18 Hours of Fruita Done Gone

18 Hours of Fruita. I will definitely attend this race again. Getting ready to head out from the Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont.

Not long on the road and we've got to take a break, OB style. Park the RV on the side of the road and play catch in the ditch.

Arrived at Highline State Park and getting all fired up to race. Racing starts at 12 midnight and goes thru 6pm on Saturday.
The course had 2 major "climbs." This is one of them. I still was able to push a 32x16 all around the course without having to walk.
The Scenery wasn't too bad. Highline St. Park is a true oasis in the desert.

In an 18 hour race, rehydration and recovery are important. Old Chub makes good trail food.
Camp was great

Chef Rog at the top. Last climb, last lap. Time for a beer.
Cycling IS dope.

A thing of beauty. LOTS of 29er singlespeeds. Sweet.


Oh, and happy birthday Chad. How about a light up spinning plastic flower?

Post race was time for 18 road. We wanted something fun, easy, and SS friendly.

Mmmm, good.


What a wonderful day. My, oh, my.




Chad on Zippety. My favorite shot of the weekend.

We weren't the only ones out having fun. The family that rides together stays together.

Over and out. Time for a luxurious ride home in the DPARV.

Desert Dessert, Day 2

Day 2 in the desert came with little fanfare. Must have been due to my aching body, my aching head, or... Well, I should've taken pics of all the beer cans scattered around the campground but I wasn't moving quickly enough to snap a photo. You get the idea. Bagel egg sammiches, lots of Gatorade and the prospect of a fantastic day of riding got me back around to my normal self soon enough, though. Needless to say, with others suffering from a condition similar to my own, we didn't get started to gung ho. No one felt like packing up the all the gear and getting into the truck, so we opted for another day riding at Rabbit Valley. That's part of the beauty of this area. Not only is the place extremely remote, but there is a ton of riding to be done. Our goal was to cover enough ground on Sunday to have ridden 95% of all of the riding to be done from Rabbit Valley (that we know of). I think we achieved our goal over the course of 2 days.

We rolled out of camp back towards the highway and the start of the Mountain States Cup Fruita time trial race. Like our night ride on Friday, we headed up trail 4. Trail 4 starts out tame enough, but just keeps climbing and climbing relentlessly. It's funny how the desert jacks with your head. The climb was only 400' or so but it felt like forever. Steep stuff those desert climbs.

We were heading to an unnamed bench just east of Wild Horse Mesa overlooking the Ruby Canyon area of the Colorado River. The trail is innocently enough called Rim Trail, #8. You can see the trail from a ways off and see it rising up and down near a pink and orange cliffband. What you can't see, though, is the beach sand. I knew it was there and have ridden the loop enough to know the "correct direction." Correct or not, some parts of it still kinda suck. Other parts are other worldly.

And there are plenty of super fun swoopy sections.

Almost all of the swoopy sections end up with a sandy climb. Almost all of them.
Until you get to this point. Here, the rim trail overlooks Ruby Canyon, which the CO River flows thru. You can see Mee Canyon on the other side. From here until the end of the Rim Trail, it's nothing but non stop technical. Tough rock moves and unending ledges and drops. It's like a little bit of Moab, but it's in Colorado. The dirt is red and the rock moves are tough. I was extra stoked that I cleaned all the drops. Going down of course. I still had to hike up a few big drops, as the trail rolls in and out of little grottos, all technical.

Then, at the end of the Rim Trail, there is, of course, just a little bit more sand. Not much, though.
A brief and surprisingly do-able climb led us off the bench and back into Rabbit Valley proper. We reconnected with our Friday's night ride route that took us down and out on trail #3. It was narrow.
With good views of the desert in all of its barren glory.
Such a fun descent that had a little of everything.
And sadly, back at the campground too soon. We packed up quickly and said another good bye to the desert.
See you next Spring ;)

day one in the desert

We originally had the crew rallied to head out to the Big Wheeled Ballyhoo about 4 hours east into Nebraska but we didn't quite make it. As the date approached, the forecast got worse. We decided to play it by ear. If the forecast was tolerable, we'd head east. If the Ballyhoo forecast was not good, we'd head 4 hours in the other direction, to Fruita and the western Colorado desert. Well, last we checked, the forecast for NE was in the twenties and snow. We made the call to head west. Apparently, it was a good call, as the site for the Ballyhoo got around 12" of snow. Bad weather was also forecast for the homefront so it was a good weekend to get out.

