Riding Rim to Rim

A popular hiking trip, called going "Rim to Rim" involves going down the South Kaibab Trail or the Bright Angel Trail from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park, passing through Phantom Ranch, and climbing to the North Rim via the North Kaibab Trail.
Less known is the fact that you can ride your bike from Rim to Rim as well. I'm not talking about doing so via the Kaibab trail. That would involve mountain bikes and super human endurance. Also, the NPS doesn't allow any bikes below the Rim, so that's out.

But riding it is possible, and you can even skip the part of the Arizona Strip [from Marble Canyon to the eastern entrance of the park] by taking a shuttle.

I've just done it. Plus, once you're on the South Rim, you can ride to Phoenix. I'll post some photos to the blog once I return to Seattle. Today I'm shading up in Phoenix, as it's been a bit hot to be on the bike out there, and it's triple digit weather here.

One of the tools I used for this ride was Adventure Cycling's Grand Canyon Connector map. I also used the bike option in Google Maps to map out the last bit from Wickenburg to Cave Creek. Google only fails within the last mile of the map, pointing to non-existent streets.

The high desert is in bloom, as there's been a lot of rain during the monsoons of August. The flowers are pretty impressive. And I found Arizona motorists to be very considerate all-in-all, despite some long stretches on hot, straight, rumble stripped desert highways. Looks like "share-the-road" is taking route here, which is great.