Bike Peddler » ride report

24 Hours Of Moab

Joshua — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:21:00 +0000

After two last minute personnel changes, and a last minute impulse purchase of a new light, I packed up and headed for Moab with our newest team member Wes Friday morning.

Ryan had driven down Thursday night with his wife to secure a good campsite. Ryan did this race last year so he knew everything you needed to do for a good race. Glad he drove down a day early. We were closer to the start/finish line then almost 5 of the 400 or so teams there. But at least we were in tents, between two RV's with generators running 24/7. And without any tape or rope indicating our campsite, one of the RV's stole our campfire ring. Let's hear it for race experience.

After Wes and I pulled in, we unloaded and hustled to get a pre-ride in before it got dark. I had never ridden this "trail" before so it was a good thing we did. The course was pretty crowded with people doing the same thing. First impressions included, "This is going to suck." And "Wow, there's a LOT of sand." In between the sand, there were techy sections of slick rock. Not the smooth grippy slickrock you find on the other side of Moab that's fun to climb because it grabs your tires and lets you climb impossibly steep pitches. This slickrock is of the rough, broken loose variety that gives you a choice of the hard, rough line, or the "I guess I'll get off and walk line." Later in the race, I would choose the latter quite often. The first two miles were like that, and then it got a little better. But you still had these tricky, ledgy descents that a lot of racers walked, followed by sand pits, followed by steep ledgy climbs that a lot of racers walked. I did fine on the descents, and had planned to pass skinny guys carrying there bikes and make up some time. I'm no downhiller, but I can go down the rough stuff better than some of the cardio crowd. Once you hit about the 5 mile mark, the course turns into more of a road. There is an awesome, steep descent with berms you can get completely horizontal on. All the sand sluffs into the bottom, so it behooves you to carry speed into the corners and get as high on the berm as you can. This is followed by a brutal climb up a sandy hill. I would go on to walk this climb every single time.

The second half of the course is where you have to be able to spin big gears. At mile 7 you cruise on mostly roads. This takes you out and around this big rock formation. One ledgy descent and then you start the final major climb. Not granny gear steep, but long enough to have you looking pretty anxiously for the top. Crest the top and start the last three miles of the course. These are 30+ mph hardpack roads. (If you've got 30+ mph in your legs.) But you have to be careful, because when your going that fast, a deep pile of sand can send you ass over teakettle in a hurry.

Also on this final descent you start to catch glimpses of the tent city at the start/finish line. It's a pretty welcome sight day or night.

We finished the lap at dusk, and headed into town for dinner. Not sure if it was the lobster enchilada at La Hacienda, pre-race jitters, or the cacophony of generators,bagpipes, and keggers, but I wasn't able to log much sleep friday night. This would later come back to haunt me.

Parrish who had joined the team after Rone dropped out, was going to head down Friday as soon as he and Riley could get away from the shop. Surprisingly, when there is a Wednesday night group ride that no one in the shop goes to, they are able to completely vacate the shop at 4pm. But for an internationally known event three hours away that they have known about since April, they couldn't get away from the shop until after 9pm, and so, decided to leave early Saturday morning and get there before the race started. They decided to leave early, and then left at about 9:30 am. So, interestingly, when the start cannon sounded at noon Saturday, our five man team only had three members.

So here's where we talk about the start. A "Le Mans" style start. I don't know who Le Mans is, but I'd like to kick him in the "Le Balls" because I got conned into doing the first lap. Riders line up, in a crowd of 400+, by rows of bike racks where you've strategically staged your bike before the start. There were a lot of strange costumes, and pre-race rituals going on. I had my phone with me and snapped this picture of the guy in front of me. I don't know if he got carried away with the Chamois Butter, or what, but everbody behind him was quietly elbowing everybody else as white foam slowly oozed out of the back of his shorts and eventually began dripping on the ground. Who am I to judge? Turns out he is Ben Koenig. He took third in the Men's Solo Championship. Yeah, he rode 15 laps by himself with a total ride time of 12:45 minutes. I'll have to get me some of whatever that stuff is.

