Last weekend was 92Fifty's 2nd Annual Spring Moab Camp, and I decided to treat it a little differently than I have treated bike-related trips in the past. As soon as we arrived at our campground, I turned my phone's Ultra Power Saving Mode (A handy feature that turns most applications off, turns the screen to grayscale, and puts a cap on processor speed, but still gives you access to SMS, phone calls, and a web browser. When fully charged, the phone estimates it has 12 days of standby time.). This gave me access to text messages and a phone so I could keep in touch with Mrs. Geology, but took away stupid temptations like Facebook, Twitter, and the camera. The last one is most important. Not only was I going to do a little break from social media, I wasn't going to take any pictures either. I spent the entire weekend soaking in Moab with my eyes, instead of trying to capture it with my camera.
Early Thursday morning I met a teammate and his friend, loaded up in his car, and headed up I-70. It was cold and windy at the park and ride in Morrison, so we shoved everything in as best we could, loaded the bikes up, and hit the road. The drive was completely uneventful, and eventually we stepped out of the car into Moab's warm early afternoon sun. We quickly set up our tents, claiming the best spots in the group camping area at the Slickrock RV Campground. Eventually more people started arriving and our leader, JD set out our ride plan for the day. It was the middle of the afternoon by then, so we set out for the Pipe Dream trail. Pipe Dream is a relatively new trail that's basically right in town. It gives those new to Moab riding a chance to test the waters, as it were; it is neither steep or technical, and exposed enough that you can most likely fall off without falling to your death (a fact demonstrated nicely by one of the women in our group during the ride... yes she's OK, see a recap here). I hit the singletrack third wheel and immediately found myself and Andrea trying to hold Josh Tostado's wheel. For mere mortals, this is a bad idea. I may have been able to at least keep him in sight if we had been more than an hour into the ride and I was warmed up, but that was not the case. I'm pretty sure when I finally reached him stopped at the top of a climb looking down on Moab and out to the La Sals he had been sitting there for at least five minutes. Nice guy that he is, he made no mention of it, and we soon shot off down the trail again. We got to the turn around on the trail, and briefly regrouped before setting off in the other direction. The ride back up (down?) Pipe Dream was relatively uneventful. I got dropped by Toast and Jakub (our resident Czech World Cup pro) at the beginning, but managed to make some time back on the hardtail-riding Jakub in some of the more techy sections near the other end of the trail. As we rolled back to camp, I kept thinking about how this was just a preview of all the good riding to come.
Friday morning woke me up by being a typical frigid desert morning. Even Toast and JD, in the comfort of their respective pimped out Sprinter van and large RV commented on it. I didn't sleep that well, I kept waking up to put more clothes on, but I felt rested in the morning. I think hitting some Elevated Legs before I went to bed helped that out. Plus I always sleep pretty well in the tent, regardless of how cold it is outside. Saturday's plan was UPS Down, which is possible also known as the Half Enchilada (you go halfway up to Geyser Pass). The ride would consist of going all the way up Sand Flats Road, climbing up the bottom of the Kokopelli Trail, then shredding back down to Moab on Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS), Lower Porcupine Singletrack (LPS), Porcupine Rim Trail, and Porcupine Rim Singletrack (I'm looking at The Whole Enchilada map right now, so those trail names are correct). If you're as confused as me right now, we can stop: why is the combination of UPS and LPS not called UPS since there is a singletrack along Porcupine Rim much lower down that could be called LPS? Is it because UPS and LPS are on a rim that overlooks Castle Valley and has a different name that Porcupine Rim, which overlooks the Colorado River (unlikely, since the Porcupine Rim jeep road starts overlooking Castle Valley)? I propose a that the trails be renamed, so that the section of singletrack on the Whole Enchilada between Kokopelli's Trail and the Porcupine Rim Trail is called Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS), and the section of singletrack between the Porcupine Rim Trail and UT-128 be called Lower Porcupine Singletrack (LPS). Anyway, enough geographical semantics...
