One of the best kept secrets about Sedona is that many of its world-famous red rock trails—the ones millions of visitors hike, bike, photograph, meditate upon, and commune with vortexes on each year—were originally built illegally by mountain bikers. Some trails emerged mostly spontaneously, created by riders exploring wherever they pleased. Others were carefully and meticulously crafted with tools and construction skills by bikers engaged in a quiet cat-and-mouse game with the Forest Service. A few were fined, and some were temporarily banned from the lands they loved. For decades, this piece of Sedona’s history has remained a secret because, even after the illegal trails were officially adopted, the original builders have been unable to take credit for fear of retaliation.
In this series, I interview the original trail blazers from that era—including those who will not reveal their identities. I start with one of Sedona's most daring riders and race champion, Simon Bosman, to hear his story firsthand. Riders I spoke with described Simon as greatly respected for his daring and speed. One told me, "Simon was the first rider in Sedona who showed the others it was possible to fly."
“When I’m feeling my best, when I’m in the flow state, the bike goes away. It feels like I’m flying. The best races I won—and did the best in—were easy; I was relaxed, I was in the flow state; it was like water.” —Simon Bosman
We were talking at a table in his large front yard in the Camp Verde river corridor, with large cottonwoods shading us overhead and a pack of dogs racing around the yard, begging for the orange ball to be thrown. I had parked near his new enterprise—a neighborhood honor-system farm stand—that has become very popular. I asked him about his origins and early Sedona adventures as the dogs sniffed me. Surely I smelled like cat.
From the start of our talk, I sensed Simon’s unflinching honesty—no embellishments, just the unvarnished truth of a man who’d faced real hardship. “When I came to Sedona, I was struggling,” he began. “I had recently arrived from Africa. Although home life was really cool, my school life—I went to boarding school—was really hard and very violent. We had a civil war going on at the same time. I knew a lot of people who had died, people I went to school with.”
The weight of that childhood stayed with him, he said, describing scenes that still sounded raw decades later. “I went to one of the clubhouses in a small farming community, and you could see how the side of the clubhouse was strafed with machine guns. It’s the kind of environment I grew up in. It’s stressful. It’s weird how you get used to things when it’s always around you. For me, I had to unwind that when I got here.”
Sedona tested him right away, channeling that stress into early trouble—but a key friendship steadied him. “I got in trouble when I first got here—I almost got deported the first year for fighting. I had all this pent-up anger inside of me. Rama helped me a lot. He was very passive. We would talk about stuff—his hippie-like outlook on life, very laid back, nothing riled him. I think I saw him angry one time. He never lost his temper. Maybe I should try that.”
I thought back to the early days of Mountain Bike Heaven. Rama had opened the first mountain biking store in Sedona. It was a small, messy place filled with character—bikes, boxes, bike parts, and a rotating group of local riders, with Rama as their de facto leader. It was far more than a bike shop; it was a warm and inviting place to ride with your friends, hang out, and feel at home. Even us non-bikers were welcomed.
Simon described what drove his aggressive style, that raw energy finding an outlet on Sedona’s rugged singletrack. “I was super aggro inside, which in a way helped my mountain biking. It was a way for me to get that shit out of me; I would ride really hard. I would make myself scared.”
Now Simon was hiding the orange ball on top of the table as the dog pack surrounded us expectantly, tails wagging, eyes locked on his every move.
Simon leaned in, reminiscing about Sedona’s nascent trail network. “Some of the earliest trails that we would ride that I remember—and I’m talking 40 years ago, in the ‘80s—were out by Cockscomb. There were some old 4-by-4 roads out there. The easiest ways to get around were in the arroyos, and we would ride up and down the arroyos.”
He painted a picture of organic discovery, where animal paths became bike highways through sheer repetition. “We would see animal trails that veered off, and we would just ride those. The more we rode them, the more they became our trails—and the trails just happened. A lot of the Secret Trails area—what they call Adobe Jack now—were built by just riding our bikes. They got adopted in the last 10-15 years; they started turning them into Forest Service trails. Very few were not used. The greater portion were used and adopted.”
Simon turned to the bigger picture: how Sedona's trails evolved from rogue paths to official ones, crediting a pivotal Forest Service figure. "As far as what happened with the trails in Sedona, a lot of the trails have been built illegally. The people were just making the trails. It all changed when Jennifer Burns came along. I really like Jennifer. I trust her; she’s a nice person."
He respected her role in flipping the script on bikers as enemies. "She was doing her job, and I appreciate that. Without Jennifer, I believe the trails wouldn’t be like they are right now. Instead of looking at the mountain bikers as the enemy—that’s what we all felt like: the Forest Service hated us 25 years ago."
That outlaw status fueled their rebel joy, even with the grunt work. "We felt like in the eyes of the Forest Service we were actually pariahs, and we kind of liked that. We were having fun and doing what made us happy, and we just rode—rode our bikes and carried our bikes—hike-a-bike. I don’t want to exaggerate, but in the early days a good quarter of the ride would be hike-a-bike."
Hearing Simon talk about "hike-a-bike" brought back a memory for me. My sole mountain biking experience in Sedona was around 1989, riding with my former partner—who biked with Rama—to the cliffs above Verde Valley School for a free Jackson Browne and Indigo Girls concert. (Free was a big incentive.) Far more suited to flat-pavement biking than crazy non-trails and steep climbs, I was soon reduced to a whimpering, crying mess under a large boulder—until one of the gang came to my rescue and hauled my bike up the rocks. It was pure humiliation that left a lasting sting. Only now do I realize this was normal, expected Sedona mountain biking in the early days.
Simon pressed on about that exploratory era. “Trails were limited, very limited, and we were exploring. We would figure out areas and sometimes we would come back the other way; sometimes if we couldn’t ride it before by climbing it, we could ride it down, and the more we did that, it would become a trail.”
That raw experimentation forged Sedona’s technical riding prowess. “That’s what happened with a lot of the trails. We would ride over the logs, which is why the Sedona riders became so good at technical riding. The original trails were not easy, at all. A lot of the trails we initially created through riding have, just with use over the years, become easier; they become wider over the years, and as they got adopted they made them wider and built little ramps and stuff.”
He’s come to terms with the changes, spotting hardcore lines amid the upgrades. “There are two schools of thought on that. You’re dumbing it down—that used to bother me. But as time went by I was like, you can be upset or you can embrace it; it’s just progress. I like the trails; there is almost always a harder line, you can choose, you can go around the easier part, if that’s what you want.”
I had heard on the wind that my absolute favorite Sedona trail, Hangover, was built by one person. This was shocking news—at first, I didn’t believe it. Hangover is a creative masterpiece that feels like wandering a dreamscape. I recommend it to all my avid-hiker guests as Sedona’s number one trail. Simon told me more: “I feel the most iconic trails in Sedona are the Hogs and Hangover. They were created by artists who would be in the Louvre, seriously, if they were fine artists. But they built trails, and they have been demonized. It’s so sad, because what they have created are art pieces—it’s so incredible. And I wish we could use their names, but they are scared of what might happen.”
Simon’s eyes lit up talking trails, but a shadow crossed his face at the
anonymity—he's witnessing here, not confessing. He knows the builders'
fear is real; retaliation lingers even post-adoption. Yet here he was,
sharing his story under the cottonwoods, dogs at play, farm stand
thriving. From angry immigrant to flow-state flyer, he's channeled chaos
into Sedona's original riding scene.
That's Simon Bosman: first to show Sedona mountain bikers they could fly, and
brave enough to name the art without claiming the shovel. Next in the Bad Boys series, another trailblazing ghost steps forward—if they'll talk. Until then, ride Hangover, if you dare. Feel the art.
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