Mountain Bike America: Arizona (Mountain Bike America Guides)
Mountain Bike America: Arizona (Mountain Bike America Guides)
From the low desert to the high peaks, from rolling midlands to red slickrock, Arizona offers some of the finest, most diverse mountain biking in the world. A year-round riding season and a staggering array of trails make Arizona a destination for mountain bikers from every corner of the globe. The state is also the home and training ground for some of the most accomplished riders you’ll ever meet. If you’re ready to get pushed to the limits of body and mind, Arizona is the place to ride and this is the guidebook that will take you there. This guide includes: comprehensive trail descriptions, from beginner to advanced; GPS-quality, digitally designed maps detailing each ride; accurate route profiles show the ups and downs of each ride; detailed directions to get to the ride; mile-by-mile directional cues, difficulty ratings, elevation gain, trail content, local information, and much more. (5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 384 pages, b&w photos, maps, charts)
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Mountain Biking in Arizona
This book is for much more technical areas for mountain biking than we wanted. We wanted gentle trails instead of hard-core trails which is what this book entails.
1 Stars outdated, inaccurate, not at all helpful
My goodness, book reviews can be deceiving. Especially when an author asks good friends to write positive reviews to help sell a book. One reviewer wrote; “he’s (the author) ridden every one (trail) at least twice so the information is very accurate.” This is far from the truth. The author wrote about accessing trails where the access was lost to developement years before he wrote the book. He couldn’t have ridden the trail even once. The distances listed between turns on existing trails are off by so much you’ll find yourself stopping and turning around after you don’t see any turn where he says there will be one. Like bikeboy stated in his review, the book is too much filler, the maps are too small to be helpful, the book is too bulky to be carried in a pack, and not a helpful guidebook. No local shops even carry the book because they say it will get you lost. They sell much more accurate local trail guidebooks. My husband and I use guidebooks wherever we travel and this one is the least helpful we have seen.
5 Stars One of the best for AZ mtb trails
Great book. Used it when I moved back to AZ to start exploring new stuff. It is a bit dated, but all guidebooks are to some degree. If you expect a guide book to walk you through every foot of trail and spoonfeed you what pretty trees to look at along the way you might as well spend your time surfing the internet for nice pictures of trails. What fun is exploring if it’s all in the book?
I used this book as all guidebooks should be used…to get you to the best trailhead and save you from wasting valuable exploration time. To that end, it is a great resource and I’d recommend it to anyone looking to experience AZ mountain biking.
5 Stars Far exceeds expectations
Each time I return to this book I recognize how many little extras it includes, such as vertical profiles, several ways to find or select a trail, a good place to satisfy post-ride munchies, or the phone number of a local bike shop in a nearby town for an emergency repair.
As a 4th generation native of Arizona, I thought I knew my way around, but this book has paid off in directing me to a lot of out of the way trails I never would have found or even heard of swapping ideas with local riders. Do not overlook or underestimate the many “honorable mention” rides included in each chapter.
There’s another popular book on Arizona mountain bike trails that is sort of a cartoon. Buy that if you want laughs, but buy Mountain Bike America: Arizona if you want a serious reference tool to get the most out of your visits to and around Arizona.
2 Stars whole lot of nothing
This thing weighs in at a whopping 19 ounces. Way too much paper filler with all sorts of peripheral information about mountain biking in general, but not enough specific details about the best Arizona trails. The maps were done with a GPS, but a gray line drawn by a computer over a b&w topo that covers only 1/4 page just does not get it. You’ve probably heard the expression that a camel is a horse designed by committee. This is a book written by a knowledgable mountain biker then stuffed into the Falcon/Globe-Pequot format. This fomulaic (sp?) approach to a mountain bike guide just doesn’t work. The local guides and maps are cheaper, better and lighter.
Filed under: Mountain Bikes Book Reviews