Riding with the Coyotes

Kristi vowed that she would not miss the Sunday ride with the Coyotes. We had agreed weeks ago to lead. We'd vowed to produce a classy route sheet for the riders and plotted a route on AllSportGPS. Our route sheet had turn-by-turn directions with all the mileages and the map had the coffee shop marked on the route and there was even an elevation profile. Kristi's plan had us going to precisely the same turn around spot as Saturday's ride with the ABC Desert Foothills group, but via a slightly different route. That means that for the 6 tandem teams that arrived at the starting point at 6:30 AM, it was 15 miles of climbing, gaining about 1000 feet of elevation. It wasn't very steep, but it was unrelenting. It's the kind of constant uphill slog that works more on the brain then on the legs. At the corner of Stage Coach Pass and Boulder View, several of the bikes patiently waited as we pulled up the rear. That provided Charlie with the opportunity to memorialize the ride saying, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, "What imbicile picked this route?" Fortunately we were almost to the turn-around point. From there, we gave back the 1000 feet of elevation in a fraction of the time it took to earn it. The 8 miles of nearly pedal-less descent seemed to ease any ill will generated during the long climb and a leisurely recovery stop at the Cave Creek Coffee Company sealed the deal. The last few miles back to our ride start were similarly mostly downhill and even the uphill portions seemed to be a bit of an optical illusion, looking worse then they really were. A group coyote howl in the parking lot at ride's end finished off the morning.

I updated the route on AllSportGPS with several of the pictures taken on this ride.