6/15 Grand Canyon Bike RIde

Grand Canyon is one of my favorite places due to the many excellent bike paths here.  (Yes, the canyon is nice, but I've seen it many times, and it is usually crowded with tourists.)  The bike paths are very wide and paved with asphalt, and also very smooth and well-marked with signs.  And if you get tired of riding at 7,000 feet, you can put your bike on the front of one of the shuttles and "ride" home that way!  This is my very nice campsite at Trailer Village.  Just got my bike off the rack and am getting ready to go.  It is going to be warm today, but I have an electric bike, so that makes it easier.

This is the bike path from the village marketplace to the visitor's center, about a mile away.  Instead of putting the bike path right along the road, it winds through the trees.  The South Rim of Grand Canyon, which is where most of the tourists go, is high desert at about 7,000' so there are various pines and scrub oaks.  Note the lack of human beings.

You can rent a bike at the visitor's center and ride this part of the rim trail east of the center.  Walkers and bikes share this part of the trail.  (I took pictures of the visitor's center, but am not including them in this post.)

Most of the time on this rim trail, you are 15-25 feet from the edge of Grand Canyon. 

I stopped and asked a very nice couple from England to take my photo with the canyon as a backdrop.  You can see how close the dropoff is here and how wonderful the view! 

This part of the canyon is just as scenic and the more touristy areas, but a LOT less crowded.  

I had to stop every once in a while to take pictures of wildflowers. 

 I think these next three photos are of the same flowers, but in different stages of blooming.

 This is a clump of ex-flowers.  I suspect they were eaten by elk, but not sure.  Look at how neatly someone had cut off the flower stems. 

Back on the trail.  Isn't this a gorgeous place to ride a bike??

Do you see the path way down in the bottom in the lower-middle of the photo?  That is one of the paths used by mules to bring people up from Phantom Ranch.  

Here is a closeup of that path as it goes into the crack in the earth.  By the way, the deeper you go into the canyon, the hotter it gets.  Glad I am up here watching instead of down there hiking!

The east end-point of the rim trail is at the South Kaibab Trailhead.  You can pick up a shuttle there and get a ride for both you and your bike if you are tired of riding.  Here is a female elk enjoying her lunch at the edge of the parking lot.

And since this is where the mules come up from the canyon trips, there are barns and corrals.

Besides the bike trail I showed you from the visitor's center to the South Kabab Trailhead, you can ride all the way to the main Village area.  However, you cannot ride on the Rim Trail walking path from the visitor's center to the Village area. 

The other place you can ride is anywhere on the park's roads.  One good place to ride would be the area from the Village to Hermit's Rest which is open only to shuttle buses, but closed to other traffic, nearly all of the year.  It is a regular paved two-lane road with only an occasional shuttle bus to watch out for.  So remember to bring your bikes when you come to Grand Canyon. 

Here is a link to the web page from the bike rental people at the visitor's center explaining rides and rules, plus information on bike rentals.  There is also a PDF of a brochure and map you can download.  http://bikegrandcanyon.com/bike-rentals/biking-routes/,  Can't rent an electric bike, however.  It was hot out, so I got a few questions from hopeful people asking where I rented my bike!  Much easier in the heat when you don't have to pedal!

And, by the way, I rode 7.5 miles today!  Nice.