Snowy Bike

We have snow here in Oklahoma, some times a lot, some times only a little. Every year we get some. It's always fun on the first snow of the year to get out and play in it. By the time we've had three or four, the fun slips away. Studded tires on my mountain bike helps when roads are icy, but I usually only put them on once during the winter and then end up taking them right off after the ride. I don't like the way they ride on a dry road. For most snowy conditions (no ice) just plain Kenda Nevegals work just fine. The first series of pictures was taken as the storm was just starting......My daughter braved the cold and blowing snow to go out and take pictures of her "Crazy Dad"......

These two were taken the next day, after the storm was over. Really was a nice day, just very cold. Had lots of fun.

All Play and No Work

My Mom always used to tell me that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", and I always took that to heart. But, once in a while, if you want to play..... there has to be a little work involved. In this case, the art of trail building. A duo of clubs and a few individuals are helping to carve a new mountain bike trail out of the wilderness on land donated for the effort by the local Episcopal Church, who happens to own about 700 acres for a retreat east of Seminole. I like to do a little mountain biking in the winter months when you are protected from the cold wind by the trees somewhat, and if I want to use this trail, I felt it only right that I contribute my labor toward helping to build it as well. On the day I went out there, it was windy, and not too pleasant for riding on the road, so a perfect day for volunteering to help build trail. As you can see by the road going into the site, it IS rather isolated.....

Finally, after finding some vehicles, I got out, grabbed my tools and started hiking in looking for fresh trail builders. It took me a while because, while it's a fairly new trail, they have about a mile and one half built already. Finally, here they were.......

I decided they had enough help doing what they were doing, so I went on ahead and found a few more workers cutting a new section of trail . Pitching in, we managed to clear about another 500-600 feet of new trail by mid afternoon, and by that time, this old guy had about enough. I did, however, grab my leaf rake and set about walking the trail and raking leaves away so you could actually see it as I explored what they had built already. The scenery was outstanding.

This picture is of one of a couple of small lakes on the property. The trail goes down along the shore before climbing back up the slope back to the start. Very heavily wooded, and very scenic all over the entire length of it.

Eventually, the trail is designed to go entirely around the lakes and start and end at the buildings of the retreat.  It will be around 14 miles altogether. All the labor on this trail is done by the riders who will be using it. Some of the rock formations are quite interesting..... like this rock formation we dubbed "Whose Fault"......  Whose,  Indeed!

This is a Bald Eagle nesting area, and I was so hoping to be able to get a shot or two of an eagle in the wild, but it wasn't the day for it I guess as I never saw one.
After making the loop on the trail, and clearing it of leaves and debris, I rejoined our little group of builders who were discussing how we should build one of many little jumps ....

And of course, after we got it built, we had to test it out a bit........

And, it looked like it passed with flying colors. You didn't expect this was all going to be about work did you? A little fun was had by all. The rider got a lot of razzing about not having a helmet, and he really should have had, but it was a work day, and he had left it in the car..... yeah....
After riding a part of it on a borrowed bike (I didn't have a helmet either, not even a bike), I decided that this was going to be a very fun trail, and I'll be out here from time to time.

Route 66, Up Sitgreaves Pass

Today is the day I try to catch up on the finish of the Kingman Route 66 ride. We started out in Kingman, AZ on this leg, and worked our way west on the old part of Rt 66 up toward the old gold and siver mining town of Oatman, Az. First, however, there is the advent of a little hill called Sitgreaves Pass to take up a bit of our energy. The scenery on this part of old 66 is far different from the route north of Kingman, definitely much more mountainous, both in terrain as well as wildlife.

The area is not only much more rugged, but also much more colorful as well. The first several miles that we traveled on this route were fresh chip-seal, still loose and challenging to ride on. This part of the ride would have been better to do with mountain bikes. This was very recently done however, but what was even worse was that they had gone ahead of the chip seal operation and sealed all the cracks first with tar and produced a very rough surface for us. On backsides that were still a bit tender from the long ride to Seligman the day before, the jarring from the hardened tar fillings definitely were noticed. After a little less than five miles however, this was gone, and the old highway was still in good shape as we started up the grade. The monolith above was prominent from a considerable distance, and the overcast skies just made the desert even more beautiful as we worked our way up.

