“THE LOOP” — OR A SMALL PART OF IT.

“The Loop” is 137 mile trail network that surrounds the city of Tucson. There are many trailheads where one can join parts of the trail. The ‘network’ can be tricky to follow, so to ride the entire trail takes deep research, or a local resident to find their way.

Susan and I had signed up with the coordinator of this Pleasure Way Rally to lead a bike ride on one of the days. Never having ridden any part of the loop before, we were not sure if driving to a trailhead from camp might be necessary. On our stay in town the day before going on to Patagonia Lake, we stopped here at the KOA and Susan spoke with the manager who has a daughter familiar with the trail. She gave us directions to get onto the trail right from camp. YAY!!

In glorious Arizona sun and blue sky, thirteen of us began our ride. Susan was leading, I was sweep, and I could not stop much for photos. However on this fairly short trip, there were not a lot of photos to find.

Out of KOA and onto a few stretches of road and sidewalk to get to the trail.

The Julian Wash was the section of trail we rode, and the group of riders were great as we moved along smoothly. For those who ride with their head down and pounding out the miles, there was the sign directing to some art work.

A group shot was called for.

The leaders were called in for a photo.

There of our riders opted to shorten their ride so we now had ten of us. The goal was to get to the Joining Hands Arch as our turn around point. The information sign was placed in 2011, the trail now does (intermittently) encircle the town of Tucson.

We all hold hands under the arch.

Returning to camp, we stopped at a park along the trail to have our lunch. We had each brought our subs that were left after dinner last night. We thought they were even better today. Bike riding will do that for you.

Here is a photo of “The Loop”. We were on the trail at the bottom of the photo. You can embiggen the photo for a more detailed look.

I will post this now as an earlier bike ride (same ride) with Penelope is not to happen as they are having electrical work done on their RV. I thought I could have gotten a couple more different photos to add here, but this is it for this day’s blog.