CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 14 km, Big Park to Sedona - roughly 23 min in the saddle. It goes by way of Bell Rock and Cathedral Rock junction. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For about 3 km this is Red Rock Scenic Byway, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
6 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it. Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
The Village of Oak Creek is the southern gateway to Sedona, and it announces the red rock country with a flourish. Bell Rock and Courthouse Butte stand right beside the road, glowing orange and rust against the blue sky, their layered sandstone forming tilted sheets of colour. The village is a collection of resorts, golf courses, galleries and shops at around thirty-nine hundred feet, with the dry, bright air of the high desert and the green line of Oak Creek running through it.
Read the complete Village of Oak Creek write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Village of Oak Creek is where the day begins. Next is Bell Rock.
Bell Rock is the first great butte you meet when you come north from the interstate into Sedona, and it looks every inch the part: a symmetrical, flaring cone of red sandstone, banded in cream and rust, rising from a flat of juniper and prickly pear beside State Route 179. Its shape is a gift to photographers, and on a still evening, when the sun sets behind it, the rock seems to glow from inside. Courthouse Butte stands next to it like a patient companion.
Read the complete Bell Rock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bell Rock comes up about 3 km into the recorded legs. Next is Cathedral Rock junction.
There is a side road off State Route 179 that leads, in a mile or so, to the most photographed rock in Sedona. Cathedral Rock rises behind the junction as a ragged crown of red towers and buttresses, lit gold at sunset, and the sight of it reflected in the shallows of Oak Creek below is the image that sells half the postcards in town. The junction is the turn for Back O' Beyond Road, which leads to the trailhead and the creek crossing, and the traffic here, on a busy day, is as dense as the foliage.
Read the complete Cathedral Rock junction write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 7 km into the recorded legs you reach Cathedral Rock junction. Next is Sedona.
Sedona's red rocks look so unreal that visitors often assume they have been lit for effect. Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Courthouse Butte and a ring of cliffs the colour of rust and terracotta rise from the juniper and cypress woodland around the town, and in the early morning and at sunset, the light catches the sandstone and turns it fiery. The colour comes from iron oxide in the layers of rock, deposited over hundreds of millions of years, and then carved by wind and water into spires and buttes. About ten thousand people live in the town itself, at around 4,350 feet, in a place that has grown from a few orchards and a small post office in the early twentieth century, when it was named after Sedona Schnebly, the wife of an early settler.
Read the complete Sedona write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sedona closes the day.
Village of Oak Creek → Bell Rock is 3 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bell Rock → Cathedral Rock junction is 4 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cathedral Rock junction → Sedona is 7 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.