Because there is so much excellent riding around the Bartlett Lake area, we decided to take full advantage of the great January weather in Phoenix and explore some of the harder-to-reach areas.  This included quite a few stretches of excellent single track.  In fact, within five minutes of leaving pavement, the trail led us to a steep downhill portion of single track.  It was a lot of fun on the KTMs, but Paul (Motozilla) had to really ease the big BMW down that section. (Coeff - running right behind Paul - mentioned that the rear wheel on the GS didn't rotate once during the decline.) 

There were seven of us in the party -- four (!) KTM Adventures, a KLR, a KLX300 and that big BMW GS Adventure. The route included just about every kind of terrain, including single track, jeep trails, sandy washes, deep whoops and high berms.

Jamie tackling the downhill	David's turn	James heading down	Nice work, Zilla	David hitting the whoops
Beating up the GS	One killer trail	Nice shot of the valley	Didn't take my time setting up this shot

After stopping for a trail break near some pavement, we decided to get some nice wheelie shots.  Coeff, Paul and I rose to the challenge and took turns lofting the front tire. (The squid in all of us comes shining through.)  We then hit another great stretch of single track on the way to the Verde River that took us to a killer panoramic hilltop. After winding back down to the Verde, we went out in search of Telegraph Trail, but wound up chasing a couple of dead ends. At that point, we were all getting a little wore out and decided to head back up Indian Springs wash and head for home, beers and burgers. But not before 'Zilla laid that GS down one more time. I gotta hand it to Paul -- he ran that bike to its limits and then some. (Always entertaining to watch.)

Throwing around the heavy iron		One powerslide too many	JT lofting the front	Coeff doing a standing wheelie

Great stretch of single track	Jim approaching the top	Kings of the mountain	Another shot from the hilltop	Massive boulder (Paul's head, that is)
Parking next to the Verde River	A break near the river	Quality testing the big BMW	On telegraph trail	Getting air under both wheels

.It really was a great day of riding.