Watched sun rise over mtns out @ road 18. Plan is to ride these trails & then move into town to see about the festival.
Camp spots were plugged but hardly a rider was stirring when I left on my ride just after 9:00. Looking forward to my improved suspension. And it is great, Thanks PUSH!
Can’t fix what i just did w/ fonts.
I rode stuff that I was unable or willing to in past rides. Do Zippty Doo Dah steep knife edge downhills. Courage. Really enjoyable ride. Hard, hot, & sunny. Like 3 hours & about 18 miles & 1850′ @ 4600′ elevation.
Drove back into town. The road is just stutter bumper & shakes the van so badly, like I said: 1 round trip.
Into town.
Health club is offering showers for $5.00, not $10 i paid one time b4. Showered, washed off sun screen & dust. Met Chris in locker room whom is here for festival.
Stopped & visited w/Chris @ Single tracks, gave him last Snake Creek time trila poster. He said somebody years ago gave him 1.
Walked thru exhibitor area to old log house that I thought was were the registration was to be. Met pretty woman @ receptionist desk. She slyly smiled and asked me how I got the mardis gra(sp) beads like she knew about beads. Had a great conversation w/ her, she said she was looking forward to telling her husband about it.
Drove over to mexican restaurant for Thurs party for beer & food and visiting. New Belgian brewery beer. Visited w/ Chris: ski instructor @ Aspen. Saw a guy standing nearby that looked familiar but memory recall failed. I said hello to him and he remembered me and I remembered that he is B. Rose from Shokdoctor in Minneapolis who helped solve a front end problem. He is a regular here apparently.
Parked across several parking lots for night. Viet Nam memorial had a wall of names & a Huey helicopter poised overhead.
Quiet night. Drove back into Fruita to festival to a flurry of activity of vendors setting up. And there was a Turner booth staffed by lots of DW link bikes & Moe, the Turner demo guy. He offered me a Spot DW for afternoon. I turned him down, more later.
I looked for ride sign up sheets to se what exciting ride I could go on. No offerings. Temp is climbing and I wanted to get my ride in b4 it got to hot so I went on my on and drove out to ride the Colorado river trails. Riders were camped right before Trail Head (TH) ( Betty). A few rigs in parking lot. Overcast & comfortable. Forecast is for high winds maybe 40mph and I didn’t want to be riding up on exposed ridges being buffeted by gusts. Climbed rock ledges @ early Mary’s Loop. Rode Horsethief loop. Chatted w/ a couple from Prince Edwards Island enjoying their 2nd ride of the season. Moved on to Lion’s loop for more exciting technical stuff and I made almost all of it. Great suspension and skills learned from all previous rides. I rode several 2′ drop overs where just letting the front wheel roll ove and the fork compresses to keep the bike from endoing. Great!
Lots of riders out but trails never got too crowded sort of. I sat down on a trail side rock for a snack & 4 riders went by that I joked w/ as they climbed hill. Continued around Lion’s to jeep road uphill to Mack’s ridge. By now I am running bonky low. I pushed a few steep places. Strong head winds as I climbed. I met 4 guys coming down who had just ridden up Mack’s and when learned that the downhill was a jeep road they turned around to ride down what they rode up. Rode out onto mesa edge on Mack’s to full brunt of wind. I drifted off the trail in sand and had a tough time correcting back onto trail because of wind. Trail is quite technical. The wind in exposed places was really buffeting me. I stopped 2 times to walk because of the wind and the fear that it was going to blow me off a move and crash in the jagged rocks. Did some good riding for me on downhill. The 4 guys and I talked @ the lower TH and they recognized me from the picture on my van.
I hung on and slowly pedaled back along Mary’ & last big road climb out. I made it back w/o collapsing: 30 miles, 3 1/2 hours, 3650′ climbed.
On the way back I ran into quite a few riders heading out. Trail ettiquette is out the window. Rules say yield to uphill rider: Not. The thing w/ bikes is they can go up as well as down. Skiing everybody is going downhill. Not too keen on festivals. Have the socks, time to move on.
Back @ TH there are 3 VW campers in a row behind my van. It turns out these are guys I passed earlier @ snack break. They finsished way earlier than me and were enjoying beer rewards and team green. They wanted to see my van so i swapped for a buzz.
Drove back into town for a shower & visit expo. Great to wash off sweat & sunscreen.
Spoke w/ Moe @ Turner. I told him that I am impressed w/ the DW link and want one but to ride one would be putting me 1 step closer to buying one and @ this point it would be $ follish. So there, all you doubters who say i can’t curb my bike spending!
Bought a Fat Tire beer and sat @ a table sipping it just beat. There were 2 labs laying on the ground nearby that were on a stay & didn’t move even w/ other dogs around. I finished my beer and went over and petted them. Minutes later the owner, Gary, showed up. He said pet away. I enjoyed it & so did dogs. I stood up to go and my left leg cramped where it never cramped before and I didn’t know how to strech it out. I was standing among many people walking around but nobody came to my rescue. A woman working a barbeque stand a few feet away came to my rescue and asked of my well being She offered & I accepted her electrolite replacement to long term relive cramp. She said that she & her husband work the stand in hot weather w/ wood fired stove & sweat so badly, hence the cramp reliever.
The dog owner, Gary, returned & we chatted. I learned that he is a retired firefighter who moved to Bend, OR and has a toy hauler trailer that he takes on the road for 3 month stints. He passed me today on Lion’s loop but took a different route back. I shared ride ideas w/ him. He, too, agrees that traveling by himself is more rewarding.
Don’t care for festival environment.
Parked behind grocery store for dinner & internet.
Forecast tomorrow is for possible T-storms. One of the VW guys, Danny the window guy from Sedona, AZ, said that if it rains here or is strong possibility he will head to Moab. I might do same. Fruita has 2 areas to ride & I rode them both. Not eager to ride either a second time.
Plan is to spend a few days @ Moab and then make a clockwise circle into N New Mexico stayin in upper 1/3 of state.
Bought a pint of Haagen DAzz ice cream.
I am hammered.