Cannon sounds, and everybody runs, 300 yards across the desert, around the designated tree, then back to the bikes. Grab your bike, jump on and go. Wes snapped this picture of the start. I'm in there somewhere choking on dust and trying not to get knocked down and trampled. Luckily, I've been in enough mosh pits to be able to stay standing in a violent, hostile crowd.

After the run, you ride a slightly modified first section of the course. Staying on the road and bypassing and single track from the start line to the jeep trail. The idea is to let the crowd funnel into a line. It almost works, but that nasty first two miles I told you about was like the return line at Wal-Mart on Dec 26. The tricky parts become hike-a-bikes because, if one person puts a foot down, everybody has to put a foot down. I managed to stay pretty mid-pack in the first few miles. Sure enough, I passed a lot of people on the rocky downhills. Unfortunately, most of them caught me again on the climbs and giggled as they rode past. I made the first lap in
1:32. Better than I expected, but not incredible.
Here is an impressive shot of my gut as I came into the start/finish.
Handoff the baton to Ryan and head back to camp. This is where I should have taken a nap, but didn't.
He turned in a slightly faster time, followed by Wes with a similar time, and when Riley was out, Wes pulled up the results on his blackberry. We were in 10th place.

I hadn't really hoped to do anything but keep from embarassing myself and my teammates, but it was looking like we were going to have a top ten finish in a field of 26.(5 person mens category).

So now it was serious. Riley and Parrish turned in good times and we moved as high as seventh place at one point. Parrish being the bottom of the batting order, finished his first lap in the dark and it was my turn for the first full night lap. Staying true to club tradition, I had laced glowsticks into my spokes which create a wheel of light when they spin. I actually was asked where I had bought my wheels. I think they were confused when I said, Macy's Sack and Save. There two for seven bucks.

And so began my toughest lap. With delusions of a high ranking finish in my head. I rode sloppy and aggressive. Bobbling on the climbs a lot, and having to put a foot down on stuff that I should have been able to ride. One crash caught me hard in the bad place, and I ended up with a constant urge to urinate for the rest of the lap(and most of the rest of the race). I actually stopped four times to take care of it with a disappointing result. In the dark though, you caught these surreal images of lights in the distance. The most incredible was from the top of that bermy downhill. A line of bobbing lights weaving it's way down one side and up the other. With others in the distance showing you both where you had been, and where you were going. For the first time you actually felt like part of a huge population of similarly minded individuals instead of one maggot squirming past another alone on a hillside. Sprititual enlightenment notwithstanding, I was still hurting.

The lights on my handlebars created some kind of interference with my wireless cyclocomputer causing the display to scramble so I had no idea what kind of time I was making. When I finally made it to the last technical downhill, I was trying to make up some time, and when I took the line I had chosen the day before, the rock I had been using to roll off the ledge and into the sand had moved out a couple feet. Creating a hole, followed by a rock. I manage a decent nose wheelie for about two milliseconds, and then piled over the bars and into the rocks and sand. adrenaline and gymnastic ability rolled me back up to my feet, and when the guy behind me asked if I was allright, I barked back "YES!" and jumped back on my bike. Actually I was crying on the inside. My whole left side was in agony. He wasn't so sure I was fine, and stayed with me until the road smoothed out and then blew past me and disappeared into the night. Shouting back "Nice Wheels!". I finally rolled back in to a 1:48 time.

I had decided that instead of sleeping between Riley and Parrish's cots in the tent, I would stretch out in my recliner style camp chair. I grabbed my sleeping bag and cinched the mummy hood down over my eyes. Tuned into a little Don Williams on the headphones and managed about two hours of sleep. Our night strategy was to have the incoming rider wake-up the on deck rider when he got back to camp. This worked out pretty good and we didn't miss any hand-offs in the night.

My next lap would begin around 4:30 am. Parrish had turned in a killer lap and he rolled in much earlier than I was expecting. To answer your question, yes, it does piss me off that a guy who rides a bike like three times a year, and shows up to the race late, not only turns in the fastest time of anyone else on the team overall, but only lost twelve minutes on his night lap.

