Randy Rides

This is going to be a pretty easy and relaxing ride.  I think we should do this at a relaxed pace with KSU at 10:00 am.  This will still get us done before dark.  I staged this ride so that we can be heading towards Steve and Sandy’s house in case they have to be home early.  The entire route should be around 4 hours.

The Route Map

Waypoint A – Valero, 16794 W Bell Rd, Surprise, AZ 85374

OK so maybe the 10:00 KSU is not so late after all.  This northern starting point will mean that for the rest of the ride, most people will be heading towards home.  No nasty long ride home after the Randy Ride!  From here we will head west on Bell which will turn into Sun Valley Parkway, once known as the “Road to nowhere”.  We will be riding around the White Tank Mountains.  This is a nice 4-lane divided highway with more bicycle traffic than anything else during the weekends.  Sun Valley Parkway was built to handle traffic for an expansion of Buckeye.  Several large housing developments were planned.  So far the only developments I know of are Sun City Festival (retirement community) and Tartesso (waypoint B).  The fact that Buckeye decided they did not have enough revenue to maintain the road and left the costs to the developers, may have slowed down the other developments.  Our nice economy may also be a factor.  The speed limit is 55 mph for most of the stretch of SVP.  This seems very slow on this nice road, but I do not want to contribute to any speed ticket revenues so I usually set the cruise to 60 – 62 along this route (you do have cruise control right?). So we will be in “cruise” mode for about 30 miles doing laid-back Harley waves to other motorcycles and chin wags to the bicycles.

Randy Ride

Mt Lemmon / Summerhaven

In 1957 Harley Davidson introduced the world to the Sportster XL, the longest running motorcycle model in history.  That same year in July, eleven pilots from the 15th Fighter Interceptor Squadron stationed out of Davis-Monthan Air Force base in Tucson flew their F-86D Sabrejets to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, NM.  They were to perform a fly-over presentation in honor of departing Commander General Wendell W. Bowman, 34th Air Division, Air Defense Command.

Randy Ride – Northern Arizona Verde Valley Wine Tour

Did you know?

Arizona is home to more than 45 licensed and bonded wineries located in three distinct areas throughout the state. There are three major growing regions, all in the high desert. The first region is in southern Arizona in the Sonoita/Elgin area. The Willcox area in Cochise County was the second area to come on board. And now the Verde Valley is our third region for growing grapes.