rons bikes blog dot com

a bit late on this post, but what the heck, why not. as some of you know I had left the mild wildes of southern New England back in early March, and drove on out to meet up with a gaggle of Nutmeg Country Clubbers for a 9 day training camp down in Southern AZ. I’d brought the idea up to our riding group around the Hollidays and we all used it as a good excuse to ride through the sloppier months in order to be in shape for some high mileage in the high desert.

Troy, Brian (pictured completely not sponsor correct), Jon, and Deeter acted as their own travel agents and flew out to Tucson and rented a Chrysler town and country mini van. they threw their camp gear in and I took them on a tour of 3 different camp zones in different parts of the Sonoran ecosystem. a nice primer to the area if I do say so myself.

we ended up doing some fantastic rides that I wont get into much, but if you are curious about the routes and what we did, then I would recommend checking out my strava. thanks for the kudos in advance.

we had a lot of flats. many of these ol’ yankees had never seen pointy things before. I will also admit, race casing in the desert southwest in the 42 width is quite vulnerable to boot. we really had some tutorials! depending on how much ancient volcanic activity occurred, you can get surfaces ranging from soft and sandy to sharpened bowling ball chunk. terrain for true scholar trail readers. but when the wheels were rolling, ooooo they rolled nice. we have been waiting 3 years for our 700×45 rosé samples … could not help but think how perfect those would be for southern AZ terrain. next year a guess!

the dirt riding in southern AZ is about as good as cycling gets. you can ride/camp down here on hundreds of miles of dirt roads and unmaintained double track and maintained single track, and rarely see another person, let alone a car that is not some sort of boarder control thing. I do have a theory that they are trained to be as friendly as possible for their PR campaign — or that has been my experience as a tall blonde over the years.

there is a very large mine being constructed nearby — lots of folks oppose it — there are more trucks in that area, but not so in the San Rafael valley — yet. but it is worth mentioning. not really much that can be done about mining moving forward — the world wants batteries. don’t see that changing any time soon. wondering is that is a reason we saw fewer people than usual this winter. very few cyclists. very few anyone.

the above photos are from one of my fav rides in the area that incorporates the jeep road “red hill”. someone always flats and/or crashes … every time. that isn’t why its my favorite… im no fullll sicko

okay thats it for this photo set! as nearly always these were taken on a Ricoh GR IIIx with their positive film jpg setting plus or minus some highlights and shadows.

thanks for reading/looking

XO RONNIE