Jemez, New Mexico. Saturday we took the short drive to the Jemez Mountains and headed for Tom Mayer's beloved Mesas. Tom has spent many years mapping this area and showing people the routes he's developed. Ann and I met our friend Mark, who knows all of Tom's routes. We loaded everyone up in the Element and Mark took us on "The Roadrunner" which is my favorite of the trails, so far. The Roadrunner was around 18 to 20 miles of great singletrack with some awesome technical sections thrown in. I took the FS bike and it was nice to be on it and have all those gears. Though Tom has the trails well marked and has even done some maintenance, you really have to pay attention to your route with all the subtle turns, even when using a gps to navigate. It was a super fun trail with some steep, technical decents, and my favorite part was near the end; a serpentine singletrack, meandering through large boulders, and outcrops of the ash-flow tuff that caps the entire area. In addition to the great riding, we saw some cougar tracks, tons of elk tracks, a huge skunk, and a mule deer. Also tons of turkey tracks in the area. I look forward to exploring more of Tom's routes in this area, but with as dry as things appear in the Jemez, the Santa Fe National Forest is likely to get shut down soon. On the way home, we hit up Los Ojos Bar and Grill in Jemez Springs for a burger. It was a perfect evening for sitting on the patio and doing some people watching.

What trails are you riding?