Ahhh, I wish I went...next time. Please post more pics!

That cut looks nasty. Heal up quick!

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There's a lot of shame on a road bike. -- evdog

Nice pics and report. Looks like fun. Sorry I missed it but I had a pretty sweet weekend myself, so I'm sure not complaining.

Heal up quick James!! Stuff like that is actually the main reason I run a bash guard instead of a 44t on all my cranksets. My dad did the same thing to the back of his knee on Labor Day '06. Took 17 stitches to close his leg up. I used to have a pic of his big ring with hair and flesh stuck on it. In my humble opinion, everyone should do it. You only really loose 2 gears doing it, as 2:9 is identical in ratio to 3:7.

Looking forward to more pics.

Wow.
Looks like something out of the band GWAR!
Heel up quick, Moab is right around the corner...

So...since you can never have too many pics, here are some of mine.

Day 1 on South Mtn:

I don't mind waking up early to cool air and sunshine


Our campsite 45mins S of Phoenix


Sladnas cleans a tough rise


Climbing...this mountain has a lot of tough, technical sections. Balance, endurance and power all required. And you have to pick the right line.


Cool cactus


Nice view towards downtown


Sladnas plans his approach


Threading the needle


James up next




In places the trail was worn down into a trench that you had to balance thru


Sean is the first to hit the trailside rock feature


Brent next...


Sladnas just has to be different...


James conquers


Sean rides the spine. Nicely done.


Sean goes for the hard line.


Sladnas gets in on the action.




Nice views as James heads down Geronimo, pre-carnage


And finishes the ride, post-carnage


Geronimo was pretty technical, though nothing compared to what we would ride Sunday.


Sweet views on the way down




You see something new every day

Day 2 - White Tanks

We had a few miles of chunk and climbing on our way up the mountain


But it led to this sweet smooth section of singletrack higher up


It weaved along the hillside for quite a ways before we started heading up again






Lots of cactus which just added to the sweet views






Brent and Mark pause as we head up the last leg towards Goat Camp trail.


This was one of the most continuously nasty chunky technical trails I've ridden. Almost to the point of it not being fun. But then you kind of get into it. And then you get in a groove just as its almost over. Unfortunately I don't have many pics, just a few from the Waterfall section.

Sean navigates the opening drop


And clears the middle section.


He made it around the last corner and drop too, only to go over the bars on the flats at the bottom. I made it down to the last corner but wasn't feeling it, so walked down the last bit. Funny how you can lose your technical abilities when you aren't riding hard stuff all the time. I really had to psyche myself up to hit the the opening drop on this section but when I finally did it was easy. Towards the bottom I was cleaning almost everything, and kicking myself for not trying a few things higher up.

All in all a great weekend of riding. That's pretty much all we did - get up, ride, drop James at clinic, night ride, sleep, ride, drive home. Next time I'd like to have a bit more time as there's so much to explore. But this is a pretty decent weekend trip.

Thanks again to Sean for organizing everything!

Nice pics Evan.

I told Darryl we need to make a trip out there soon, before the heat.

I want to get me some of that chunk.

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Thanks Evan. I'll post up some of my pics if they aren't repeats, as well as a few vids later tonight.