Lost and found

I've once again lost track of a whole bunch of time. Spring sprung since my last post, and I once again failed to capitalize on the postcard weather we had through most of March and April. It's now the time of year that requires early starts and, after being rudely yanked from my slumber by my alarm clock every morning during the work week, I often can't motivate myself to get going early on weekends.

I decided last night that I was going to take the singlespeed mountain bike out today, but I kept it a secret. In the interest of reserving the right to sleep in and slack off in the morning, or to walk the dogs instead, I didn't tell BeanSS and I didn't call Veelz. I instead went to bed silently going over my mental checklist of where all my gear might be and hoping I wouldn't find the bike with a flat tire in the morning.

I woke up suitably early, the shrill klaxon of my alarm clock being replaced by my dogs Clayton and Dora randomly flipping and stomping around on the bed. I started getting ready, though I found myself uninterested in riding over to the Pima College and Greasewood Park trails as I'd planned the night before. I ended up shoving the bike into the back of the pickup truck and taking it over to the Sweetwater Trails. Excellent choice.

The trail had to have had a lot more use since I rode it last, but still possessed the flow that makes it imminently singlespeedable. The beautiful wildflowers so evident back in mid-March were long gone, brown and cured, but the foothill paloverde trees were heavily in bloom. I didn't see any mule deer or desert tortoises this time, but there were birds, lizards, and small mammals all over the place.

As I cranked up and down the foothills and bajadas of the Tucson Mountains, I decided that I'd finally found my Arizona substitute for the Granite Bay trail system at Folsom Lake State Park up in northern California. Granite Bay was my and BeanSS' home trail when we lived in Sacramento, and I've been looking for a similarly fun and accessible ride ever since we moved to Tucson.

Where Granite Bay twisted through oak woodlands interspersed with gray pines, Sweetwater's overstory is dominated by foothill paloverde and saguaros. At Granite Bay, rounding a tight bend occasionally sent wild turkeys running frantically down the trail, their feet audibly slapping on the hardpack. At Sweetwater, it's startled Gambel's quail that flee on foot, foregoing their ability to fly. The northern California trail wound past lichen-covered granite boulders bigger than cars, its southern Arizona counterpart runs past lichen-covered basalt outcrops (Veelz, please correct me if my geology is wrong).

These differences have proven to be only superficial, because when I'm in the saddle at Sweetwater, navigating the turns, transitioning between gradients, and bumping my rigid fork over rocks embedded in the track, I feel just the same as I did up in the 916. The trail layout at Granite Bay was skinny, twisty, and made creative use of topography and vegetation to cram in a lot smiles per mile. These traits were the result of the influence of FATRAC, a local trail advocacy group occupying much the same niche as SDMB out here. Also, whereas my riding here is done against a political backdrop of southern Arizona separatism, which seeks to Free Baja Arizona from the wretched excesses of the Phoenix area, Folsom Lake is squarely in the realm of what would be called Superior California, should the north state ever succeed in shedding it's culturally inferior, perpetually-imploding southern half.

Of course, there are some similarities between the trails I'd rather not see, such as intense summer heat, ozone pollution, and horse shit, but those are the inevitable costs of having a low-elevation trail situated immediately adjacent to an urban area. Moreover, neither Granite Bay nor Sweetwater exhibit these adverse traits to the extent of my pre-Sacramento home trail, Phoenix Mountain Preserve's Trail 100. Regardless, I feel pretty lucky to have spent my entire cycling life living within just a few miles of such enjoyable riding. Just don't get me started on the fact that I no longer live in Flagstaff, as I did in college. Now those are some sweet home trails.