We soon found ourselves climbing vigorously as we tackled the beginnings of the long grade up to the summit. Time constraints would limit us to a round trip to the summit today because my riding companion had to start back by early afternoon in order to return to work the next day. About halfway up the hill, and about the part where the REAL climbing was about to commence, there stood a relic from the past ..... now turned gift shop, and "sorta-museum".....

Ran by a character by the name of George, who was as interesting ....... and as unusual as the place iteself. They offered free water, and welcome outhouses (very clean by the way), and we ended up spending at least a half hour there talking and looking at all the interesting things he had on display inside and out. Very worthwhile stop for anyone going up that way, by bike, or car. While we were looking around the outside we were paid a visit by one of the "locals"......

He was not only a character with a personality all his own, but a bit of a mooch as well. Certainly very photogenic however. From here, it was going to take a bit longer to get to the top however as the road became much steeper, narrower, and much more wild as we progressed up. Lydia led the way as we left the gift shop/ gas station.

There was still another 5 miles to go before we could reach the summit. The weather turned out to be absolutely a perfect day for riding after the morning clouds burned off. The wind was almost non existant, and the scenery spectacular. As we were climbing we kept hearing these strange noises coming from up ahead, and finally found what was making them.......

The Jack was not only protecting his Jenny, but also the rest of his "family as well, Unfortunately, the little one was pretty quick to follow on his mom's heels and never really presented me with a good shot, this was about the only one I got with him in it.

He was such a cute little tyke, but our presence made both Mom and Dad somewhat nervous. These burros are wild creatures, relatives of the many domesticated burros the prospectors used to carry their tools and equipment up to the mines in the 1800's. When the mines played out after a few years, the miners left, and just left the burros behind. They flourished in the hills and now are a fairly common sight.





After our photo session with some of the local "wildlife" of unusual origins, we made a turn in the road, and came upon a sight not viewed by many.

An entire flock of Desert Bighorns. They are actually fairly common to this area, but are seldom seen because they are normally quite wary. This was a long telephoto shot as we could get no closer and they were across the canyon from us. I was wishing for a bit longer tele capacity on my camera about then however.

We found that soon they were bored with us and moved on around the corner of the canyon they were grazing on, and out of sight. We climbed on up to another vantage point but were unable to get another picture of them. I did, however get a great picture of some of the better scenery of our ride.

The further up we went, the more spectacular the scenery became, and the more twisty and steep the road became.

Certainly a bit of a challenge for a morning's ride. We did, however, prove ourselves up to the challenge .......

And....soon found ourselves at the summit....

Going back down was quick, fun, and uneventful. We were back at Kingman in a short time, and unfortunately, the weekend had to come to a close as we had to head our separate ways to return to our homes and jobs. Much fun, and such an enjoyable time exploring a very historical area of our country. We both vowed to continue this at a later date.

A Route 66 Odyssey

I had been wanting to try a Route 66 ride in Arizona for some time. I had managed a little bit of it a year earlier, and it whet my appetite for more. Logistics was the problem ..... I just really didn't want to ride the whole thing twice to get back to my car. So, I called a good friend of mine to see if she wanted to ride it with me. She did! So, we set a date, and met and based in Kingman, AZ, leapfrogged cars to each end and kept one in Kingman. That way, we only had to ride the route once, and took the waiting car back. Worked out OK....a bit of driving, but we took a different route and saw a little different scenery on the way. This ride is an older ride, completed in October, 2009, but with some great memories. October is a great time of year to ride northern Arizona, the temperatures are rather cool in the morning, but warm up nicely by late morning and afternoon. A light jacket would have felt good when we left Kingman that morning, but I hate to stuff it in my back pocket, sooooo I toughed it out.  The sign says it all......

 although we never made it all the way to Flagstaff, there'll be another trip, and that time we will make enough time for a long trip. Just didn't have any room on our road bikes for luggage, and work constraints made the time impossible for us to complete that long a trip, so, we took it in two legs. Leg one..... Kingman to Seligman, 85 miles, ...... leg two..... Kingman to the top of Sitgreaves Pass and return, around 40 miles.