At this point, I was feeling feeble. I resolved to just go as hard as I thought I could maintain for the whole lap. That wasn't very fast. I tumbled into the sand about a half mile in and when I picked up my bike, I realized I had forgotten to grab a water bottle. I had a semi-liquid food packet(Enervitene) in my pocket, and planned to drink it at the halfway point. With the cold temps water wasn't too huge of a priority so maybe I would be fine. By the four mile mark I was parched. Probably due to the fact that I knew I couldn't drink but still. I was diing. On the next rocky section I picked up one of the dozens of bottles that had been bounced out of other riders bottle cages and drank long and deep. Jammed the rest into my cage and moved on. I rode conservatively and relaxed. I thought for sure I was going to be turning in a two and a half hour lap, but actually managed a 1:54. I rolled in just as the horizon was turning purple. When I caught my breath I did the math and realized I was done. Unless Ryan, Wes, Riley, and Parrish all turned in times just over an hour(which was not possible, even for Parrish) I would be done. I have never been so relieved in my life. I bought a huge breakfast burrito and piled on the jalapenos and hot sauce. I took a shower, and got dressed. And waited for noon.

In the end, we came in a respectable 9th of 26 teams in our category. And 142 out of 400-some-odd teams overall.
The sick thing is, since I woke up this morning,I've been thinking, "I think next year I'll......"

Strawberry Is My New Favorite Flavor

Joshua — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 02:11:00 +0000

Dear Penthouse, I never thought it would happen to me. Ooops. I mean,....

What a spectacular ride. As I continue through this post, I will try not to repeat the adjectives used to describe the Strawberry Narrows Trail.

First off, the drive kind of sucks. I think it was something like 60 miles on the road to get there. But that is the only thing that sucked.

The UMB Trail Guide was spot on. Drive all the way around Strawberry, and turn right. Drive till you cross the dam and your there. In fact, when we pulled into the Marina, a guy walked over and advised us to pull up the road and park in the day use area to save the fee. Apparently there has been a steady stream of dirtheads out there since Bruce first posted the trail report. We followed his advice which skips a minor amount of single track before you get on a doubletrack for a half-mile before the trail begins in earnest.

Note: In the future, I'm going to just drive to the end of the double track and park there. Nothing interesting about a half mile of dirt road.

Here's where we parked. At the beginning of the dirt road.

Once you get on the singletrack, the fun begins. The eastern eight miles of this trail are pristine. Here come the adjectives, buff, fast, loamy, smooth, interesting, challenging, rolly, flowy, perfect......okay, I'm out. Oh wait,....sick, yes this trail is sick....in a good way.
You skirt the southern shore of Strawberry reservoir. You average a pretty consistent elevation, but you are constantly rolling up, and down. There are a few steep sections, but they aren't very long and you are immediately rewarded afterward by quick little descents. There are just enough rocks to pop off of and get your wheels in the air. None of it is super technical, but I guarantee you will not be bored.
You find all these little inlets, and, being Labor Day weekend, there were boats camping in them. We got a few strange looks, especially from the people who were just waking up and watching us lift our bikes over the ropes they had staked onto the trail to anchor the boat for the night.

The total trail distance is twelve miles, but Captain Argyle suggests only riding to the eight mile mark. At this marker (Renegade Point) the trail heads through bare, sagebrush and flattens out.

This is Renegade Point. Sorry for the crappy photo.After we headed out into the sagebrush we decided Bruce was right.
Now, not being a fan of out and backs in general, I was a little skeptical. However, this trail is a blast to ride either direction. Gun to my head, I would have to say I prefer west to east, but they are both fun and It doesn't seem like your covering the same ground twice. The flow of the trail is so good, it begs to be hammered. I was winded and dripping with sweat, and I still felt compelled to grab taller gears and spin faster. That is an awesome way to ride a trail.
Okay, truth be told, Riley was doing his ride your ass until you go faster technique. What I mean is, I was being pushed. That's okay, it was a hoot.
Another bonus is the multiple photo-ops.

