Obama skis victory lap

Yesterday at "the bird".

Two starts, no finishes

Saturday Rhonda felt like sleeping in so I headed to RMR by myself. I almost called her after doing a warmup lap to have her run my MTB over, I just had this feeling that I might need it but I decided not to bother her. One lap in I hit a bad part of the last downhill whoop-de-doo, launched off the lip and landed dead on my rear wheel. Burp, tubeless tire blown, wheel way out of true, no backup anything, race over.

Repaired my bike and headed to Wheeler Sunday AM. First lap tried to make a wide pass on a corner into a cement pad. Caught the edge of the pad square on my read wheel. Burp, lost about half my pressure (in all fairness had I been tubed it would have been a pinch flat). I rode three more laps on real low pressure but finally with 2 laps to go the bead buckled on a sharp corner and I lost most of the rest of my air. For some reason I never even considered stopping in the pit the 5-6 times I went past it to top off the tire until Ken mentioned it to me after I withdrew. I guess I just don't yet have the fix your bike in the middle of the race mindset. Next step will be to try a Stans'd tube in the rear and see how that goes. Cross is fun but this is getting frustrating.

Emigration Cougar Crossing

No, I don't mean the 45 year old blonds with fake boobs that I hear are quite common up there. Last night I made a pathetic attempt at doing some intervals up Emigration when I heard a rustling in the bushes off to the left. I looked over and a saw cougar come flying out of the bushes sprinting in my direction. I froze and the cougar continued running across the road about 5-10 feet in front of me and dove into the woods. I'll never know if it was actually coming at me or just happened to be cruising by (I'm guessing the latter since on my bike I'd look pretty large to a cougar). It's the only one I've ever seen in the wild and it was quite the experience.

Weekend in Fruita

Mr and Mrs Kidney Stone were nice enough to join us for a weekend of fun and sun in Fruita. We left Friday morning and hit the Kokopelli Loops area that afternoon. Kris and Jolene had never been to Fruita so for an overview of what Kokopelli had to offer we did a big loop of Mary's, Lions, Mack Ridge and Moore Fun. I hadn't ridden Moore Fun in over 7 years and I remembered it being a difficult trail but not the pain in the ass that it is. It's pretty much set up on both the climb and the decent as a "MTB trials" type of trail and since I'm an XC weenie the trials, especially on the climb, ended up being a lot of hike-a-bike. The rest of the trails we rode that day were sweet and you can read all about them on my trip report from May.

On Saturday we had a blast riding the buff singletrack over in the bookcliffs. We started with the classic loop of Prime Cut, Joe's Ridge and Kessell Run which is quite possibly the most fun per mile MTB loop in the world. Next we looped Prime Cut, Chutes and Ladders, Edge Connector and Vegetarian. Then we finished with a repeat of Prime Cut, Joe's Ridge, back up to the very top of Kessell Run and finally back to the car. The first time I rode Kessell years ago I liked it but it was never near the top of my list trail wise. Now I'm starting to really love that trail. The more you ride it and get to know it the better it flows and once you get the no brakes flow of that trail it's like MTB nirvana. My only regret of the day was skipping Zippity. As I get older the pucker factor on that trail gets to be less fun and more fright but it's still a classic and I maybe shouldn't have talked us out of riding it. We finished the day with awesome food and beverage during happy hour at the Rockslide Brewery in Grand Junction.

Last time we were in Fruita we didn't have so much fun riding the Tabeguache area but I've heard so many good things about the trails there we had to try again. Armed with the Fruita guidebook on loan from Kendra we saddled up. We climbed the Tabeguache trail up to Little Park road where to save time we took pavement up to the top of The Ribbon. Rode the Ribbon down and climbed back up the connector trail to the top of The Gunny trail which we followed back to the car. This ride was much better than the ride we did in the spring but was still not great. The rideable parts of the trail were really fun but there are so many short (and not so short) portages that we got a bit frustrated. A lot of the portages could have been avoided with switchbacks or other trail alterations which also would make the trails more sustainable. The trails closer to the trailhead seem to be better than some of the trails further out so maybe we'll stick with those the next time we go. It's still a fun area but it's just not quite living up to expectations.

All in all it was a sweet trip with great riding and excellent company. It's always fun to get out of town and burn desert singletrack but I'm looking forward to some mud, sweat and tears this weekend at the CX doubleheader.

Fruita Picture Post

Overlooking the Colorado from Lions Loop

Joe's Ridge

Kessel Run

Kessel Run (we almost made it in less than 12 parsecs)

Top of The Ribbon

Climbing out of the end of the Ribbon trail

I left my frozen toes in Millcreek

Yesterday I finished getting my Blur back in rideable condition for the Fruita trip this weekend and decided to take a quick shakedown spin in Millcreek. It was pretty cold at my house but as soon as I entered the canyon it was bone chilling. I lasted about 45 mins on the pipeline before I lost all feeling in my toes and bailed. Rides like that actually make the trainer in the basement look enticing.

New Breckenridge MTB Stage Race

Sounds interesting.

http://breckepic.blogspot.com/

It's kinda crazy that I already need to start making plans for next season.