We departed a little behind schedule (because that's how we do it) and after stopping for food and gas in Grand Junction we arrived at our destination a little after 9. Destination - Rabbit Valley. RV is the last exit in Colorado on I70 and home to some of the best backcountry desert riding around. After getting camp all set up, we decided to make it a 3 days of riding short weekend. Night Ride!

Just up for something short, Chad, Doug, and myself rode the time trial loop that is used in the Fruita Mountain States Cup race. Up 4, down 3 and back to camp. It hit the spot perfectly.

Our crew of 8 riders rolled out of camp at 10:15 on Saturday. That's another great thing about Rabbit Valley. Wake up and ride - no need to hop in the car. Excellent. We headed north of I70 to break thru the Zion Curtain and into Utah. Here's looking back at I70 and Rabbit Valley.

With not much time on a dirt road, we found ourselves on some excellent shared use singletrack, very similar to the riding you find at 18 road. Steep ups and even steeper downs.
With a ribbon of long flowy singletrack on the desert floor.
But, alas, we were mountain biking. There was hiking. This is shortly after we found a motorcyclist flipped onto his back and pinned between his moto and a rock. I think he was in a little over his head.
Chad had his first mechanical of the day. One of the impressive things about Man compared to other creatures is our ability to use complex tools.
After riding Zion Curtain, we had the option to bail south on Kokopelli or forge on ahead (on Kokopelli). Ahead meant a stiff climb up to the top of Westwater Mesa but we'd be rewarded with excellent singletrack on the mesa rim. The climb was, indeed, tough.
And the singletrack was excellent. It was getting late in the day at this point. I think we'd been out for about 4 hours. The wind picked up on top of the mesa, but skies were still beautifuly clear blue.
A lunch break was in order. Mmmmm, burrito.
More excellent rocky singletrack.
With some fun chutes, drops, and techy challenges
We dropped off Westwater Mesa finally and headed back to Rabbit Valley on Western Rim. The outer reaches of Western Rim are wide open and desert fast.
The further east you get, the riding becomes slower and more tech, with excellent views.


Western Rim ends at a junction with the Kokopelli Trail. It's steep and sandy and again we were "mountain biking."

Sand and long shadows late in the day. It was getting late. We'd been out for about 6 hours at this point.

Instead of taking the road back, we opted for the always excellent and super fast trail #2. It does have some hiking on it as well. This particular one is super fun as a descent.



Made it back to camp right at the 7 hour mark. Way to go fellas! That was a long tough ride.



Not a bad place to chill out after riding.

Another fall trip to the desert

Getting around is a lot easier when there's a custom Tomac bike hauler at our beck and call. That's Matt's Soulcraft Monster cross in the foreground. Big wheels, drop bars, usually fixed but just single this time around. Road everything with it.








Cutting the ribbon on Saturday's long ride. Climbing Petakis in GJ. We went up to the very tip top, and I left my camera in my bag pretty much the whole day.









18 Road goodness. Camped there, so rode it a lot. Always fun.

Fruita Trip (Last Week)

Last week Egge and I made our way west to Fruita for some early week, pre fat tire fest singletrack. We hit the normal stuff Monday and Tuesday (Mary's Loop and 18 Road). Then did Zion Curtain and Western Rim on Wednesday. We actually didn't intend to ride Western Rim but accidentally took a left on Koko's and found ourselves a bit lost. Eventually we looked below and saw what looked like Western Rim and decided to drop in on that. Fortunately it lead us back to the promise land and instead of our planned 15-20 we manage about 35 miles. I ran out of water about 2 hours before the finish line but managed to stayed hydrated thanks to Aarons extra water. We tend not to take many photos as we are lazy but here are a few including a short video.