Ask yourself,....what could possibly draw the attention of Riley,Josh, and Pizza Bill over this ledge, while keeping Sally far enough back to take this picture?

Answer: Jake making us all glad I take blurry pictures. And Retro Bill glad that he was miles ahead of us all. Despite being traumatized for life. We all made it back to the truck. Just before we got there we passed the only other bikers we saw the whole time. Two women who were grinning as much as we were.

Then the debate began. Should we go check out some of the other trails in the area? I abstained from the vote which gave me plausible deniability if nobody else was feeling like it(I was exhausted). Retro Bill was strongly in favor of more riding. Sally also abstained from the vote, and Pizza Bill's Mom said he had to get back.

Then stupid Riley said, "Yeah, let's go for it."

We loaded back up, minus Pizza Bill and drove over to the Willow Creek Trail head on the North side of the reservoir.

There we found a new friend. Chalk another one up in the creepy crawlers found while riding column.We unloaded for what was supposed to be a five mile or so loop on single track. The first half of which was uphill. And sandy. And overgrown. And rough. I had my pouty face on. Retro Bill however was giddy. And way out in front. I was the only one who was whining though and we continued around for what ended up being only a 3.8 mile loop. The second half of which was smoother, buffer, downhill, and had about a half dozen stream crossings. I was like a little kid who didn't want to admit that it was fun because I was still pouting. But it was fun. Even though we ended up covered in mud, and now I have to scrub my bike again.

All in all, this was easily in my top three best rides this year. I will definitely be going back. And everybody should check the Narrows trail out. It's that good.

Benny With The Bills

Joshua — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:02:00 +0000

I wouldn't normally try to get down to Payson Canyon on a Wednesday night for the group ride. It's a lot of driving, and with the daylight hours being shorter and shorter lately, your ride time is kind of limited down there. But I got an email from Jeremy Jarneke who is a good friend of the club/shop who moved to Arizona awhile ago and was going to be in town this week. He and his wife Pam wanted to ride Benny Creek with us. The short version is that he wrenched his back and they ended up not coming.

However, nine other people did show up, including two different Bills. Pizza Bill, and Retro Bill.We got a late start trying to figure out where Pam and Jeremy were, so we rode an abbreviated version of the Blackhawk to Benny Creek shuttle. We drove past Blackhawk Campground and started where the trail crosses the road to the west. We lost a couple of miles of a stout climb, but we made it out before it got dark.

Even though it's only September 2, there is already a slight tinge of fall in the air. Coming into the aspens above Jones ranch. The quakies are already losing some of their leaves. Not much color yet, but you can tell it's coming. I love mountain biking in the fall.We were plagued by a few mechanicals. Nate was "just riding along" when he completely tore his derailleur off. On an uphill. Crossing a road. What the what? Good thing we had professional bike mechanic with us. Also a good thing that Nate was carrying a spare derailleur hanger in his pack. I know, huh? Strange that he's that prepared for a mechanical, but hasn't lubed his chain since June.Just after we got him rolling, and started the downhill in earnest, I took an ill-advised line through a ditch, and tore a gaping hole in the sidewall of my tire. I had a tube, but the hole in the tire was so big I had to boot it with a $10 bill. Some people might have used a $1 dollar bill, but I've always been willing to pay more for quality. That's just me.

I hadn't been to Payson Canyon since the 4th of July. There was a slight difference in the area, that you might be able to pick out from these two pictures taken of the same place. Study them closely.

Here is the picture from two months ago.............

And here is the picture from last night........... Did you catch that? It's pretty obvious isn't it? Yes, Parrish was in the photo in July. The difference being that he said he was going on both rides, but he actually showed up way back then.

I guess the scenery is a little different too. Last time, the flowers and grass were shoulder high in some places, by now, they've all dried up, and been tromped down by the cattle. To everything, there is a season I suppose. Turn, turn, turn.

Yabba-Dabba-Doo

Joshua — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:04:00 +0000

One of the best parts about this group is the ability to call an audible when necessary. Thanks to those who supported my lifestyle decision to ride on Tuesday this week. Even more thanks to those who braved the lousy traffic to head out to Eagle Mountain to ride. Especially Spencer's dear mother who carts him all over to make it to these rides. Thanks Mom!

