straight up for 3.5 miles to around 8500’ for a total gain of around 1300’. The aspens on this climb make it worth all the effort and the single-track and meadows at the top are the ultra pay off for some of the best views in the state of Arizona! Once you reach the top of the climb, look for a parking lot to the left with a bunch of techy dorks with camera’s snapping shots at the purty little trees, if you see a bunch of people with straps and new fangled gadgets that they don’t know how to use, you’re in the right spot. Turn left now. The single-track navigation here was a little tricky, but the gist of it is that you have to head west so just pick a trail/road until you hit the main rode that goes straight north and you’ll be set. Enjoy the views and don’t forget to look over your shoulder to see the Peaks winking at you…they were snow covered just 2 weeks ago!

 

This next section of jeep road (Hart Prairie road) is a good hard pack that takes you through wide open spaces followed by some amazing descents through canopied and blanketed jeep roads. Some of these areas were so amazing that I had to stop and whip out the camera to take some pictures, though the camera just can’t do it justice! Ride on this road for 8 miles or so and make sure you skip the first turn off to the right that is 418B and take the second, the actual 418. The first one is definitely the more fun ride and is what we took, but the no trespassing signs and hillbilly on the front porch with a shotgun for some reason scared Matt a little bit. This road hasn’t been a road for probably 20-30 years or so and is quite tree covered and worn, but is beautiful in its own right with a plethora of fallen trees to jump over and ride through, just be prepared for a chewing at the end if you jump the fence and make a dash for the real 418 (you should probably do the right thing and take the real 418 so as to stay out of trouble). It’s a long haul on the 418 to the locket meadow turn off, but well worth it. The locket meadow climb goes up for a quite a long ways and is followed up from the top with a 1.5 mile single/double trackish climb over rubble on a steep angle and at elevation to 9400’. This one will work you over good, especially after biking for 35ish miles already but the views from every inch are well worth it and the temps at the top feel great! Once you have reached the apex of this climb it is truly all downhill for the next 8-10 miles to the end and you will be cold without extra layers in this section, bring extra gear!

 

This is an epic ride that took us 7 ½ hours, but we did screw around quite a bit. For all the hammerheads out there I’m sure it can be trimmed a bunch. If you have some people in your group that don’t want to do the locket meadow climb, just have them bypass it by not turning off on it and keep on the main road. It will take you right back to the start.

 

AR Josh

~Happy Trails~