I’m finally back from Moab. Returned Thanksgiving morning actually, after riding Wednesday afternoon and driving all night. Hopefully I can get some pictures and such up in the next few days. The couple I took are pretty rough, but everyone else had a camera too, so some of their’s should be good. I improved a ton while riding in such incredible terrain. I was noticably better the last day than I was the first day. My legs still feel really strong, riding a unicycle uphill is effectively like doing squats, and downhill is quite a work out as well. I have some scrapes and bruises but nothing major.
For those interested we rode like this: Day 1-Slickrock practice loop, 2.5 miles of up and down after driving all night and not sleeping. Day-2-Amasa Back, 13-ish miles of an out and back with a brutal climb for most of the first half and super fun sections for the way back down. Some of the most fun, technical riding out there. Day 3-Porcupine Ridge, 16 miles that starts as a 3 mile knee breaking climb that we pushed 60% of. Incredible views from the top, then a 13 mile trip around and down that required smooth flow, good handling and quick reflexes. Hardest ride we completed this trip. The trail would be huge amounts of fun on a bike. Some of this trail is so incredibly technical that most people walk portions even when biking, needless to say, we did too. This was probably the hardest day I’ve ever had on a bike or unicycle. Even all the days that were super hard on the cross country bike trip. Day-4 Arches National Park, we actually took the day off, they won’t let you ride in Arches, and we needed an easy day after two super hard ones. Arches is pretty neat, lots of cool stuff to look at and the sunsets are quite striking. Day-5 Bartlett Wash, hard to find trail, great riding. Called “Moab’s Playground” due to the freeform nature of the “trail.” Getting to the parking area near the trailhead is a rough and rutted gravel road, somehow we made it in a minivan. More ground clearance would have been helpful, so if you go, take a truck or SUV if you plan on riding Bartlett. Roughly a 5 mile out and back, you could spend all day riding the ledges, drops, bowls, and stunts. We met a few hardcore freeriders who were out playing. One guy did a 20 foot or so drop to a smooth transition off a sweet ledge. I know there’s a photo or two of this but I have to track them down. Finding the start of this trail is a bit of an adventure. It seems to start down a creekbed, but then, without any real signage turns right and goes up a huge cliff. The only way we found it, was by following the faint tracks of other bikers. We actually rode past it twice and rode through creekbeds and sandbars for almost an hour before figuring it out. Once we found it though, it was awesome. Afterwards, we changed cothes at the trailhead and piled into the van for the long drive home.
Food in Moab is always good, and cooking yourself is a pretty good way to save money. We ate at Jax, a pizza buffet and at the Moab Brewery, which has awesome family restaurant type food, and as you could guess from the name fresh beer brewed on site.
More thoughts later. That’s my summary of what we did in our time in Moab. I’ll post some pictures once I track them down/other people post them. That’s a really long entry. Wow.