We started at the Bike Park, but instead of the long climb up to the back of Hidden Valley, we took a vote, and decided to shortcut over the ridge and ride down Flintstone. If you haven't ridden it, it's a technical, downhill trail with several wooden features. A couple of ladder bridges, with little drops at the end. A skinny that always will terrify me, and at the end some rocky gap jumps. Luckily,.....er, umm, unfortunately, my camera has not been replaced yet so I didn't get any shots of me sending it off any of the sweet jumps.

Okay, truth be told my mangina was all inflamed since this was the first time I've been back to Eagle Mountain since,.....the incident.

I couldn't even talk myself into the little gap jumps at the bottom. It didn't help matters, that one of the locals and his kids rolled over and nailed both gaps right after I rode around them. Tyler Jolley managed to save our pride as a group by nailing them. And he brought two new guys Clay and Mark. Nick also brought an investigator/prospective convert. But I can't for the life of me come up with his name. Red hair though and quiet.

Once we made it back to the park, we were going to go up to the top and ride the Juniper trail down. On our way over, Spencer spotted something on the trail.......

Say hello, to my little friend.

I will hug him, and kiss him, and name him George. Much like my wife, he kind of lashes out and tries to attack me when I try to pet him. But maybe with time, he will grow to love me. My kids headed out with flashlights to find grasshoppers to feed him and we're hoping the screen on the top of an old aquarium is secure. But just to be safe, he's sleeping out in the shop behind the house until we figure out a proper home for him.

Cool huh?

Also, thank you to My son Owen for letting me borrow his camera when I got home to photograph the spider.

Psycho-Cross

Joshua — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:02:00 +0000

I had a hankering to ride the cross bike I bought this week, so I loaded it up for the Wednesday group ride up Hog's Hollow.
No, I have never ridden a cross bike on anything other than a cross race. Thank you for asking. Also, I have been riding a five inch travel bike all summer, with a Camelbak, and 2.4" tires. And baggy shorts, and hairy legs. Okay, I still have hairy legs, but I did get all decked out in spandex for the occasion. Mostly out of fear that I would have to dismount suddenly, and I didn't want to catch my baggies on the seat and die.
From the end of Hog Hollow Road, we set out. Nate, Sally, Retro Bill, and Riley. Oh, did I mention that I talked Riley into riding his cross bike too? More on that later.
The first few hundred yards were a little disconcerting. Much rougher than a five-inch full-suspension bike in case your wondering. But I settled in and grabbed the low gears to climb Hog's. No granny gear on this bike, but I do have a compact crankset(36T). How'd it climb.
Here is a photo of me at the top of Hog's..............It was frickin' awesome. The taller gears forced me to go faster to keep up my momentum, and the rigid frame was efficient as hell so it all went to the wheels. It just felt.....fast. This is the best I have felt for weeks on a bike. Maybe it's just because I was on a new bike, or maybe it's because that bike is seven pounds lighter than the one I've been riding, or maybe it's because I was in spandex(Crossdressing?), or maybe it's because I finally got to the top of a hill in the front of the pack for once. Either way, it's a blast to climb dirt on. Interestingly, the skinny little tires grab like crazy on off camber stuff. Much better than any fatties I've ever ridden. I found myself looking for sketchy ruts to try it on.
In fact, it climbed so well, I just kept going up to the top of Jacob's Ladder. Looking back, that wasn't a very wise choice. Because by going up Jacob's I would most likely have to come down Jacob's.
Riley's climb was not so glorious. You see, he caught a really bad case of IBoughtASingleSpeedCrossBikeItis from Ryan, which in and of itself isn't so bad. But, he is so burly, that when he puts a lot of torque on that single gear, the rear of his bike flexes, and the chain comes off. Not a convenient thing to have happen. He is currently re-thinking his life choices. So he turned around and went back the way we came. He does win coolest bar-tape award though. Twenty year old green and purple Vetta tape. It's the dope show.
And Sally had taken a different route so she wouldn't have to see me in Spandex anymore.
I figured, "how bad could it be?". It was pretty bad. 35mm tires at 90 or so psi aren't meant to take rocky ledge drops. Oh, but at least there are cantilever brakes being operated by road bike levers. Upper Jacob's Ladder was pretty damn scary. But, I made it, without putting a foot down. Okay, I made it with only one over-the-bars tumble. But it was into soft sand, so not a biggy.
Lower Jacob's was better, though the tight switchbacks were a little tough with those big ol' 700c wheels(read 29er). And I did discover another thing about the larger diameter wheels. At least with narrow drop bars, if you hit anything sideways, you are on the losing end of the leverage battle. Throwing you either off your bike, or down an unplanned line. So the rest of the downhill was an exercise in line-picking.
Ghost Falls was nice, again with the stupid switchbacks though. And with the weak brakes, I was a little timid about how fast I dared go. But I made it to Not Brock's and climbed up. I even made up the time I lost on the downhill to Bill and Nate.
Eventually, I picked my way back down Hog's. Which was also interesting, but with the road being so wide, it was a little easier to pick a cleaner line. I didn't win any downhill races, but I made it.
All in all, it was a hoot. I don't think I'll be taking it down Tibble or Mud Springs anytime soon, but you just might see it on some of the smoother rides.

