4 of us were able to sneak away for Thanksgiving weekend - Sean, Brent, Dennis and I. Rather than braving the crowds at shopping malls, we found ourselves biking in Arizona. Our main destination would be Sedona, with a stopover in Black Canyon City on the way up.

We arrived 3am local time Thursday morning. Fortunately the fall weather allowed us to get a late start so we could sleep in. We woke to sunny skies and sweet singletrack right out the door of Sean's RV.

Black Canyon Trail is a work in progress but is already a quality, epic ride. Info here: http://www.bctaz.com/. We would be riding the southern portion from Black Canyon City to Table Mesa Road and back, for about 25mi total. The trail stretches almost 80 miles right now and is just begging to be ridden as a point to point. The portion nearer to Table Mesa was clearly not as heavily ridden nor as worn in. This made for some technical challenges in spots, but still a fun trail.

Camping in the parking lot, the trailhead was about 100ft away


A bit of a climb up to the top of the canyon


Interesting flora


We dropped down to the bottom of the canyon and then climbed up to the top of the far rim. Lots of switchbacks that would be fun on the way back...


The terrain was rolling, so the climb wasn't too bad




Once over the top there was a lot of up and down all the way to Table Mesa


Steer clear of these...


There is excellent flow to this trail - the folks who built it did a great job


We were getting our fill of cactus


Rest stop on the way back, about an hour of sun left


Shadows getting long


Once over the top it was a long bomb back down to the canyon floor


Dennis kicks up some dust


GP_pilot rounds a corner


There was actually water in the creek. I wouldn't want to be here during a heavy rain.


A climb back up the other canyon side brought us back to the RV and the end of the ride....


We had contemplated doing both the north and south leg, each of which are 12mi one way. With our late start this was not going to be possible. I think the ride we did do took us about 6 hrs. A pretty good day if you ask me. We packed up and drove up to Sedona for turkey dinner.

nice looking trail.

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