Tag: moab

The closest thing we had to a rest day, the morning was spent lurking about in the rain, then doing unexciting things like laundry, having showers and buying some groceries. Followed by a good nap.

Eventually Brendan got sick of all this sitting around and declared he was going on a ride anyway. Somehow I ended up being the one who went along with him, and we set out into the rain at Klondike Bluffs with the goal of riding Baby Steps.

Things started off well enough, and if only we’d known which trails are good to ride in the wet they may have ended well too. As it was, we accidentally ended up in a clay-muddy quagmire, with bike tyres that would not turn. Thankfully there weren’t kilometres of that sort of nonsense, and after a few hundred metres we escaped onto rock and made our way back to the car. By which time it had stopped raining anyway. After shaking our fists at the heavens for a while, we sighed and went and cleaned our bikes.

On the plus side, Brendan made a tasty and plentiful carbonara for dinner, and the rain didn’t come back. And Jackie arrived!

Distance biked: 14.6 km
Elevation gain: 242 m

This was a fairly quiet an uneventful day. The single trail at Dead Horse Point State Park was very, very, very family friendly. At least the views were great, looking out over the Canyonlands.

There were no dead horses while we were there, or cars flying off the precipitous cliffs, although apparently this area was used for the final scene in Thelma & Louise.

After a wander about, and lunch on top of a rock, Moosling and I dropped the guys off at the trailhead for Magnificent 7 (or at least, part of Magnificent 7). My bike was dropped off for a service in town, we splashed out and had showers AGAIN, and then the Moosling got to play in the park before we headed back to camp.

The wind had picked up, filling our tents, mouths, hair, food and eyes with fine red desert sand. So there was a downside to camping in the desert this time of year. I decided to escape the wind by going for a run in it. Not a very cunning plan, but at least I got to explore the Slickrock trail a little.

Distance biked: 13.1 km
Elevation gain: 124 m

The Moosling and I spent a morning around camp – mostly climbing the mountain and going exploring – while Alex and Greban went riding on the Slickrock trail.

Later in the morning our messiah (aka Jeremy) turned up, and Alex & Finn performed shuttle duties, dropping us off at the top of the UPS trail (no higher, thanks to muddy trails) to start Porcupine Rim. Porcupine Rim is one of the ‘must-do’ trails of Moab, and though it largely consists of double track, it certainly has spectacular views. Most people do it as 23km of mostly downhill (although it’s far from easy, effortless downhill), and a few mad folk do it as a 50km loop. I have a suspicion that Alex and I would fall into the latter category were it not for the limiting factors of offspring and riding with more mentally stable companions.

After an initial uphill slog, we started winding our way downhill on pleasant single track through the trees.

The trail kept sneaking up to Porcupine Rim, with outstanding views of Castle Valley, so there were quite a few photo stops.

I was nursing my bike a little, as I’d realised that not only were my front shock seals gone, but my front and rear brake pads were both close to worn through as well. Nonetheless I mostly managed to hang onto Jeremy and Brendan’s tail as we flew downhill, and it was a good crash course (thankfully with no crashing) in remembering how to descend on dirt.

The last section of single trail by the Colorado River gets a little more interesting and exposed, but in a thought-provoking rather than mind-numbingly terrifying sort of way (despite Brendan’s attempts beforehand to ensure I was well and truly worried about falling to my doom on this part of the trail). By the time we descended to river-level and the car, I was just ready for the trail to keep going and going, and was more than a little disappointed that it had ended.

We did treat ourselves with showers in town though (Sand Flats has no running water), and then we even bought dinner instead of cooking back at camp. Luxury.

Distance biked: 27.5 km
Elevation gain: 176 m

The first day we arrived in Moab, overnight temperatures were forecast to reach a low of minus 5oC or something silly like that. For some entirely unrelated reason we decided not to camp on the first night, and instead spent the evening huddling in a cabin in Moab itself. Well actually, I went out for a run, exploring some of the local single track, while the menfolk unpacked the car, cleaned and overhauled the bikes, and cooked dinner.

The following morning we packed everything up again, and drove our little car convoy out to the Moab Brand trails. Just north of town, they were the perfect place for a gear shakedown, and nice and friendly to test out the new Tout Singletrailer we had acquired (courtesy of Finn’s Zaida).

For the record, the Tout could easily handle the Lazy-EZ trails, as well as Bar M and Rockin’ A. Probably a few of the others would have been fine too, we didn’t explore the entire trail system.

Most of the Tout towing on the trip was done by Alex. Well over 95 percent of it. It’s much lighter and more maneuverable than the Chariot, but has a completely different feel to the towing – unsurprisingly given that it attaches to the seat post rather than the rear wheel spindle. It’s also much more stable – the Chariot isn’t very hard to tip.

There were a few things that could either be improved on, or that just have to be taken into account. It could be narrower; although it’s narrower than your handlebars, the width is low to the ground, meaning it occasionally has issues with rocks and features that the bike can just roll past. It’s also inclined to cut corners, so that has to be taken into account when you’re making turns.

All in all though, it’s a fantastic little single track machine. The rear shock seems to work reasonably well, and the Moosling was pretty happy to chill out on his bench seat – oh, another added bonus is that you can put the harness on after the helmet is already attached to the toddler (not the case with the Chariot).

Above you can see Brendan displaying the typical “Moab grin”. This is the facial expression common to mountain bikers riding in the Moab area, however scientists are yet to explain this puzzling phenomenon. It is suspected they may be thinking something along the lines of “I can’t believe I’m riding my bike in Moab, this is fantastic!”, although conflicting studies have suggested it’s merely an allergic reaction to the red sand.

After our little trail adventure we headed up into the Sand Flats Recreation Area to the east of town, and had our pick of the campsites. Our first choice somehow ended up being the best one available (following comprehensive surveys of other available campsites performed shortly after arrival). We had a juniper tree, a nice large camping area, and a small mountain for the Moosling to climb. And so Alex and Brendan headed off into town to ride some more single track, while the Moosling and I spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the area and playing in the sand.

Distance biked: 18.5 km
Elevation gain: 185 m