This Used To Be Easier

Joshua — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 21:43:00 +0000

Back in 1995 I purchased a 20"(read: too large for me) Giant ATX 870. Fully rigid, aluminum frame. 21 speed STX drivetrain and brakes. Clips and straps on the pedals. I picked a lycra seat cover that came free with my purchase at Gorilla Bikes in Orem. Then I bolted on some HUGE ski-bend wrist-breaker bar ends. I was set. As I looked for places to ride my new, and first real mountain bike, I found a book titled Mountain Biking Utah's Wasatch and Uinta Mountains by Gregg Bromka. He described many routes through AF Canyon and I zeroed in on anything that was an out-and-back or a loop. Because I had even less riding buddies than I had trail knowledge. And loops meant I didn't have to have another vehicle to shuttle.

One such trail was the Forest Lake loop, way up above Tibble Fork Reservoir starting from Dutchman's Flat. You bounce up the road to Mineral Basin which is an adventure in and of itself. The road is very rough and has about a one mile section which is bench cut on a steep slope, and only one vehicle wide. Meaning that passing on it usually requires someone to back up until they can get over. At the time I drove a '85 Bronco and I'd throw my big purple (Clinton was president it was a crazy time)monster size bike in the back so I didn't have to worry about it bouncing off the roof rack on the way up. And I would drive up this road fast enough that I usually skipped the back end around the corners. I could get up there in 30 minutes from the mouth of the canyon. I used to ride the nine-mile loop in about 45 minutes.

You climb the road from Dutchman's up to Pole Line Pass where you intersect Ridge Trail. From there you ride over in the direction of Mill Canyon, but before you get there, you fork right and drop down to Forest Lake via a steep, technical trail that spits you out right on the shore of Forest Lake which is really more of a salamander pond than a lake. Then skirt around the north end of the lake and down the gnarly jeep road back to Dutchman's. The road is not horribly steep, but it is rough and rocky. You might not make it down without crashing. Think Amasa Back with more loose rocks. Cross the river at the bottom and your back at the beginning.

As my bikes got more expensive, and my knowledge of other trails grew, that drive became more of a hassle than it was worth . And consequently I hadn't been up there in many years.

So today I ventured forth again to see how it compared with my memories. Without a computer I would estimate the climb on the road to be about 4 miles. Hairpin County and Switchback city. You just settle in and climb. You are constantly buffeted by dust and exhaust by ATV's blasting up and down the road. In fact last time I rode it, I was struck from behind and knocked off my bike by a four-wheeler.

But somehow, with a much fancier bike and 14 more years of experience the climb got harder. Maybe it has something to do with the giant gut that I'm packing now. We took several rests on the climb and I could have used a couple more.

