AZ trails

[AZJW]

New state, New trails. Found this little gem about 15 minutes from the house.  Steeper in spots than it looks, but the T7 torque profile was made for this stuff, didn't even come close to stalling it once!

 

 

[AZJW]

Schnebly Hilll Road (Sedona, AZ) this past Saturday morning.

 

 

[AZJW]

Today's tooth filling dislodging ride.

 

 

[ADVUSA]

19 hours ago, AZJW said:

Today's tooth filling dislodging ride.

 

 

Stock suspension?  T7 stock suspension doesn't seem to excel at rocky routes.

[AZJW]

@ADVUSA Stock, except for a 90nm Rally Raid spring.  If I continue to abuse myself on stuff like this a set of Flexxbars and a steering damper would be a must. Probably smarter to just take the better equipped Beta dirt bike!

[Boondocker]

Nice vids and the music was decent too. The Hoot Owl Trail looks like something I could ride forever. Is it an OHV park? 

[AZJW]

The Hoot Owl Trail is part of a multi use network for 50" or less wide ATV, MC, Mtn. & E. Bike, horseback and hiking.  AZ OHV funds support the trail system, but certain trails are also sponsored by groups such as the Prescott Trail Riders. Neat area that I've just begun to scratch the surface of what it has to offer.  

[AZJW]

Trying out my Dango gripper chin mount for my GoPro today on a local road.  Unfortunately the mount doesn't tilt back far enough to capture the horizon so I'm going to add an extension to fix that.  A bit of wind noise from that location above 30 mph or so, but to be expected, just too bad it doesn't really capture the great sound of the Camel-ADV pipe.

 

 

[vagrant318]

On 9/26/2021 at 5:16 PM, AZJW said:

The Hoot Owl Trail is part of a multi use network for 50" or less wide ATV, MC, Mtn. & E. Bike, horseback and hiking.  AZ OHV funds support the trail system, but certain trails are also sponsored by groups such as the Prescott Trail Riders. Neat area that I've just begun to scratch the surface of what it has to offer.  

I wish there was more of this around me. Its either fairly extreme singletrack or forest roads with trucks/jeeps- Thats some goldilocks trails right there

[AZJW]

Not exactly a trail these days, but it was during the gold rush.

Mingus Mtn. & Jerome, AZ

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T700 MC ride

 

[Boondocker]

I appreciate the video with the natural soundtrack.

 

The ride through Jerome is good on a bike. I have sort of fond memories, after I blank out the terror. The first time I did it was about 15-years ago on a V-Strom 650, my first moto-camping trip, also in January. It was about 4PM when I started up the mountain, from the west on 89A - dark, cold and snowy. I was scared and slow. Ended up camping at Dead Horse Ranch State Park on night 1 and somewhere in the boondocks on night 2. On the way home to Las Vegas, the wind was so bad on the I-40 that I was literally getting blown off the road. Getting passed by semis was frightening compared to riding though the mountains on a cold, wet, dark night for the first time. I thought better of trying to make it home that day and took a hotel in Kingman, AZ. It was a while before I stopped shaking, and not from the cold.

 

The last time was about 4 years ago with Mrs. Boondocker, 2-up on the Super Ténéré. From Jerome, we went "due north" to Williams on dirt roads. Between a paper map, GPS, and some people we met out there, we managed to "feel our way" to the KOA near Williams.

 

Thanks for bringing up the AZ memories and sorry about the thread hijack.

[AZJW]

@Boondocker No hijack worries,  AZ has some great ADV & trail riding. 89A has a ton of shady spots plus the cinders the road dept. spreads for icy spots can make for sketchy traction, which is why I was taking it easier than usual.

[Landshark]

Great video.  I love the small town attraction and the people who hang out there.  

Where on your helmet do you have the camera mounted?  

[AZJW]

@Landshark Thx, Jerome is a neat little tourist town, really busy on weekends, but full of history.  The camera mount I'm using is a Dango chin clamp, which in stock form, doesn’t adjust far enough back for my Hero 5.  The other rectangular models will probably work, but I had to add the extension to make my setup work. It's a spendy little thing, thought about returning it, but the cheaper strap on models didn't have very many positive comments,  so I'll be hanging on to this one.

 

Gripper Mount - Action Camera Mount from Dango Design

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The multisport, action camera Gripper Mount from Dango Design, is the most versatile GoPro® camera mount on the market.

 

[AZJW]

 Out playing yesterday before weather moved in.

[Desert Mariner]

Nice! That's east from Kirkland Junction, right? One of my favorite places to ride locally. Have your explorations continued on up to Crown King from there?

 

[AZJW]

Yep, you got it, east of Kirkland Jct. We only got in about 25 miles off of 89 and ran out of time.  I'll ping you next time as I plan on making it all the way to CK and probably complete the loop via Cleator to Mayer.  Going need to wait till the snow melts for that route.

[AZJW]

Out dodging thunderstorms. 

 

[thepointchris]

40 minutes ago, AZJW said:

Out dodging thunderstorms. 

 

I'm from SoCal  have the same, fast colour T7. what's  a thunderstorm?

[AZJW]

@thepointchris

In the event you run across one, they look something like this.

 

[Ray Ride4life]

Dark clouds pouring rain and lots of lightning.

Edited August 1, 2022 by Ray Ride4life

[AZJW]

What's fast becoming a daily morning ritual, a quick hop over the hill and back on Mingus Mountain.   So fortunate to have this place and associated dirt 2 track so close to home.

 

 

[AZJW]

Our oldest son finally got his hands on a new T7 so we just had to take it out and get it dirty.  North of Jerome,AZ we had a Mojave Green sighting ( almost ran over it) realized it was very much alive and decided getting to Williams for lunch was much more important than hanging around an agitated rattler.

 

Temps were pushing 90, so we kept moving and got to Williams around noon. Checking the weather radar, our planned route southwest was a mess of thunderstorms so we opted to head east toward Flagstaff.   

Mother nature had other ideas and we got slammed by very close lightning & thunder about 10 miles west of Flagstaff.  We finally made it to an underpass on a side road and waited out the storm. 

 

 

After at least 30 minutes of heavy lightning and rain, it backed off enough to make a run for it.

We took 89A down Oak Creek Canyon, but had to sit dead stopped in road construction for 15 minutes in yet another heavy downpour.

Finally making it to Sedona, the weather started to clear and roads started to dry up. 

 

 

After fighting copious amounts of tourist traffic,  we got over the Mountain without any further drenching.

Almost 7 hours and 185 miles later  we arrived home with soaked riding gear, but well washed bikes.  The new T7 pleased it's owner and he's ready for more. Any day riding with your kid is a great day, even if you're drenched for half of the ride.

[AZJW]

A few of pics of today's ride up Mingus Mtn.  I needed an excuse to top off the tank and pencil math showed 62.5 mpg.   Those results were obtained headed up a twisty road, periodically stuck behind an RV or two.  Still pretty good range and I'm comfortable going at least 200 miles on a full tank.

 

 

[AZJW]

Last ride of 2022 over Mingus Mtn. In about 48 hours, all these trees will be covered in snow and many of the shaded portions of this road will be subject to black ice.  Forecast through the 1st has high temps up here at or below freezing.