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Evil_Patrick
Expert Writer
Joined: Sep 26, 2008
Posts: 648
Location: Trapped in a humanoid carcass
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 Posted:
Sat Feb 07, 2009 3:35 pm |
 
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OK. I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'll drop it into this area. It's not
really a "race" or "event". More of a web-based, Grass Roots thingie.
It's a time trail, of sorts. You go ride this and post your times. (Be honest!)
What may come of it?
Well, you might find that your times are pretty close to some other rider's
times and then you know that there's a good chance that group rides with
these people might work out pretty well. Yeah, it's needs a personality
test too, huh.
Park here:
32° 20' 14.51” N
110° 41' 28.44” W
(Right. I know. If I was tough, I'd ride up to this point from the West side)
Get on your bike.
Start your timer.
Go!
Jump onto the trail at approximately:
32° 20' 12.92” N
110° 41' 30.78” W
Ride up to:
32° 20' 09.50” N
110° 43' 11.55” W
(There's a Trail Marker on a post here)
Note your “climb time”.
Flip around.
Bomb back down to the starting point.
Note your final time.
Right now, I'm at
“climb time” 27 minutes 30 seconds
“final time” 43 minutes 30 seconds
Making the descend time 16 minutes
Go ahead. Give it a shot and post your time.
BTW – You can pull up Google Earth to see these coordinates.
Please, start another thread to add another loop or route on some other
trail and maybe we can put together lots of pseudo “time trials”all around
the area! |
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MyBikesBroken
Advanced Writer
Joined: Aug 13, 2007
Posts: 376
Location: Tucson, AZ.
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Sat Feb 07, 2009 4:41 pm |
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Actually, this route is going to be part of the TT series that I will be posting shortly. Except it will be two separate races. One week we will race up, and another week will be the race down. |
_________________
~Aaron~
www.CosmicRaces.com |
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offroadbob
Advanced Writer
Joined: Jun 12, 2008
Posts: 420
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Sat Feb 07, 2009 6:47 pm |
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that trail is looking great right now props to who ever worked on it and cleaned it up!!! |
_________________
All right... I might just have to give up on work. |
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MyBikesBroken
Advanced Writer
Joined: Aug 13, 2007
Posts: 376
Location: Tucson, AZ.
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Sat Feb 07, 2009 9:04 pm |
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Evil_Patrick
Expert Writer
Joined: Sep 26, 2008
Posts: 648
Location: Trapped in a humanoid carcass
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Sun Feb 08, 2009 7:08 am |
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| MyBikesBroken wrote: | | offroadbob wrote: | | that trail is looking great right now props to who ever worked on it and cleaned it up!!! |
Apparently, not everyone is so happy about the modifications. (me included)
http://www.tucsonmtb.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1324 |
+1
I saw a guy out there with a polaski - removing rocks, smoothing things out
and dumbing it down. As I rode by, I told him to ADD big rocks to the
trail. He said, "You want bigger rocks? Go to Millagrosa." I said something
non-confrontational like, "Milligrosa is sweet."
Anyway, a bit later I thought that what I really should have said is that
just like there are people that can't seem to find enough easier trails,
there are also people that can't seem to find enough harder trails. I should
have then said, "You want easier? Go to Fantasy Island. No polaski needed."
Why should it be acceptable to damage a trail by removing "features"?
Why isn't just as acceptable to have a group of polaski-wielding
enthusiasts out there adding challenges to the trails? This is the work crew
I'd volunteer time to help out.
Anyway, here I am off on a tangent that has nothing to do with a GR Time Trial.
Ooops. |
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ScottM
Jr. Writer
Joined: Nov 27, 2007
Posts: 154
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Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:50 am |
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Sounds like a great little challenge.
Were you (and a friend) climbing the trail yesterday morning? We were on the highway (with a semi-justifiable excuse for not riding the trail) ringing a bell and cheering you on, since it's rare to see people climbing that trail.
We did see some dabbing, though, so it must not be a sidewalk just yet. 
Can you (or should I) generate a GPX/KML file with waypoints so everyone doesn't have to copy and paste all those waypoints? Otherwise I don't understand where the start/finish are since you didn't describe it. |
_________________
www.topofusion.com; www.bikepacking.net |
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EvilTracey
Jr. Writer
Joined: Jan 06, 2009
Posts: 77
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Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:34 am |
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| ScottM wrote: | Were you (and a friend) climbing the trail yesterday morning? We were on the highway (with a semi-justifiable excuse for not riding the trail) ringing a bell and cheering you on, since it's rare to see people climbing that trail.
We did see some dabbing, though, so it must not be a sidewalk just yet. |
I don't think it was us you saw. We rode this up hill Friday afternoon. If you did see us and saw someone walking/dabbing ... it was ME! Pat is a billy goat! I consider myself to be a poor climber, but I can clean just about everything going uphill on this trail now. We've biked up this twice together since we moved here. It was much easier this week, due to all the sanitizing. I expect to be able to ride this trail completely when my climbing legs are a little stronger. Even with my lesser skills, I'm very disappointed to see this sanitizing.