Here Chad discovers why this section of Ridge Trail is called Sandy Baker Pass. Because it's sandy. Once you top out of Sandy Baker, you level off and if you look back you can see the top of the tram at Snowbird. You can't see it here, but you can also see the tunnel they just cut through the mountain.You rise and fall several times, and after coming out of the trees, you can see Forest Lake down below. The problem with Jeep roads,.....are all the damn Jeeps(or Ford Explorers). Once again Sally earns points in this season's "Most Improved" category. She blasted into the water and cleaned the crossing first try. Then I put my camera away and promptly put a foot down right in the middle. That's her, relatively dry on the other side.The singletrack was actually in great shape. And the roads were just as I remembered them only longer and steeper. It's a fun ride to do once a year or so.

Sorry to Chad who caught a case of the angry wife from me, by being home later than planned on his anniversary. Good Luck Buddy.

R.A.T. Ride(a.k.a. The Rat Bastard)

Joshua — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 13:00:00 +0000

R.A.T= Ride Around Timpanogos.

Joined Kerry Smith and the U.R.M.B.(Utah Rocky Mountain Bikers) for their annual-ish attack on the Timpanogos Perimeter trail. Why would you do this?

Here's why. Okay, I stole the Auto-Stitch idea from Oilcan, I admit it.

Initially, I understood the info I got from Kerry to mean we were meeting at Timp Park at 6 am. No big deal I get up at 5 am most mornings. When I got home from Pioneer Day celebrations the night before, I was checking emails before I went to bed, and realized he wanted to be riding by 6 am, and wanted to meet at 5 am. It was midnight at this point. Luckily, I was unable to sleep for the next four hours which made things interesting. For the record, my rides aren't the only ones with "flexible" start times, Kerry arrived just before 5:30 am. Not to be bothered by such things as accuracy, the ride length was also a little "flexible" and this 30 mile ride worked out to just about 22.5 or so. Not that I was begging for more by the end.

I was a little worried when Nathan showed up, and he a Kerry busted out the cone wrenches and started working on Nathan's hubs. They ended up giving up on the front hub and Kerry loaned him a front wheel. This ended up being the only mechanical we had the whole day, and it was before we even turned a crank.

We piled into my truck and hauled up to the summit parking lot on the Alpine Loop. From here we rode Ridge Trail to Upper Pine Hollow. Ho-Hum, nothing new there. But the rain the night before had made the trail tacky and the flora soaking wet. We ran into TallSteve coming up Pine Hollow and convinced him to join us.

Soon we were grinding up Timpanooeke Road. So far I had ridden trails I knew and a road. Not the most epic thing I had done in awhile.I was hoping things would improve.

And improve they did, we opted out of the run up to Julie Andrews meadow and stayed on the road until Rock Canyon. This skirts the road just below the rock slide.

A nice trail and probably fun to ride if it's clear. Ends up that's a big IF. There are several places with gi-gumbous deadfalls blocking the trail. Kerry took some photo's to forward the forest service and I 'm hoping they get right on that. After making it back up to the road we began the climb over to the west slope. It's a steep technical climb. I think I walked at least a quarter of it. Not miserable, just tough. When I came over the top though I was floored. Wait, let me give you the Auto-Stitch version.

This is the back side of Mount Mahogany. You can drive here, there's a road through the bottom, but I'm betting most people don't. It was stunning.

From here you begin the first big descent. The freakishly wet spring has left the trail wildly overgrown. You can only just vaguely pick the trail out of the vegetation. And with the rain, you get soaked through before too long. By the end of this descent, I couldn't have gotten any wetter if I had jumped in a pool. But the wildflowers were like something out of Wizard of Oz. Not just the scale but the colors. It's not so bad getting your legs whipped into a blazing rash, when it's by lupines, and coneflowers. You'd have thought we were a bunch of florists riding through this place. Stopping to take pictures just so people would believe us. Nathan took a good digger because of the obscured trail, but it was all good because he crashed while laughing at Kerry's trip over the bars. Eventually we came around to the multiple intersections of the trails that run down onto the benches.

