When you take an established cycling route, tons of resources are available to you. There are forums, support groups, and Adventure Cycling maps, to name a few. But when you’re on a ramble, making your own route, things get tricky sometimes. And Southeastern Arizona was one of those times for us.
The challenge was we had a strong desire to visit Bisbee. It’s not on the conventional bike routes. Good ol’ Googs only tells you so much. So we started talking to the locals more and found it helpful, well, because they know. (And you don’t know until you know. )The trouble is, advice can be all over the map.
We rode to Green Valley and enjoyed a great visit with our new friends and Warm Showers hosts D + S. We talked bike nerdery, touring, and family over dinner. They’re prepping to ride the Tour Divide this summer, which is an amazing route if you aren’t familiar. Playing off the theme of local intel, D + S were super helpful with maps and routing, offering several routes, both paved and unpaved, to future destinations.
They’re also both wonderful self-taught mechanics and have turned their garage into a defacto bike shop. Really, they should open a shop of their own—it would be killer. D + S like to find old bikes and frames and fix them up. But not just any old bike. They want to know the story: where it came from, where it’s been. Pretty special. After dinner, D gave us a tour of all the bikes. Several are L’Eroica-worthy in my opinion. (Maybe he should talk with Aarron Linn about Eroica California).
From Green Valley, we rode towards the border town of Nogales. Some of the roads were great, but most were like this:
The extreme heat and summer monsoon rain just works the tarmac. It makes for crumbly, buckled riding and can be little jarring at times. We’re so grateful we have fatter tires.
Our next stop was Patagonia, AZ. It’s just up highway 82 and was a good place to camp before heading on to Sierra Vista. Patagonia is a bit of an outdoor paradise, especially for birding. It’s a small town that serves as a retirement community and has a thriving arts scene.
There’s also a growing cycling community in Patagonia, which is all very gravel-centric and über hipster. The area boasts some of the country’s best gravel riding, so mustachioed cyclists come from all over to ride. The weather is perfect in the winter, which is a bonus.
Cortney and I cycled hard that day and stopped in for some well-deserved hydration. Luckily Patagonia Lumber Company was open with libations a plenty. It was also a good opportunity to ask for route advice.
Every person had a different opinion on which was the best route over to Sierra Vista. We heard everything from “It’s all good” to “I’d never ride that” to “You’ll end up dead.” It was all food for thought.
That evening, we camped in a gulch just a few minutes from downtown. Super cool, quiet, and peaceful.
Having traveled thousands of miles on this bicycle trip already, Cortney and I have unfortunately been on our fair share of sketchy roads. But this upcoming stretch had us both rattled. Our alternative was riding X miles of dirt with steep incline. Based on experience, Cort wouldn’t be happy. But taking 82 sounded like a death march. Pick your poison.
After much deliberation, we picked the highway.
About 20 miles in, we stopped at a convenience store in Sonoita for some snacks and water. But the differing opinions continued. Some biker dudes we met said they’d cycled it like 20 times and it’s not a problem. That’s when Rancher Dave stepped in. Rancher Dave said that he was a cyclist and “A number of cyclists have wiped out on that road this year alone. If you take that road, you’ll DIE!!!.”
That settles that. We were sold. The original route was out.
Dave kindly gave us an alternate road that was absolutely lovely—and we had the road to ourselves. It was amazing. Thank you, Rancher Dave!
We made it safe and sound to Sierra Vista and stayed there over New Year’s to break up the trip to Bisbee. Sierra Vista was a good spot to pause, do laundry, and eat burritos. (The burritos were amazing, by the way.)
On New Year’s Day, we got an early start for the ride up to Bisbee. The climb was long and slow but the desolate landscape was beautiful. And the roads were peaceful and quiet.
Bisbee is kind of a bucket list place for us. We were charmed by the old west mining meets the arts / hippie vibe. In a lot of ways, it reminded us of a larger Wallace, just with fewer bordellos.
The last place we rode to in Arizona was Douglas, another border town. We were lucky to get a cheap room at the Gadsen, an historic hotel under renovation. The craftsmanship and details are incredible.
The staff was super helpful, especially getting our bikes up the manual elevators. They also recommended a great restaurant El Chef. We went there the next morning (for breakfast burritos, of course) and were blown away. It’s just a small mom and pop place, but it was cold out and they let us bring our bikes inside the restaurant. The owner’s daughter had done some bike touring in Korea and had a bunch of questions for us. And we had a bunch for her. It was fun.
This stretch of the borderlands has impressed us. The scenery and the history are interesting, but it’s the kindness of people we’ve met along the way that have made it amazing. We’ve also come to better appreciate how important it is to open yourself up and talk with locals. You learn so much more about what makes a community tick. It’s awesome.
Next: New Mexico & Texas.
-Erik
Sounds wonderful. Stay safe you two
Thanks, Tom! Will do.