About 2 months ago, I learned about the Arizona Trail. It runs around 800 miles from the Mexico border through Arizona to the Utah border and is 90% dirt/65% singletrack mountain bike trail. Feeling antsy with my impending graduation, I decided spending several weeks biking through the desert sounded like a good time, and here we are! I’ll be posting pictures and little updates occasionally, and you can follow my progress here: https://share.garmin.com/kmchicoine

Bike: I’ll be riding my trusty steed: Brutus the Beefeater. A 2004ish Specialized Stumpjumper that I bought off a friend for $200, he’s at least a double hand-me-down. In my forrays to the Oregon trails, he’s handled mud, drops, long days, and being hauled over trees like a champ. I electrical-taped 2 additional water bottle cages to the fork and am running tubeless tires, so we’re desert ready.

Gear: This is probably way more detail than anyone would ever want to know, but my lighterpack with weights/descriptions can be found at the link below: https://lighterpack.com/r/8x8fsi

Plan: I don’t have a strict schedule and plan to take my time, smell the flowers (cacti?), and gnereally enjoy myself. That being said, I’m estimating it will take ~3 weeks start to finish. April 1 will be my first day on trail!

Happy trails, everyone!