My, What a Big Fat Ass You Have...

Short Version:
Sedona: land of affluent tourism. And fat people.

Long Version:
Sedona, Arizona is a tourist town. A comfortably-affluent tourist town, with too many art galleries to count, a bunch of nice-looking restaurants and hotels, and a liquor store which houses a fine collection of bespoke handmade bottles of sage wine, pear brandy and old, theoretically wonderful tequilas. We bought dark, coffee-infused Hawaiian beer from the liquor store, and nothing from any of the galleries (although the huge stone bear looming massively outside one of them was pretty special). We did buy some brake pads and a map from one of the several local bike shops, and picked their brains extensively in pursuit of optimum local ride options.

We settled on a trail combo described by one of the bike shop guys as his favorite local ride, chatted a while with Kumeu locals Logan and Joy (Hi Logan and Joy!), and then set off up the road to the Bell Rock Path trailhead. Many, if not most of the trails we've found on this continent have been mixed-use, which is a definite contrast to NZ's trail systems. Most of the time it's not proved problematic, and we've been edging towards a belief that there really isn't that much need to keep varying recreational interests quite so comprehensively segregated. People have been almost unfailingly polite, and the biggest access issue we've struck thus far has been that comical situation where everyone is attempting to defer to everyone else, and no-one actually moves. This was true of the Bell Rock Path, and of the Templeton, Baldwin, Little Horse and Llama Trails as well, but the sheer volume of other trail users was nightmarish; it got to the point where it seemed like every time we got up some speed, or started to relax into the flow of the ride we ran into one or more groups of people, be they hikers in twos or fours or mores, or bikers on rental machines picking their way gingerly along the trail on foot or on wheels. A couple of times we nearly introduced ourselves vehemently to piles of bikes abandoned mid-trail while their temporary custodians took pictures of large red rocks and/or each other.

Pretty soon we were a-hating, although the downhill section on the Baldwin Loop was pretty cool, and the enormously (seriously, ENORMOUS) fat woman who fell on her enormously fat arse in the river just as we rode past was a definite highlight. The Llama Trails were less occluded and therefore more rideable, but by then we were tired and grouchy, so as soon as we made it back to the Reaper we left town and drove further south towards Phoenix, seeking the more remote ride of awesomeness the bike shop guys had spoken of: the Black Canyon Trail.