Sedona MTB

It begins to get 'light' about 7 am out here in 'boondock' land, and I have gotten into the habit of staying in bed until I can open the curtains and light the interior naturally, thereby avoiding the use of electricity.  Friday was not one of those days......my mountain bike friends from SoCal had arrived Thursday night in Sedona to ride the surrounding trails for two days, and I had decided to join them for at least one day, but that meant I had to be at their hotel in Oak Creek (on the south side of Sedona on HWY 179) by 8 am.  This, in turn, meant I needed to leave our campsite by 7:15 am for the 40 minute drive, which meant I had to get up at the very indecent hour of 5:30.

I arrived shortly before 8 and true to form we were riding a block up the street shortly thereafter to start our ride.  These Sedona trails are a lot different from what we ride in SoCal.....a lot of loose rock to ride over, and a lot of what is called 'slick rock'.  It took me a while to get used to it, but ultimately I did and had a lot of fun.  As I have mentioned before these guys are in their 30's, 40's and 50's, and they still ride once, or twice a week.......I'm the old guy of the group, and if I get out on my mountain bike once, or twice a month now it is unusual....nevertheless, I held my own.

The following pictures from our ride are in no particular order.......

Cook chapel built into the surrounding rock formation

Taking a break at 'Submarine Rock'....Sedona style bike rack....:-)

Richie and I

Left to right-back: John and Paul

Left to right-front: Ryan, Richie, moi and Mark

In all I rode just over 16 miles on 5th Saturday, and this morning my body is feeling it, but I would have traded that day for anything.  The views were just stunning, and my poor photography barely does a small amount of justice to what we saw.  After we finished our ride we stopped off at Red Rock Cafe for lunch.....Yelp gives them 4 stars on 244 reviews, and I will have to agree.  Around 2pm I bid farewell to my friends and began the drive 'home'.

Friday was overcast, and the house batteries were down to 83% by the time I left for my bike ride.  I thought about setting up the Honda generator for TLE to turn on after I left, but I didn't have time.  When I called TLE at 11 they (batteries) were down to 81%, but were beginning to charge a little according to the Blue Sky monitor.  By the time I arrived home at 3 they were only back to 83%, so I plugged in the Honda 1000 watt generator, and ran it for three hours getting them back to 90% before I shut 'er down for the night.  Real Saturday promises to be cloudless so we should be able, without the use of a generator, to get back into the 90 percentile range then.

Thanks for stopping by!