Some last-minute travel changes found me in Phoenix for the weekend, instead of back in Toronto. It seems I always miss the beginning of motorcycle season back in Canada because I’m traveling this time of year.
This trip would be different.
A quick Google search turned up a bike rental shop that would give me something to ride, and the safety gear I needed to protect me if I couldn’t keep the rubber side down.
So, get my butt out of the hotel early Saturday morning, hop in the rental car, go to the shop and pick up the bike (Ninja 650r: closest model to my SV650S) and get on the road…
…stop often for a rest, to drink some water (over 30 degrees out!), and to take pictures!…
…until I came to the dirt-road portion of my ride. After reading this report, I decided to try to make it through Schnebly Hill Road, which came with it’s own warning that keeps most street bikes away:
A couple miles in I came across a campsite on the edge of what would be a large pond / small lake in wetter times, with the remains of the dried-up pond on one side of the road, and a small half-broken dam on the other:
I had to trundle along at slow speeds, as the road was occasionally soft/sandy, covered with rocks I might scrape the bike on, or golf-ball-sized loose gravel that made me weave down the road…I really didn’t want to lay down the rental bike and have to pay for damages, so I took my time…
…but eventually I made it to the top! At the highest lookout was a small open area with several jeeps: tour companies run people up the more difficult part of the road from Sedona (which I hadn’t crossed yet) and let them stop at several places on the way up to take photos. Everybody thought I was crazy going through on a street bike! A few came over to take a look at my ride, and a nice couple from the UK took my picture at the lookout:
After having a bit of a break at the top… I started my way down the road to Sedona… taking many more pictures than I can put here, and gingerly nudging the bike around obstacles. It’s funny how the road looks so easy in the pictures, but in real-life I was constantly dodging rocks and potholes…fearful that falling over would leave horrible scratches on the bike and eat up my security deposit 🙂
The last part of the road followed a dry riverbed. There must be a lot of water flowing through there when they get a good rain, because in several places you can see where the water carved mini-waterfalls out of steps in the rock over the years:
Finally I made back to pavement with a bike covered in fine red dust, but otherwise no worse for wear. I stopped in Sedona to refill my waterbottle, choke down a nasty bit of beef-jerky (it looked good when I bought it) then a 1.5 hour ride south on highway I-17 got me back to the hotel… just shy of my free 300-mile-per-day mileage limit.
As you can see from the taken-in-the-dark odometer pic I didn’t get home until after sundown, and I was sore and exhausted. But it was oh so worth it! I went to sleep asap, knowing I had one more day with the bike and I had to bring it back before 6pm on Sunday.
If I ever get stuck in Phoenix again I’d definitely rent another motorcycle!
Pingback: Rocky Mountain Quad Squad | Captain's Blog