Southwestern USA : Mountain Biking in Sedona and Arizona’s Scenic Routes

Duration: 3 to 5 days minimum.

Mountain biking in beautiful Sedona

Sedona is definitely a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts, whether for hiking, climbing or mountain biking. We had been to Sedona in previous years, but this time around, with our bikes on the roof, we knew we’d spend a lot more time there!

With over 300 miles of bike trails in Red Rocks, Sedona is a real playground!

In addition to offering breathtaking scenery, Sedona is surrounded by a national forest. This means that you can easily camp in boondocking mode within 5 minutes of the Sedona area. You will easily find a place to sleep using the Ioverlander application.(Dicover the camping option here). What more could you ask for?

breakfast in vanlife. Boondocking in sedona

There’s so much to discover in Sedona that it takes several days to make your way through the must-sees! So we spent 5 days there, mainly exploring the attractions by bike, which allowed us to do the long distances faster.

Our must-haves? Bell Rock, Devil’s Bridge, Fay canyon and Cathedral rock. Also do take care to travel the scenic drive and check out the breathtaking views!

Knowing how to react to the unexpected

After returning from a bike ride, we realized that one of our Thule racks was broken and was no longer functional. So we couldn’t put one of our bikes on the roof… No problem!

Bike in the van with the RoadLoft conversion kit

We simply moved the bench section of our kit to put the bike inside the van and headed to a hardware store! This is one of the biggest advantages of our kit: the fact that the space in the center is quickly freed up (30 seconds) to make room for the car’s seats or, in this case, our bikes! We were able to move around the city safely and we quickly repaired our bike rack, the very same day. (To discover the other advantages of our conversion kit it is here).

The scenic road heading south!

As usual, we opted for the scenic route instead of taking the shortest route to our next destination. This allowed us to discover Tonto Natural Bridge State park and its beautiful national forests! Another advantage of taking scenic routes is definitely that there are more options for boondocking in nature than by going through big cities!

We then drove south again to finally discover a surprising landscape in the desert, Lake Theodore Roosevelt. You read that right, a lake in the middle of the desert! Plus, the Saguaro cacti had started to appear!