Flat the first little part of the ride, but subtly uphill really all the way. Around 3000 feet at Kingman, but 5400 feet before Seligman. This was our first real taste of seeing how well either of us would perform at any kind of elevation. The first thing we noticed was the road surface..... a chip seal, very rough, and draggy. So...we white lined it almost all the way. After we left Hackberry, we had very little traffic to contend with. so it really wasn't bad riding the white line. People seemed very polite and gave us plenty of room. After leaving Hackberry, we found that there was indeed a few actual hills on our route.....

We finally made our way on up and over and discovered an old tourist trap from the 30's or so. There may have been a name for this place, but I can't recall it. Really a cool place with lots of old stuff from the 30's, 40's and 50's. I'm sure if the place could talk, it would have a million stories to tell. Instead, it allowed us to read our own from what we saw there.

After we left the "museum" as such, we once again started a steady uphill grade that continued on and off all the way to Peach Springs.

Just a little ways over this little hill we came across this old "cable" drilling rig. Not too many of these around, even for viewing. I doubt if there are any in operating condition.

A little past here was a pretty little ranch nestled in this little valley. We were both impressed at how green the desert was in October.

And a few tenacious desert plants.

Continuing on, we finally made it into the town of Peach Springs, a milestone in as this was past the point of no return. Fifty miles into the ride, it was closer to Seligman now than it was to go back to Kingman. Not too much there, but we took a short break, ate a snack, and rested up a bit.

Peach Springs is an Indian Tribal headquarters, and they did have a large governmental facility there as well. There was a little store to grab a snack before heading out. Leaving Peach Springs is a rather long and steep climb, but after topping out, there were great desert views of wide open spaces.

After a bunch of miles of this, we finally came upon Grand Canyon Caverns. Another tourist stop from days of old. After the Interstate bypassed this route, most of these little places died along the way. This one did, however, hang on. Boasting a campground, general store, mini-museum, and a whole lot of history, we stopped for a break here and did a little sight-seeing ourselves. One of the first things I noticed was this ancient switchboard .....

Not something you see every day anymore. We sat down outside on a bench with the old "Route 66" sign for a tourist picture....courtesy of self timer on my camera.

They even had their own antique fire truck....still in operating condition.

For those of you with more time than we had, they do have guided jeep tours of the caverns that are up the road a piece from the crossroads. Before leaving....and if I didn't mention it here, I'd never hear the end of it..... I managed to sneak in a HUGE ice cream cone...... it was GREAT!
Leaving there, and on our final leg to Seligman, I did indeed find a sight reminicent of the heyday of "Route 66". It's been a long time since I've seen Burma Shave signs, and Lydia had never seen one.... indeed, didn't even know about them, this was a whole new experience for her. Had to get the whole sequence.

I recall those signs all over the country, always with a different slogan, and used to enjoy reading them all when I was a kid. These, while not original, surely brought back wonderful memories, and I'm glad they restored them and put them out there. Always, all along the route, we were never far from our constant companion..... The Santa Fe..........

Finally, topping out, it was now downhill the next 8 miles into Seligman.....I knew we were going to make it. By now though, we were both getting a bit tired, and saddle weary.

And FINALLY....... we had to make sure and get the touristy pictures here, completing our epic one day journey up Rt 66.   Seligman....at last........

Venturing on downtown, we found the normal Rt 66 traffic to be almost unbearable while we stood in the middle of the busy highway trying to decide where to go next.......

Touring the old town on our bikes was indeed fun, and an enjoyable ending to our wonderful trip.

Of course, I couldn't help but ham it up a bit.....

And, so, another chapter brought to a close. We found my car, put the bikes on the carrier, and drove back to Kingman, where we enjoyed a dinner at the Golden Corral, one of my favorite eateries. The next installment on our "great Rt 66 Adventure" will come as a separate post as this one has already gone on too long.