I had been waiting all year for this ride to come around.  A few of us rode it last year, and I was determined to make this year even more fun!  The official ride is organized by azride.com and is a 265 mile loop that starts in Springerville, AZ on the last Saturday in May.  The route heads south into New Mexico and loops back up "Devil's Highway", known as the Coronado Trail Scenic Byway, or Route 191, which was formerly numbered Route 666.

 

Route 191 is one of the most scenic and fun motorcycle roads in Arizona, having around 1000 curves in 95 miles and over 6000 ft. of elevation change.  Time to gather up a group of riders!

 

A few emails later and we had a group of 6 riders plus a chase/support van.  The van was outfitted with a wheel chock & tie downs, plus would be able to haul people's bags and...umm...beverages.

 

Now 265 miles might not seem like much, but we had to get from Phoenix to Springerville and back making the round trip a little over 750 miles.  We booked a cabin in Greer, AZ for two nights, which is about 18 miles West of Springerville.  The rides between Phoenix and Greer are a lot of fun also. 

   

 

 

Let me kick things off with a little taste of what we were up against all weekend...

 

 

THE GANG

We started out with 6 riders, plus the van, but picked up a pitch-hitter, Jude, in Springerville Saturday morning:

 

LEAVING TOWN
 

 

Ready to go.....

I imagine everyone looked like this as they were heading out to the meeting spot:
 

 

Meet-up at the van Friday morning in central Phoenix:
 

 

We even had an old riding buddy who was in from out of town come by the meeting spot to kick us off:
     

 

Made a quick gas stop on the way out of town at Idaho Rd. and I-60....

   

 

Next stop was Globe, AZ where Doug was waiting for us:

 

  

 

SALT RIVER CANYON

The ride from Globe to Show Low sends you right through the Salt River Canyon, which is fantastically curvy dropping into and climbing back out of the canyon...

(Insert ear-to-ear grin here...)

 

SHOW LOW

 

Although we were JRA-ing (just riding along) to get to Show Low after the canyon, a couple of us did get a little red & blue light show reminder to take it easy from a passing officer friendly:

 

  We arrived in Show Low Friday afternoon and made a quick pit stop to gather up the group and head on in to Greer.

    

    

 

 

GREER

 

This was my first time to Greer.  What a beautiful little valley!  First on the agenda was checking into the cabin and getting the group accounted for. 

 

 

 

   

 

 

THE CABIN

 

We could not have had a better place to stay.  Once we made our way up the short dirt road to the 5 bedroom/3 bath cabin location, we were greeted with one of the best sites of all...A double car garage!!  (insert arm-pumping YES! here)

 

   

 

 

   

 

 

FIRST NIGHT

 

We got settled in, stocked the fridge with water, gatorade, and beer, and worked on some dinner.  The grill on the patio was out of gas, but no bother, Pete turned out to be an expert indoor griller!  Dave made sure we ate our veggies.  A little BS'ing, motorcycle racing DVD's on the big screen TV, and even a cool smoke out on the patio under a clear starry night sky.  Perfect.  Everyone claimed their sleeping quarters and we hit the sack. 

 

 

 

RIDE DAY !

 

Awoke to a beautiful Arizona morning and headed out for some breakfast in Greer early enough to get to the check-in spot in Springerville by 9:30 am.

 

 

 

   

 

 

Adventure riders on the road from the cabin:

 

 

 

 

There's always one number one:

 

Let's ride!

 

We made our way into Springerville to try and find the check-in spot where AzRides was waiting.  They had a door prize drawing and dinner planned  for that evening, and it's a good way to see how many other people are making the ride.  Unfortunately they were stationed behind the only building on the street without an address, and didn't bother to put out any signs, so it took a few passes back and forth with 6 bikes and the van before we figured it out.  We stopped off, signed in, and just as we were getting ready to head out  we met Jude.  He was riding a Ducati 1098 and asked if he could join us for the loop...of course!  Now 7 bikes strong we made our way South out of Springerville to Alpine, and headed Southeast into New Mexico.

 

 

 

Although we rode in our own group, because it was an organized ride the fun part is bumping into the other riders and groups along the way, many of them we recognized from last year....

 

    

 

Refueling at the Alma Store:

   

 

   

 

This year I thought it would be cool to make a couple pit stops along the way.  Luckily AZRides had a couple
recommendations...  We stopped at the "Catwalk" just south of Alma and hiked around a little, neat place.  I believe the catwalks were built to service a pipeline that ran through the canyon.  Oh yeah...hiking in leathers is hot: