Sedona Day 1!!

The first morning we rolled over to the shop just in time to catch George opening up. Luckily we waited around for a few minutes because Rama showed up in his drop top Miata w/ Max living a dog's dream in the passenger seat. He remembered me and we shot the shit as he scurried around the shop. We had to buy a couple Slime tubes each to resist all the cactus spines. We rode from the shop and hit Airport to Bandit to Ridge Trail, then over to Buddah Beach, across the Red Rock Crossing, along Oak Creek and then climbed the switchbacks up to the slickrock bench at the base of the massive rock formation. We rode along it for a while, then dropped across the highway and onto Bell Rock Trail. We pedaled to the Bike and Bean and met up w/ Tex (Jeff Harris- Kevin's landscaping boss). Chewy was working and we caught up for a minute and exchanged numbers. We ate some lunch at Desert Flour (yummy chicken sandwich and salad) and took off up to ride Slim Shady. We originally were going to ride Highline, but it required climbing the switchbacks again. Slim was super fun and swoopy. We climbed back to Bike and Bean. We jumped in his truck and rallied over to MTBH and up to Skid Mark. The climbing was fun for a while, then we got onto some exposed slick rock benches and some seriously techy moves started appearing- riding onto steep off-camber rocks slabs, wallride climbs, etc. We stopped at the boulder below Tea Pot Rock and got safe before watching Tex style out Skid Mark. I scoped it, tried to commit, but after crawling across the slick rock I couldn't commit to the stair step transition into the steep sliding section w/ a "mandatory" hard R. It continued w/ a steep rock waterfall line and more steeps before spitting you out below. I chickened out on most of the whole line, but my new bike and the stock 2.3 inch single-ply tires weren't inspiring the most confidence!! I would have done it on the Sunday, but the climb was prohibitive of that idea. We rode some really fun stuff, then detoured off to check out the step-down to natural wall-ride move which I chickened on again (an emerging theme here). Wrong bike set-up. Need DH tires and plushness, not a glorified xc bike. Then we hit another trail which had a "short and long" crux section. I chickened on the short line- a drop to steep rock chunder, but rode the long line- another crawling move out some slickrock before doing a small drop, negotiating some steep rock terrain, then I accidentally aired a roller section, and had to immediately drop again- to flat this time- and "shut er down" since there was a small cliff below. Tex was pretty stoked an I was relieved to have ridden a section that I deemed slightly over my head (or my bikes head, or both). We rallied back to MTBH along a maze of trails that seemed longer than they should have been. Lily and I hit up a delicious vegetarian restaurant a few doors down from MTBH and threw down. Spring rolls, I got a falafel platter, some ginger lemonade, and a piece of chocolate ganache for dessert. She even brought us a sample of their hot chocolate which has coconut milk and honey as well as raw cacao. Off to 525, but this time across the street and down along the creek (thanks Kev!!) to crash for the night.