With fall in full swing, it was road trip time to northern Arizona. Unfortunately we’d hit a couple of bumps on the way getting there. Didn’t even get through RB when this happened.







Stopping at 1am for gas at the Flying J in Kingman, AZ, the starter solenoid decided not to disengage and burned the starter out. So we crashed in comfort until the morning and I got my first ride in…to the NAPA store for a new starter. But those guys missed out on some awesome sidewalk doubles!



I’ve got 2 t-shirts now doing this job



Yep, the Mother Road



Pulling into Williams, the Forest Service was doing prescribed fire burns.



Or so they thought until the winds changed direction that afternoon. Our goal was to ride to the top Bill Williams Mountain above the fires.



The Bill Williams trailhead starts beside the National Forest ranger station, just off I-40 in Williams. Apparently this ride is so low on the DL, not even the bike shop guys in Flagstaff knew about it when we told them the next day.



We were barely on BW before turning off and picking up the trail into town.



But the end of the trail, there’s a nice jump. So we had fun sending it while Stang fixed his first flat.

Evdog







b5driver





Myself







Yeah, there’s a road section to this loop







Then it’s on to pickup Benham for the climb up.





We help clean off deadfall in the places we could



Lots of switchbacks progressively getting harder until you hike-a-bike at the top



English Oaks were changing color



And so were the Aspens







View looking south



Looking west



Fire to the west



Retardant planes already on scene



Fun at the top of Bill Williams at the start of the trail





Then you drop in



On to this













Not many pictures were taken once out of the aspens as the trail was just too much fun with endless water bar drops.



With the sun setting between us and the fire, the sky itself looked a blaze (untouched in PS).



Back at where we parked, the trailhead at the ranger station was now enshrouded in smoke from the changing winds. So we got on the road and setup camp at Sycamore Rim and had a bit of our own fire.

Got campfire?



Not until we got back on Monday would we learn the part of Williams where we rode was evacuated the next day when the winds kicked up and drove the fire towards the town.

Here are my pics from day 1. It looks like I have a lot of dups, so just a few to add. Thanks to Sean for putting together a great trip.

I couldn't believe the price of gas here. But then again, judging by all the unmaintained dirt roads we drove on, maybe their road maintenance bills just aren't that much.


This guy can sleep anywhere


More pics along route 66. Being a fan of the Cars movie, I was excited to go through the town that Radiator Springs was based on (I think Seligman, AZ)




Onto the riding




Brent going to fast to focus the pic (or maybe it's just my POS, I mean P&S camera)


Sean negotiating the rocks toward the bottom of the trail. At this point, the smoke was starting to get kind of thick.

Great pics guys, I can almost smell the clean pine scented air from here (I chose not to smell the smoke ). Funny thing about pine, it makes great campfires and not so great forest fires.

I'm glad you guys had an excellent trip.

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