Cienega Loop- Solo gear, solo ride.

 I had a day off during the middle of the week and none of the usual cast of characters could come out to play, so I set out on a solo day over a pretty big loop riding from home and then out into the back canyons of the National Forest.  It was looking like it might rain, so I packed a few layers of clothing into the bigger pack I have, a Camelbak HAWG NV, saddled up the SS Jabberwocky, and started pedaling.

I love big loops, even if they are not the 10 hour stuff that other riders are up for.  5-6 hours still feels nice to me, but I do want to get into some more 8 hour rides.  Until then this will do nicely.

Cienega Cyn is a unique area where the creek actually flows down the concreted floor of the narrow canyon.  Absolutely cool to ride through there.

The wildflowers are pretty happy too and the green is hanging around for a while longer.  The dry winds of summer will be here soon enough and all this will dry up and fade to brown.  It gets crazy hot in here in the summer time. 

Yeah, its nice in there.

Lunch time.

Color is where you find it.

Sometimes it is everywhere...

...and sometimes it is tasty.

5 hours and 30 minutes later, riding all the way back into a headwind that almost made me pedal going downhill, I arrived back home.  Singlespeeds, big backpacks, hard to get to places, time pedaling...it is all good.