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My bike had been in the shop for almost the entire last month of good Midwestern motorcycling weather, so by the time I got it back I had a seriously unsatisfied motorcycling jones. Poking around on the internet brought up a lot of Harley Rentals in a lot of places, all of which were pretty boring Sportsters for too much money. It was looking like it was going to be cheaper to ship my bike than to rent one for 6 days. When I found AZRide/MCtours I was very happy, because they had a whole stack of bikes I wanted to try out and a winter "Mileage Saver" option that hit the right price point. I got some info and a couple days later booked the BMW R1200 GS I had been dieing to try since the first time I watched Ewan and Charlie in "Long Way Round".

>When I first spoke to Monica on the phone, I could tell this was a really well run and experienced organization, because my long list of questions were being answered before I even got a chance to ask them. Upon arrival, everything was set and waiting for me. Monica led me through all the paperwork and explained all the options I had, and then Gabor gave me a great run down of the bike and all of it's features and precautions.

Gabor sat down with me to go over the maps of where I was hoping to go and clearly knew the roads and conditions he was recommending, because everything he told me was spot on and indeed some of the most spectacular scenery I had ever had the pleasure to ride through with lots of great hills and twisties along the way. I didn't make it to even half of what I had optimistically planned to see because I was enjoying every bit of road and every turn I went around.



I'll make it up to Zion National Park and down to some of the other observatories in Tucson on my next trip, and yes, there will be next trip. Thanks again Monica and Gabor. It was a great trip on a great bike.

Check out the photos I took on my Flickr account.
Phoenix to Sedona to Grand Canyon
Tucson the observatories at Mt. Lemmon and Kitt Peak
Panoramic photos