Here's the top of the Grove Creek Trail. It's tough to take it all in while you ride. The Lake and Utah Valley stretch out on your right, but if you focus on that, you miss what's behind you. Now from here things got interesting. The flowers started to thin out, and the trail got harder and harder to follow. And by harder to follow I mean, "Where the hell is the trail?"But, when you've been doing the "Pardon me,....Excuse Me." On Ridge trail for a month, it's wild to ride something so close, that obviously hasn't had any traffic yet this year.

Some bushwacking, some hike-a-bike, and you enter Floating Grass Meadow.

After the meadow, you can see the saddle between Mount Baldy and Timp. It looked like a long way. And it was.

You wind in and out of the individual little canyons. I think Nathan is crossing Battle Creek here.Then it points up. Holy hell, it points up. So much so, that I only took one more picture the rest of the day.This was about halfway up the switchbacks to the Baldy saddle. Pushing my bike, water squishing out of the top of my shoes with each step. Watching TallSteve scamper up the hill despite supposedly being in "recovery" from the Swine Flu. The brutality of this climb has got to be against the Geneva Convention. I kept looking up and realizing I wasn't getting any closer to the saddle. Eventually we did make it. And took a lunch break.

Thinking the hard part was over, we pointed our bikes down and headed for Provo Canyon. The trail was still covered with grass but now it was also steep and technical leading to sudden, violent trips over the bars for most of those involved.

Things started to open up a little at the top of Dry Canyon. And we picked up speed, all the way over to the Altar at the top of the Timp Foothill Trail network. The sun finally came out, and the climate went from a humid, steamy, rain forest. To an arid, oven-like, desert. Luckily, we were at the last leg of the journey. We picked our way down Betty, to the Race Course and finally back to the cars.

All in all, this was the toughest ride I've done this year.

I would have to say it's like a colonoscopy. There are a lot of unpleasant parts, but you really should do it once in awhile. And you usually end up with some pretty good stories.

Lions, And Tigers, And Bears,…Oh My

Joshua — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:03:00 +0000

Slight logistical error on my part. When I said to meet at the shop for last night's ride, I failed to realize that Main Street was closed for the Classic Car Cruise. Hopefully no one gave up because of that.So although nobody showed at the shop, we met at Timpanooeke Campground and there were seven of us. Me, three shop guys, and three civilians,...Tyler, His girlfriend, and Mark. When we got to the first intersection Ryan and Mark bailed because Ryan had a curphew. They took off at the Salamander Flat turnoff and then there were five. I soon found out that Kyle and Brady, are like a couple of Girl Scouts in the woods. They are petrified of lions, and tigers, and bears. As we made our way up to the Ridge Trail, this became apparent and so once I had a chance to get up ahead of them. I turned off all my lights and hid in the bushes. I did my best Grizzly Bear impression and they both screamed like little girls. I think Brady peed a little.
When we finally made it to Ridge Trail. Two things happened. Tyler and his girlfriend turned around(I think they said something about going to watch some submarine races), and we met up with Curtis and his friend Whatshisname(I think it's indian or something). After chatting a bit, Curtis and Whatshisname joined us for the rest of the ride. Curtis was battling some intestinal distress and kept threatening to puke, but never sealed the deal. Once over the top, I failed to warn them that South Fork has several sharp switchbacks. This oversight manifest itself when Whatshisname overshot one and piled up in the corner. I left Brady and Kyle, and went to offer assistance. No harm, no foul, and just as we were getting ready to saddle up and head back down to Kyle and Brady, we heard girl screams and there were bouncing lights charging up the trail to us. Apparently, the two of them had heard something in the bushes. And they swear they saw eyes. From here out I was elected lead rider. Secretly in the back of my mind I was flashing back to another night ride in this area.
We bottomed out at Cascade Road and ground out the climb back to the summit. It was surprisingly hot for a night ride and I was sweating like a pig by this time.
We began the last descent back to Timpanooeke and hadn't gone 300 yards when I heard a ruckus and looked back at a pile of lights and dust. Brady had apparently out run his lights and went down. Everybody was concerned for his well being.
I was just happy that the crash-mojo had finally moved on to somebody else.