I tried to hold Toast and JD's wheels on UPS but quickly found myself in no-mans's land between them and Jakub. We stopped a few times to let everyone regroup before deciding to split up and go our own speeds. This would mean a the majority of our group riding together in the back, Jakub, then me, somewhere in the middle, and JD and Toast way, way, way out front. I came up to the Snotch (it'S not the Notch... the Snotch is the divider between UPS & LPS, it is above the skill level of all but the most skilled riders. The Notch on the other hand, is only ridden by the 1% of the 1%, and mostly on full DH bikes at that) with all intentions of riding it, but balked as soon as I saw it. Jakub and I both walked. A bit of twisty trail later, we ran into JD fixing what turned out to be flat number two (the second flat was his spare tube to fix his first flat). We waited for him to fix it and rolled on to meet Toast at the end of LPS. We decided to roll separately again, and after a few regroups and one stop to fix another flat on JD's bike (they come in threes, you know...), found the entrance to Porc Singletrack. Then the fun really began. Porc Rim can be a bit punishing on a short travel bike, and by short travel, I'm talking anything less than 150 mm front and rear. The Mach 429c's dw-link suspension is fantastic, but 100 mm of it is not enough to cover the repeated square-edge hits that Porc Rim has. Lower down, on sections where I could jump between smooth bits, I could keep up with JD on his 160 mm travel Nukeproof Mega AM, but anytime the road got rough for a long stretch he was gone. On Porc Singletrack, though, I felt like I was right there. It's like the people who put this ride together purposely saved the best part for the end. It's such a short trail compared to many other things (or at least it feels short), but there is so much technical goodness in there that it may be my favorite of the entire route (Burro Pass is damn close, though). And it's technical stuff you actually have to think about, too. Porc Rim is a jeep road, so you can pretty much go anywhere, but there are line choices to make on Porc Singletrack, places where things could be amazing, or things could go badly wrong. It also brings out all the interesting people in Moab; dudes on high-seat hardtails bouncing down the trail, families on rental bikes wearing jeans and Keds towing kids who didn't know what they were getting into, guys on department store bikes with kickstands riding more things than most, and super #Enduro (tm) bros trying to set a PR on Strava. Hopefully our group fell somewhere in the middle there. Jakub impressed a lot of people by riding the whole slab down to the last gully crossing on his hardtail with the seat up (did I mention he raced two World Cups last summer?), and soon we were on the bike path headed back to town. I sat nervously behind JD and Jakub (note: Toast was probably back at camp making two sandwiches at this point) because I had this feeling that this would turn into a race before we made it back. We maintained a happy tempo (what Fatmarc would call "no douchebag pace") until we got to the underpass at US-191. On the short rise after the underpass, Jakub stood. Then I stood. Then JD stood. Before I knew it, JD and I were going full gas into a blind, uphill, off camber, left hand corner when, mid corner, his rear tire folded sending the back end of his bike sliding about a foot towards me. We both backed off a lot thinking of the disaster that could have been. Jakub went to the front and continued the aggression, though, a line of us wizzing down the bike path on the opposite side of the road from our campground finish line. JD jumped early crossing the road, his 28x10 high gear and 160 mm bike making him the least likely to finish first. Now, on the correct side of the road, though, he had the advantage. Jakub and I followed, and my 30x10 got me in front of JD, while Jakub's 34x10 immediately gave him three or four bike lengths for the win. Well, the group sprint win, at least, Toast was already changed and making two sandwiches by the time we got back. Getting out all your pent up aggression is the best way to end a chill group ride, and we settled in to hang out by the campfire on a cool desert night.
Saturday was the traditional Hymasa/Ahab ride. A few of us, at Toast's advice, switched it up a little bit. Instead of turn on Cliffhanger and riding up Hymasa, we kept going on Kane Creek Road. And going. And going. And going. Eventually we were on top of Hurrah Pass and were dropping down into the valley that the Amasa Back overlook looks into. From the top of the pass, the valley looks flat. It was anything but flat. After a bunch of punchy climbs we arrived at the base of the overlook staring straight up the cliff. For some reference, this valley is amazing. It's solitude incarnate. It's all the best parts of Moab without all the other people. We reached that small butte kind of in the middle of the valley, skirted around it and stopped at the base of the cliff. I watched as Toast, Kerkove, and the others threw their bikes on their backs and started walking. Staring up the cliff in front of me, I struggled to find the trail we were going up. I spotted a small figure about two thirds of the way up the cliff. It was a runner taking part in the 50 mile running race that was going on that day. That's where I was headed.
With my bike on my back, I followed the snaking path up a joint in the cliff. The path wasn't that difficult, I only had to use my hands a few times, and was wide enough that it didn't feel sketchy walking up it. I had a little bit of fear going into this since I'm pretty afraid of heights, and I tend to get a bit wobbly when I'm standing on the edge of cliffs. I'm glad to say that I had no problem with this climb. When I got to the top I looked down with a smile; we had just done what bikes are made to do: we had an adventure. For some reason I headed straight back down when we got to the Amasa Back road, but Captain Ahab is such a damn fun trail. In hindsight, I probably could have stuck with Toast and JD on their Pothole Arch/Rockstacker/Jackson/Dave's Trail (I think that's the name) ride. I've ridden all those trails before, so I know the route. Either way, Captain Ahab (which I rode) is a fantastic way to finish a ride. I set a Strava PR on a few downhill sections of the trail, which is pretty impressive since I was on my 120 mm/100 mm (front/rear) Pivot Mach 249c with kinda skinny XC tires (Maxxis Ardent Race 2.2 front, Ikon 2.2 rear) as opposed to the 160 mm travel Felt Compulsion I was on last time. It's good to see that I'm getting better at desert riding since I tend to do a lot of it (Front Range riding is pretty similar to desert riding as far as the quantity of sand on the trails).
