One of our goals with moving to Estrella was doing more interesting bike riding. Chandler was very lovely, but we lived in a place that was very developed by Arizona standards, meaning it was mainly houses, shops and businesses. Most of the desert plant life there was intentionally planted or at least moved and replanted. Nature proper was something like a 20 mile drive.
Now it’s right behind the house, but this didn’t fully lower the barrier to more interesting cycling. We still have the bikes that we bought in Chandler. They are city street appropriate bikes. They can change gears, but are not mountain bikes. We will need to get some proper mountain bikes, but as any regular followers know, we are having a rather epic pool built, so those bikes will likely happen a different year given the ones we’ve looked at that would be most suitable are a few thousand dollars each.
We tried out our current bikes in the desert wash behind our house when we first moved here and it was a slightly harrowing experience.
Given the Valley has cooled down to the 80s and 90s for the highs, we thought we would finally try again. This time was, fortunately, much more successful. Although people do walk in the wash, I don’t think it’s a real trail. We tried out what looked like one of the proper trails and were able to get along a lot better, which was great. In addition to being good exercise, a bike can take you much further away than walking, so we were able to check out some parts of the Estrella area we had never seen before.
Here’s the video: