An especially great day for a ride

I got up early this morning for a ride up to New River. It was a perfect day for getting out on the bike. I missed riding yesterday. OK, I admit that I wimped out - just didn't feel like getting rained on going in to work. Besides, I had finally built up the courage to buy some 'stretchy-pants' the kind cyclists wear 'just for fun' I had been avoiding them for the longest time - body image issues you know. But for longer rides, the padding in the right places becomes important. So If you see me riding around, kindly avert your eyes! (at least don't point)

Today, the weather was cool and overcast, not windy at all. I went north on Norterra Parkway to Carefree highway, then east to 7th Street. Up to that point there are very nice, smooth bike lanes or wide shoulders. Once you head north on 7th street, the shoulder is pretty narrow and the road is much more bumpy. There are some nice hills, which I need to do more of. The desert scenery was very nice, greenish even.

I made my way towards the Daisy Mountain building, somewhere along the way, 7th street turns into New River Road which loops around Gavilan Peak (the big pointy one in the middle of New River) and back towards I-17. Passing under I-17, New River Road wanders west toward Lake Pleasant. This road is very bicycle friendly, the road is very smooth, has wide shoulders and not too much traffic. I was hitting my stride and pedaling at a good cadence. After 6 or 7 miles of blissful slightly down-hill riding, the road intersects with Lake Pleasant Road.

Heading left you pick up the end of Carefree Highway and start back eastward. Trivia Question: Who wrote the popular song named after this Highway? If you know post a comment, if not post your wild guess then Click Here to find out. I was thinking about this song all the way back to Norterra Parkway.

I zipped south on Norterra Parkway to the road leading to the Dump Transfer facility. It has an excellent whoop-de-do that will make you squeek if you are trying it in a car. Try it, you'll like it! Then over the Dixeleta overpass and south on the frontage road back home. Time just under 3 hours, distance 46 miles.

Father's & Son's

Last week Ryan and I attended the Father's and Son's campout near Flagstaff at a place called Kelley Canyon. We had a great time setting up our tent and cooking dinner. Ryan roasted our delicious Polish sausage over the campfire and I cooked the corn on the cob.

In the morning we made some air powered rockets and Ryan fired the awesome potato gun. We also played a fun game called 'Cracker Whacker' where you tie a saltine cracker to your back beltloop with some fishing line and try to break the other guy's cracker with your rolled up paper.

We did bring our mountain bikes and went for a great ride along Forest Rd. 700. We wanted to make a loop along some other roads but I couldn't figure out the map, so we just stayed on the main dirt road. We made it almost all the way south to Munds park, but we were getting tired so we turned back at 8 miles or so (measured on my bike's computer) It was a lovely sunny and cool day in the north country of Arizona. We saw a couple of other bike riders, some ATV riders and a motorcyclist.
We took some snacks and gatorade to keep us going. Ryan is becoming a very good bike rider and made it the whole 16 miles without complaint. He is well on his way to earning the Bicycling merit badge in scouts.

As promised, here are the pictures...

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