Sunday I shuttled to the top of the Mag 7 trails with my ride back home and the group of women. The guy I drove out with wanted to get back home not too late (I kind of agreed), so we opted for a shorter ride. Mag 7 trails are super fun and much more mellow than most stuff in Moab, so it was a great way to end a fantastic trip. The ride, at least the way we did it, is just like a ride from El Bretto's house; it always ends on a climb. In this case it was a long, gradual singletrack climb, then a short section of road back to the parking lot. After dropping back down into Moab to get some food, we were on the road and headed back home. We arrived just after dark, and I pretty much took my bike off my car and went to bed, still thinking about all the great trails I rode, and all the great people I rode them with. I thought about having pictures a few times over the weekend, but in the end, I appreciate the memories of this trip and the fact that I focused on what was around me and taking in the amazing desert scenery. The memories from the trip will be enough to hold me over until the next one.
Saturday was the traditional Hymasa/Ahab ride. A few of us, at Toast's advice, switched it up a little bit. Instead of turn on Cliffhanger and riding up Hymasa, we kept going on Kane Creek Road. And going. And going. And going. Eventually we were on top of Hurrah Pass and were dropping down into the valley that the Amasa Back overlook looks into. From the top of the pass, the valley looks flat. It was anything but flat. After a bunch of punchy climbs we arrived at the base of the overlook staring straight up the cliff. For some reference, this valley is amazing. It's solitude incarnate. It's all the best parts of Moab without all the other people. We reached that small butte kind of in the middle of the valley, skirted around it and stopped at the base of the cliff. I watched as Toast, Kerkove, and the others threw their bikes on their backs and started walking. Staring up the cliff in front of me, I struggled to find the trail we were going up. I spotted a small figure about two thirds of the way up the cliff. It was a runner taking part in the 50 mile running race that was going on that day. That's where I was headed.
With my bike on my back, I followed the snaking path up a joint in the cliff. The path wasn't that difficult, I only had to use my hands a few times, and was wide enough that it didn't feel sketchy walking up it. I had a little bit of fear going into this since I'm pretty afraid of heights, and I tend to get a bit wobbly when I'm standing on the edge of cliffs. I'm glad to say that I had no problem with this climb. When I got to the top I looked down with a smile; we had just done what bikes are made to do: we had an adventure. For some reason I headed straight back down when we got to the Amasa Back road, but Captain Ahab is such a damn fun trail. In hindsight, I probably could have stuck with Toast and JD on their Pothole Arch/Rockstacker/Jackson/Dave's Trail (I think that's the name) ride. I've ridden all those trails before, so I know the route. Either way, Captain Ahab (which I rode) is a fantastic way to finish a ride. I set a Strava PR on a few downhill sections of the trail, which is pretty impressive since I was on my 120 mm/100 mm (front/rear) Pivot Mach 249c with kinda skinny XC tires (Maxxis Ardent Race 2.2 front, Ikon 2.2 rear) as opposed to the 160 mm travel Felt Compulsion I was on last time. It's good to see that I'm getting better at desert riding since I tend to do a lot of it (Front Range riding is pretty similar to desert riding as far as the quantity of sand on the trails).
Sunday I shuttled to the top of the Mag 7 trails with my ride back home and the group of women. The guy I drove out with wanted to get back home not too late (I kind of agreed), so we opted for a shorter ride. Mag 7 trails are super fun and much more mellow than most stuff in Moab, so it was a great way to end a fantastic trip. The ride, at least the way we did it, is just like a ride from El Bretto's house; it always ends on a climb. In this case it was a long, gradual singletrack climb, then a short section of road back to the parking lot. After dropping back down into Moab to get some food, we were on the road and headed back home. We arrived just after dark, and I pretty much took my bike off my car and went to bed, still thinking about all the great trails I rode, and all the great people I rode them with. I thought about having pictures a few times over the weekend, but in the end, I appreciate the memories of this trip and the fact that I focused on what was around me and taking in the amazing desert scenery. The memories from the trip will be enough to hold me over until the next one.
1 comment:
awesome.
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