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WELCOME! If you arrived at this page directly, you may want to read the introductory page:
Roger's Favorite Single-track Mountain Bike Rides.
Please realize that I am an older, strong, intermediate mountain biker with a passion for singletracks and am suggesting these trails to others such as myself. Please do not rely totally on my descriptions -- get maps and trail guides locally.
Suggestions for minimizing trail damage:
-do not let your tires slide when climbing, descending, or
turning.
-ride over water bars, not around them.
-avoid riding on wet trails.
-carry your bike over or around deep mud.
-ride under control so that you do not run off the edge of the
trail.
Two books are necessary for any visit to Arizona:
Fat Tire Tales And Trails by Cosmic Ray
A GREAT link to this region can be found at www.wowtnt.com .
We had planned to ride the Starr Pass/Yetman Trail loop, but
after we went over the pass and down the other side we found
ourselves near houses and facing what looked liked a long, dirt road.
We spotted a singletrack that seemed to parallel the dirt road that
we took down from the pass. So we went back up the singletrack to the
top of the pass (SWEET!), and then turned north on a dirt road that
led to a singletrack that led to a viewpoint. The long and short of
it is that we just kept finding singletracks and riding them to their
culminations -- at overlooks or sandy washes. What impressed me most
about this area was its vegetation -- a wonderful assortment of
desert plants! It is like riding in a desert museum!
We decided to ìdoî this ride as an out and back from the lower end, but we couldn't drive the car to that point on Redington Pass Road. (It was quite eroded and rocky!) So we drove to the other end on the Catalina Hiway and spent the night in the Molino Basin Campground. This is a GREAT campground with a stream running through it, and Oak, Pinion Pine, and Juniper trees. The best campsite is the last one at the upper end of the campground. It also has access directly from the campsite to the Arizona Trail. We first rode north about two miles until the trail entered a wilderness area. Cosmic Ray considers this trail to be easy, but to an intermediate rider such as myself, it was definitely technically challenging in places! Ridden in the other direction it crosses the road and heads UP to the top of the pass. This section climbs quite steeply, but much of it is ridable. The trail down the other side of the pass is extremely steep and technical -- mostly rocky -- everything that Cosmic Ray said it would be! My teenager companion with a dual suspension was able to ride nearly all of it. I rode some of it. The singletrack stopped at a water tank -- complete with solar powered pump! From there, as far as we could see, was a dirt road. Cosmic Ray wrote about a ìbitchen singletrackî that extended for four miles. Perhaps we didn't go far enough, or perhaps it was eaten when the solar panels were brought in, but we turned around and PUSHED up to the top of the pass. Again, the teenager rode all of the downhill to the campground and I rode most of it. There were some GREAT technical spots that tended to extend one's skills... Except for the water tank, the trip over the pass was truly a wilderness experience!
if you do a ride and enjoy it, please let the land manager know that you did enjoy it and that the existence of singletrack trails is important to you! A small donation for trail maintenance and development might also be helpful! I will slowly add email and snail mail addresses and phone numbers of land managers of the trails that I have described so that you may more easily contact them.
Minimizing Trail Conflicts On Singletrack Trails
Minimizing Trail Impact On Singletrack Trails
Hints For Beginning Singletrackers
Back to Roger's Favorite Singletrack Mountain Bike Rides