Fruita And A Bail?

I departed Sioux Falls last Tuesday morning after dealing with some last minute things at work. The drive was long and made longer by an isolated snow storm essentially from the Eisenhower tunnel to past Vail on I-70 in Colorado. I arrived, intact, at 11:30 PM local time.

The next morning, Wednesday for those scoring at home, I took the single speed and made my way to the Kokopelli riding area. The Karate Monkey, with its big-assed 2.5” downhiller tires, performed wonderfully. I did two (2) laps on Rustler’s loop and then made my way to Mary’s loop.

Mary’s starts with a big climb. I horsed it up and made my way to Horse-Thief Bench. After Hose-Thief and resumed Mary’s to the tight, twisty, rocky, technical section. Again, the bike did so well. After completing Mary’s I made my way back to town for lunch and to wait for the usual suspects (the others from Sioux Falls) to arrive.

Once the boys did make it they were road weary. There’s nothing to knock some weary off a dude like two (2) laps on Rustler’s loop! And that is exactly what we did.

The next day we were back to the Kokopelli area. I was now sporting the geared, full suspension Ellsworth (29’er, of course). We took off on Mary’s loop and also did Horse-Thief. We finished Horse Thief and made our way through the technical section intent on adding Steve’s loop to the mix.

We began gathering at the start and waited for Ant. After a short wait Ant comes up walking his bike. Rear triangle structural failure. D’oh! The rest of the boys launched into Steve’s while I raced for the car to perform the rescue. I drove as close to the trail as I could and we headed toward town. It was time for lunch.

The good news is Ant works for a Specialized Concept store. The gooder news is Specialized was in town with demo bikes and Ant was able to score some very sweet rides.

Friday the group was off to Bookcliffs area to ride. We readied and made our way up the hill on Prime Cut. At the top I suggested Joe’s Ridge. Right then! Joe’s Ridge! After a bit more climbing we were on the trail.

Joe’s Ridge is exactly that – riding on a ridge. To each side are steep drop-offs. The trail itself is marked with huge, very steep, drops. The boys were duly impressed and wide-eyed. Joe’s doesn’t get a dude all the way back to the parking lot. Instead we dropped in on Kessel Run at about that trail’s half-way point.

Kessel is not very steep, but mostly downhill, with many ups and downs and many banked corners. Once the boys found this, there was no getting them off it.

To facilitate not wearing ourselves out we opted to shuttle bikes from the main parking lot to the top one. That eliminated much slow climbing and enabled us to get in many more runs.

Kessel did finally wear us out and we made our way back to town for showers and the welcome party.

The welcome party is held at this cool Mexican place. The food was outstanding and once the margaritas started, we had a very difficult time finding the “off” switch. Once my snoot was full I ambled back to my hotel leaving the other boys to deal with their own poison.

The next morning I could not reach Atom on his phone. It went straight to voice mail. I was able to get in touch with Jason. Evidently Atom was the last dude standing, sort of, as he was the last one home. Between the cool Mexican place and their hotel was this empty lot with the exception of several sizable mud holes. Atom found one with this whole body. He was escorted to the hotel by two (2) cops. The next morning his hotel mates found two (2) inches of mud in the entire shower. When they went outside they were able to locate only one (1) of two (2) of his flip-flops. When two dudes saw him from their hotel window they started cheering and took his picture shouting, “That’s the dude!”

Saturday we were going back to Bookcliffs. Our intent was to ride the IMBA Epic Edge Loop. However, the night prior it snowed just enough to make Edge Loop too muddy. No worries – we’ll just do Zippity Do Da. Zippity is a very scenic, though very adrenaline rushing type of ride. It makes Joe’s Ridge, with all its drops, seem, well, a bit tame. All I can say is you have to ride it to get what its like. There are huge drops and there are straight down off the edge of a cliff corners. It has, as the guide book says, “pucker factor.”

After Zippity and a few Kessel’s we were back to town for lunch. We elected to skip the Clunker Crit for more riding. Back to Bookcliffs for a couple of Joe’s Ridge runs and some Kessel Runs. As we were on our last run of this trip it began to snow pretty hard. Just as we were finishing, the trails began to get greasy. Perfect timing.

We made our way back to town, showered up, and dined at a very nice pizza place. Our evening was not complete. Post digestion we ambled over to Troy’s for the after party. The party was fun in a weird mountain biker way. But, we did make contact with two dudes from Boulder. Not only had they heard of the new bike park there, they were directly connected with it. A long conversation regarding it, mountain biking, and trail building ensued.

After a late night Sunday morning came right on schedule. There was nothing left to do but load up and drive home. It was a great trip with some great riding.

Unrelated, I have mentioned I’ve signed up for the Royal 162 bike race. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to train for this as much as I’d like. Right now, as I type this, I’m on the fence as to whether to gut it out or stay home and dig trail.

We’ll see what the next few days bring. The weather is getting nicer. Maybe if I cram for the exam in training, I can still pull this off.

Ride On.