National Towers from Home

The boss let me have a Monday free for all the good, hard work I put in (or for all the recent holidays I had to work) and I figured no better way to make good use of it than to ride my bike. I didn't feel like driving, so I took off form the house to my favorite local mountain. I'd hit the radio towers on top of South Mountain, which seem so far away from home, but the bike makes them so close. It was a good 4 hours and 30 miles on the bike. Couldn't ask for a much better day off. I even sampled Corona de Loma for the first time. Its times like this that I can collect myself outside of the rat race and recharge.

If I didn't have the bike, this ridiculous world we live in that moves at lightning pace anymore for no other reason than a cheapened likeness of purpose, like a dog chasing a laser pointer, my head would blow up. The simplicity and focus of a long bike ride instills richness into my being, makes my will strong. It makes lot of things tolerable. Most of all, it makes me feel like I can do anything. Success breeds success and I've been getting stronger every month. And I can have this from my doorstep. Excuse me while I count my lucky stars.....

Nothing wrong with a little pavement pedal to get things rolling.

Some smooth SoMo climbing.

From home to the mountain, just me and my bike. A good day.

The trail opens up towards Buena Vista lookout. The towers get ever closer.

The section of National from Buena Vista to the lookout road doesn't get much attention or talk, but it is as good as any of the trail up there. I've been on it twice, and that's hardly enough. There is still plenty of chunk to be had. Lots of places to end a ride. Alone like this, I like to carry my Spot with me.

Finally under the towers, a mere 2 hours or so from my house. About 15 miles in, and bout 15 more to go. I'll be catching the road at Telegraph, then back to BV where I'll catch Corona de Loma for the quick descent back to Desert Classic.

Nice little ribbon of trail, almost at the top of the mountain.

Finally caught Corona de Loma for the ride back home and turned to take a shot before it took a bead straight for the bottom of the mountain. It was loose, steep and fun. I like more flow for my downhill reward, but sometime pointing it straight down can get the blood pumping too. Going up this would be silly.

Here's a nice TF view of the CdL drop. It falls fast. It falls loose. The brakes got a workout the whole way down. There are hardly two seconds where you could open it up without danger of flying off the mountain somehow.

Hmmmm....I wonder where the mountain was.... TF gave me a bit over 3500ft for the day. Not bad. Road and canal miles are a decent way to cool down too.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be into mountain biking and have such a wealth of riding within a few hours of my house. But to be able to ride form my door and hit the great trails on South Mountain make me even more lucky. I'm sure there aren't too many places in the US where so many good trail systems are within and on the outskirts of the city. The next city I live in must have this same characteristic, because I have become very spoiled here.

Total view of the ride on the mountain. Loved it. Gotta get some more of National past BV. Really good stuff.