What I didn't do.

It was sort of a calm weekend. Too much required activities involving wedding planning & fund raising aka 'staying in town' had to be completed. Due to this...

We did none of this...

Nor any of this ...

Nor did we make it here...
or here...

But we did do some biking on this...

This lovely patch of dirt single/double track is known as Pemberton Trail in the McDowell Mts just north of Scottsdale. According to my trails.com guide, it is a non technical way to complete a 15.4 mile loop without killing yourself. Hah, they were wrong. The guide said that 'most' people go counter clockwise as a more fun experience. Well we messed up and went clockwise, oh well, which turned out to have the first nine miles be uphill climbing on a giant bolder strewn trail. This would have been rough coming down, but was torture going up. Granny gear bouncing was how I would describe it. The other deciding factor in heart rate and caloric burn was that on every single measily little downhill, there was a giant wash at the bottom with about 5 feet of nice deep loose sand to totally kill your momentum. The above picture is the NOT the part of the trail I am talking about. Nine miles in, we seriously were contemplating taking a direct root through the desert back to the car, but physics told us that since we had been climbing for 9 miles on a loop, it had to go down right at some point right?! The minute we jumped back on the bikes, it was seriously fun fast double track dirt (seen above) for 6 miles back to the car. The occasional wash was the only hindrance to serious speed (although Tom found out that is easier to fly over your handlebars when you are going fast). I know now why people go counter clockwise, cause climbing hard packed dirt is way easier than fighting the uphill cantaloupe strewn hell path. I thought the trail was a fabulous workout and I would do it again, but mental expectations would be altered.

On a happy note, I have a new toy in the form of a wireless bike computer. It is a cheapie, but records time, distance, max/ave speed and heart rate. I didn't wear the heart rate monitor on this, but could tell that in our 15.8 miles, we averaged 10.2 mph which just goes to show how freaking slow we were in the first 9 miles. It also prompted the question "how much farther now" every 1.2 miles. I love gadgets. I guess that is why I am a computer engi-nerd.

[Update: I was asked where the pics are from... 1. Camping at Lake Bartlett, Carefree, AZ 2. Rock Climbing Pinnacle Peak, Scottsdale, AZ 3. Fossil Creek Falls Rope Swing, Strawberry, AZ 4. Cathedral Rock, Sedona AZ]