Is there someone with the park system we can contact to verify whether or not the trail "cleaning" has been authorized? |
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offroadbob
Advanced Writer
Joined: Jun 12, 2008
Posts: 420
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Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:35 am |
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Trust me I feel you on the whole dumbing it down part... but nonetheless the trail is a lot faster. which is a good thing! oh and we shuttled buggs and it was nice too |
_________________
All right... I might just have to give up on work. |
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azepicriderandrunner
Centurian
Joined: Nov 20, 2007
Posts: 1309
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Sun Feb 08, 2009 10:17 pm |
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Evil_Patrick
Expert Writer
Joined: Sep 26, 2008
Posts: 648
Location: Trapped in a humanoid carcass
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| Posted:
Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:32 am |
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| ScottM wrote: | | Otherwise I don't understand where the start/finish are since you didn't describe it. |
Not that I know how many riders carry a GPS, but my guess is that there
may be more that don't carry a GPS than those that do. We could start a
poll to see.
Anyway, unlike a GPS and the maps, Google Earth is free.
As the title of the thread states, this is the trail that connects Molino Basin
campground to Gordon Hirobayashi. Way back in the day...some 12 years
ago or so, I thought the trail was called "Prison Camp". I probably got that
impression from an old trail map. But, sometime in the past 12 years, the
trail got an official name; Molino Basin. I say "official" because who ever
marked the trail with actual signs has named it as such -- in spite of what
the old trail maps called it. I would guess that "Prison Camp" wasn't very
"PC" (excuse the pun). And I _think_ the Gordon Hirabayashi name was
also officially associated with what used to be called Prison Camp within
that same time frame.
Anyway, it's this trail:
(conveniently marked with arrows and labels roughly showing the start,
turn-around, and back-to-the-start finish)
Once again, free Google Earth will help everyone (yes, even those poor
souls that have no GPS) to find the route.
And even without a GPS, it'd be pretty tough to get lost on this little jaunt. |
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Evil_Patrick
Expert Writer
Joined: Sep 26, 2008
Posts: 648
Location: Trapped in a humanoid carcass
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Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:42 am |
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| offroadbob wrote: | | Trust me I feel you on the whole dumbing it down part... but nonetheless the trail is a lot faster. which is a good thing! oh and we shuttled buggs and it was nice too |
We did the out-n-back on Bugs -- climbing, turning around and descending
-- and I have to say that Bugs is completely rideable going up, but not so
completely rideable from the top down. I couldn't clean the RR Tie step
climbs. Some of those were spaced craptastically so as to catch the front
and rear wheels at the same time. "Hey, trail builders! WTF,O? Space them
out just 2 more feet and everyone can enjoy an uninterrupted experience." |
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ScottM
Jr. Writer
Joined: Nov 27, 2007
Posts: 154
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Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:30 am |
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You mean there are people that ride without a GPS on their bars? In this day and age?! That's crazy talk.
I think a written description of the start/end points more than suffices, but since you provided coordinates I suggested pasting them into a kml/gpx file (both of which google earth can open) just to save people time -- even people without GPS. I wasn't thinking anyone would actually load points onto a GPS for this little trail.
Looking at the map I'll guess:
Start is by the Molino Basin bathrooms, where the trail starts on the left side of the campground road. (There's actually a piece of trail that few ride that starts on the west end of the parking lot and crosses after the gate for the campground).
End is not near the top saddle (where there is a trail marker and a split), but after contouring around, back by the southern end of the dirt trailhead parking lot.
Thanks. |
_________________
www.topofusion.com; www.bikepacking.net |
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Evil_Patrick
Expert Writer
Joined: Sep 26, 2008
Posts: 648
Location: Trapped in a humanoid carcass
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Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:38 am |
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| ScottM wrote: | You mean there are people that ride without a GPS on their bars? In this day and age?! That's crazy talk.
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I have a GPS, but I gotta say, it sure seems "clunky" to try to operate on
the trail. I mean, every freekin' button serves like 29.5 functions
depending on how loud you can fart on demand.
| ScottM wrote: |
I think a written description of the start/end points more than suffices, but since you provided coordinates I suggested pasting them into a kml/gpx file (both of which google earth can open) just to save people time -- even people without GPS.
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Oh yeah. I didn't think about that.
| ScottM wrote: |
I wasn't thinking anyone would actually load points onto a GPS for this little trail.
Looking at the map I'll guess:
Start is by the Molino Basin bathrooms, where the trail starts on the left side of the campground road. (There's actually a piece of trail that few ride that starts on the west end of the parking lot and crosses after the gate for the campground).
End is not near the top saddle (where there is a trail marker and a split), but after contouring around, back by the southern end of the dirt trailhead parking lot.
Thanks. |
That's it!
Now, go out there and CRUsh my time!
:thumbs up: |
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MyBikesBroken
Advanced Writer
Joined: Aug 13, 2007
Posts: 376
Location: Tucson, AZ.
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| Posted:
Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:28 pm |
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OK, I did this TT today. I'm not sure exactly WHERE you started and stopped. But at the bottom, I started where the stream crosses the road into the campground, and ended at the horse corral in the Prison Camp parking lot at the top.
Time up: 32:49.18
Time down: 18:16.59
I know I can go faster. So I'll give it another go next week. |
_________________
~Aaron~
www.CosmicRaces.com |
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rockyroad
Expert Writer
Joined: Jun 30, 2008
Posts: 708
Location: near UofA
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| Posted:
Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:09 pm |
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Here's the story of Gordon Hirobayashi: The campground actually was a prison camp. Gordon was a Japanese-American student at the U during WWII. He refused to go to the internment camp 
so they arrested him and sent him to the prison camp on Mt. Lemmon. A few years ago he was recognized for standing up for his rights and they renamed the campground after him.  |
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We gain wisdom from our experience and we gain experience from our foolishness. |
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