We went down to Moab this weekend for some mountain biking and dirt biking. Sunday morning the guys wanted to ride Porcupine Rim. I hate that climb on a MTB, so I volunteered to shuttle them. We dropped the trailer in the Slickrock parking lot and then I dropped them off at the Porcupine trailhead. I went back to Slickrock and met the other two girls (my friend Lexi, who rides a CRF230F and her daughter, who's on a quad) and we rode up to the summit of Porcupine Rim, which was really fun. The original plan was to go to the start of the singletrack, turn around, get the truck and pick the guys up on the other side, but when we got to the summit, we found one of our friends with a blown tire (the whole sidewall exploded). So they gave me the tire and his keys and asked me to ride down to Slickrock and back as fast as I could to swap tires so he wouldn't be baking in the sun too long. That turned out to be really fun - Riding down the trail with a MTB tire over my shoulder (i.e. obviously running parts) seemed to go over really well with the MTB crowd :thumb: -- on top of being a chance to ride fast completely at my own pace. (99% of the time I'm riding I'm either trying to keep up or not lose someone behind me - it was nice to just concentrate on myself and the trail for a change...)
After I got our friend his new tire (the other girls headed down to the truck on their own), I rode back down and explored Fins & Things, got back to the truck and realized I still had about 25 minutes before I had to leave so I rode the Slickrock practice loop, which was a blast. For the first 3/4 of the loop I didn't see anyone - so odd to be out there where it looks like you're on the moon and you can't see or hear another person. (Even though there were plenty of cars in the parking lot, so you know people are out there...)
Anyway, it was really fun riding with just the girls (even if it was just for the one leg). Lexi and I have both ridden Porcupine several times on mountain bikes, but it suddenly looks different on a bike that you can't just pick up and carry over obstacles if they look too hard. There were two spots where Lexi stopped and said "NO WAY, I'm going back." But I talked her into riding up both obstacles - and she made it on the first try on both. The second one she had me laughing - I rode back down to look for her and she already had her bike turned around, ready to head to the truck. She said she didn't want to do it because if she made it up to where her husband was taking a break at the overlook he'd expect her to ride stuff like that all the time... I said if anything it just proves that she does better when he's not standing there being impatient and yelling instructions - and then she rode right up it like it was nothing, and then was yodeling up the trail ahead of me (she's German...) :yeehaw:
Can't wait 'til next weekend to get down there again and ride more of those trails!
After I got our friend his new tire (the other girls headed down to the truck on their own), I rode back down and explored Fins & Things, got back to the truck and realized I still had about 25 minutes before I had to leave so I rode the Slickrock practice loop, which was a blast. For the first 3/4 of the loop I didn't see anyone - so odd to be out there where it looks like you're on the moon and you can't see or hear another person. (Even though there were plenty of cars in the parking lot, so you know people are out there...)
Anyway, it was really fun riding with just the girls (even if it was just for the one leg). Lexi and I have both ridden Porcupine several times on mountain bikes, but it suddenly looks different on a bike that you can't just pick up and carry over obstacles if they look too hard. There were two spots where Lexi stopped and said "NO WAY, I'm going back." But I talked her into riding up both obstacles - and she made it on the first try on both. The second one she had me laughing - I rode back down to look for her and she already had her bike turned around, ready to head to the truck. She said she didn't want to do it because if she made it up to where her husband was taking a break at the overlook he'd expect her to ride stuff like that all the time... I said if anything it just proves that she does better when he's not standing there being impatient and yelling instructions - and then she rode right up it like it was nothing, and then was yodeling up the trail ahead of me (she's German...) :yeehaw:
Can't wait 'til next weekend to get down there again and ride more of those trails!
