April 11-15, 2018
We continued cycling North toward Utah and enjoyed the scenic views of Sedona and the landscape as we neared the Grand Canyon.
What happened…
Amanda writes: We left our beautiful WarmShowers host and started cycling toward Sedona. I was really looking forward to this section as I’ve heard great things about it and I’ve seen beautiful pictures. The area didn’t disappoint. The central town part of Sedona was pretty busy and reminded me of Whistler. Lots of quaint little uptown shops and loads of tourists. After we bought some dinner in town we started to cycle toward the campground where we had planned to meet Brant; our warm showers host from Anthem. He was joining us for a night of camping. It was awesome to see his gear and what it’s like to travel on a motorcycle. We curled up around the campfire, enjoyed an awesome meal together and talked for hours. He’s a really great guy and whoever lands him will be a lucky gal.
After our night with Brant we set out North. The views continued to be amazing. We headed into Flagstaff and stayed two days with a host who is a very experienced cyclist. It was nice to hear some of his stories. We took a rest day and enjoyed some down time. Then we continued North along some easy terrain and met some new cyclists along the way. The awesome young couple from Switzerland were just at the beginning of their 6 month journey North. We ended up cycling with them for a couple of days and camped two nights in the wild. It was great to be inspired by their enthusiasm and hear about their upcoming plans that included Canada.
Andrew writes:I’ll tell you a little bit about Swiss Kris and Beata (Beyonce). We met them at a gas station somewhere in the middle of no-place and they were literally on their 2nd day of bike touring. They had some lofty goals which included cycling the Great Divide route to Mexico, flying to Vancouver, buying a canoe, then flying to Whitehorse and paddling the length of the Yukon River to nowhere Alaska. They ended up renting a car somewhere in Wyoming so that they could get some sight-seeing in, but I did keep tabs on them via WhatsApp and their North American adventure ended in October with a week’s vacation in Cancun. I want to thanks Dorothy and Sven for putting Kris and Beata up and holding onto their gear when they arrived in Vancouver, and then went up North. Cheers.
Today’s Flickr Photographs
[flickr_tags user_id=”17145280@N00″ tags=”041118,041218,041318,041418,041518″]The aerial view of our sightseeing day:
Cycling Stats
April 11, 2018
Start Point: Cottonwood, Arizona, USA
Destination: Manzanita Campground Sedona, Arizona, USA
44.05 km trip, 15.77 km/h average speed, 56.5 km/h maximum speed, 2:48 time on the bike
April 12, 2018
Start Point: Manzanita Campground Sedona, Arizona, USA
Destination: Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
47.67 km trip, 14.21 km/h average speed, 58.5 km/h maximum speed, 3:21 time on the bike
April 14, 2018
Start Point: Flagstaff, Arizona, USA
Destination: BLM near Tuba City, Arizona, USA
98.34 km trip, 18.4 km/h average speed, 45.84 km/h maximum speed, 5:21 time on the bike
April 15, 2018
Start Point: BLM near Tuba City, Arizona, USA
Destination: Wild camp near Page, Arizona, USA
105.4 km trip, 20.7 km/h average speed, 56.7 km/h maximum speed, 5:05 time on the bike
Route Description:
April 11, 2018 This day was mostly uphill on a paved road with a big shoulder. When you reach Sedona it is all downhill into town. There is lots of traffic as a tourist destination. There are lots of stores, restaurants and hotels in town. We continued 10K past town to Manzanita campground. The spot was about 30K outside town. A really nice spot. The GPX track includes a bit of a wrong turn that you can ignore.
April 12, 2018 This is a beautiful scenic route albeit snug with the cars. There are only two lanes, 1 in each direction and no shoulder. Most of the traffic is okay as they too are sightseeing. After some undulating hills you have a steeper switchback climb. At the top there is a nice lookout point. Then there are more undulating hills with a larger shoulder most of the way. The road is always paved. After the lookout point there are lots of camping opportunities on BLM land.
April 14, 2018 This ride was on the very busy Highway 89. There is a shoulder most of the time but it is busy with traffic. There is food and water along the way in Cameron. The day was mostly downhill.
April 15, 2018 The first 30K or so is on Highway 89A. It is a busy paved highway with a shoulder most of the time. We turned right on highway 20 where the traffic became less. The road was nice and quite scenic. The first 35K on the road was uphill and the last 35K was downhill. Andrew cycled another 2K into town for beer and water.
Accommodations:
April 11, 2018 We camped at Manzanita campground which was about 30K outside Sedona. There are two more campgrounds 9-10K past the place we stayed and then lots of BLM land too at the top of the switchbacks maybe 20K past.
April 12, 2018 We had a warm showers host in Flagstaff. There are loads of hotels and campgrounds in town and you could easily wild camp outside town. We stayed with our hosts for two nights.
April 14, 2018 Not a lot going on in these parts. We didn’t see campgrounds or hotels. We found a spot on the right hand side of the road to camp and a pole said BLM land so we knew we were okay.
April 15, 2018 Not a lot going on in these parts again. We didn’t see campgrounds or hotels. If you ride just another 3K or so into town past where we camped there are hotels in Page. Just as you near Page we wild camped on the right hand side of the road.