Redstone goes to Moab Day I

Last weekend, I drove to Moab, UT, to hook up with Dave Turner of Turner Bikes fame. This year, he opted to not display at the floor show of Interbike. Instead, he hit the first two days of Dirt Demo, then took his fleet of new '07 demo bikes on the road. Heading NE from Las Vegas, Turner (DT) stopped for a couple of days at Gooseberry Mesa, then it was on to Moab. I looked forward to riding with DT, seeing some of the new '07 stuff out on the trail, and meeting several other Turner afficianados from around the country.

I left Friday after the dayjob for what was one of the most gorgeous drives across I70 that I've done. I made it thru the central mountains while it was still daylight. Seeing the sun setting amongst the Aspen was breathtaking, even thru the windsheild of the Jeep. I got to Moab in decent time. I had originally planned to camp off the CO River about 1 mile from the Main St intersection, but that cg was full. Instead, I drove up Sand Flats Rd and camped near the Slickrock Trail. Life was good. I had some leftover energy from the Red Bull and coffee that I was drinking (seperately), so I stretched out on the picnic table to look at the stars. So clear you could see it all.

Off to sleep that night for an early rise. The sun wasn't even up on the mesa yet. The LaSals still looked sleepy. We met the shuttle folks from Coyote Shuttle down in town at 9am. They roll in style.That is a shitload of Turners (and 3 Mavericks). That was a long shuttle ride, too. That bike haulin off roadin' bus does not move swiftly or fast. After 1.5 hours, we made it to Warner Lake way up in the La Sals. We climbed thru a small aspen stand, and then maybe 500' vertical before we reached our high altitude of the day. From there, Hazard County lay before us immediately in the meadow, then the desert and canyonlands surrounding Moab. It was quite a site.Hazard County was a hoot. It was more like a foothills trail than anything in Moab. It zipped back and forth through 5-6' tall scrub oak for what seemed like a long time. We bottomed out on Hazard County at the Kokopelli Trail. After a bit descending the swooping jeep road, we ducked onto LPS, which is now signed, legal, and officially open. This is the only picture I got of LPS. It's a bad shot, but gives an idea of the steepness of it. I cleaned it all but the Upper Body Bag section. 2 did ride it though. After Upper Body Bag, it was still insanely steep, but relatively smooth, shown in this pic.
Shortly after this section, we dipped thru some fun rocks and drops and narrow Moab singletrack. We popped out at the viewpoint on Porcupine Rim, the one at the top of the first climb. The one with the views of Castle Valley..It was getting good now. After about an hour (big group and a couple of stops mind you) of descending, we were at the top of Porcupine Rim. That meant that we had another 18 miles downill to town left to travel.

Did I mention that DT had brought some demo bikes? I got to take his new 29er, the Sultan out for the day. It did not dissapoint. It was beautiful enough that I had to stop and look at it again. I could not understand why that bike was so much fun to ride. It did everything amazingly well. The only beef I had whatsovever was steering quickness in really, really tight terrain. Luckily, that accounts for about 1% of terrain at Porcupine Rim. On the really rocky ledgy stuff, the Sultan was holding it's own 4" amongst a sea of 5, 6, and 7 inch bikes. MK and Grayson rock the ledges on 26ers.as does Techfiend

Porcupine Rim is truly a great ride. It's about the view as well as the ride. Both are hard to toprickArielSteveTscheezy
and AbbyIt was great to ride an amazing ride like Porcupine rim with such a talented crew. From then out, there was no more picture taking on Porcupine rim. Once we hit the singletrack at Jackass Canyon, I was more focused on flying those big wheels thru the tight rocky final descent to Hwy 128. Once back on the highway, those last 7 miles down seemed like nothing on the 29er. That is definitely the bike to own if your riding involves much time on the road. We gathered back up at the cars and took off for dinner. I grabbed a teriyaki bowl and drove back to camp back up by Slickrock.

Dinner was good.

Slickrock Bike Trail.

I did bring a light...

I have always wanted to see the sunset out on the Slickrock Trail.The show did not dissapoint. Brilliant would be an understatement. I quickly rode the couple mile practice loop and a short out and back on the Slickrock Trail. Also, words cannot describe the bizzare landscape so I won't try.


Turner Flux, Moab, UT. Life is good.