Help a newbie find a trail?

[3speed]

I've done a loaded, paved tour down the west coast, and have done a fair amount of overnight rides out to campgrounds 25-50mi away, but have never done any serious bikepacking. I recently got some Blackburn cargo cages and am having a frame-bag made. A friend and I are looking to do a week long trip in about a month. We want to stay above freezing temps, so I think southern/western AZ and TX might be our only options, unless there are some good trails in Louisiana or southern Mississippi. Are there any good newbie trails in any of those states/areas, or should we just do a short road tour?

[3speed]

Not for a long time. I've graduated to 30 speeds. Ten times the speeds!

[AZTtripper]

Are you looking to ride single track, technical or tame, gravel or just paved? Southern AZ has lots of options. Night's are going to be cold and the days short this time of year. Depending on weather patterns mostly above freezing nights and pleasant cool days.

Tim

[3speed]

Not paved. Singletrack would be preferred, but gravel would be alright too. I'm not quite sure what is considered technical by bikepacking standards. As a MTBer too, I wouldn't want something that would be considered technical by MTB standards. My friend rides a Salsa Fargo, and my bike is kinda Vaya-ish(Advocate Sand County) with disk brakes, but runs fat 650b tires(27.5x2.1 Vittoria Peyote at the moment). Something I just thought of - Am I gonna need to go tubeless for AZ riding?

[AZTtripper]

You don't have to go tubeless, you will have to have sealant in the tubes. Any of the name brands will do I have had good luck with Stans tubeless sealant in tubes. Also sealant in the spare tubes.

The AZT  is more of a mountain bike trail. There's bonus sections when the trail is easy if you don't mind some pavement and some hiking with the bike you could do a version of the AZT.

All of the trail south of Tucson can be bypassed on road and the good stuff is easy to access and bail out of.

Tim

[3speed]

Do you have any experience with the Tour Divide route, and know how that would compare to the AZT? My friend did the TD on his Fargo. If it's not worse than that, we could do it.

[AZTtripper]

Tour Divide is mostly roads, AZT is a trail.

The great divide mountain bike route basically parallels the Continental Divide hiking trail. It would be possible to do the same with the AZT.

Hard is all relative to ride the trail requires HAB "hike a bike" for every one. How much your walking depends on your skills. If you really want to ride the rideable sections then you want to do the HAB. If you just end up walking the bike more than riding you can always bail out to ride the road.

I use a mapping program called topofusion if you go here http://www.bikepacking.net/routes/arizona-trail/ you can down load a network gpx file that shows the trail and the bypass options. With a bit of study you could create a custom route with less HAB.

[3speed]

Being new to bikepacking, it's kind of hard to figure out where to start. I feel like I'm pretty much where I need to be to start planning this trip. I'm excited and I'm sure it'll be the first of many. Thank you so much for all of your help.