Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Trail Building

Starting on it.

The start...where it forks out. The new trail is to the left.


The plan
Just following the game trail...just making a better game trail, so I hope I don't get in trouble.


This far from the houses.


I started on a project today and I have got a lot done. I am enjoying a lemonade now. The dirt was barely dry enough to work on and when you get to the north face of the hill, there is snow. So, I probably won't work on that until the snow is gone and dries up but I am about there now. I can now work on making a new trail for a steep hill at the starting of the Flume to make it more climbable. It's going to be awesome!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

The sun is brighter than the stars...Moab Trip

EZ Trail


Face of the Too Much Fun

Deadman's Ridge sign


Deadman's Ridge Trail

Deadman's Ridge


Bar B Trail



Moab Brand Trail System...I did all of these plus EZ/Lazy and Deadman's Ridge Trails all in exactly 2 hours....16.5 total miles.


View of Arches National Park from Circle O Trail


Pretty organized


Rockin' A Trail...all solely purely slickrock.

Campground and puzzled Duke


Old man Dad sittin' in the shade

Sovereign Singletrack

Moab in the morning from Sovereign

I had a great time during the one and a half days I was down there to go on a couple rides with an overnight camping stay. Duke and dad came along to experience the sand and very nice weather. Duke has never gone camping or gone anywhere from home before in his life and he looked puzzled the whole time. He never left camp and I don't know if he had fun or not. Dad did say he had a lot of fun just fartin' around the campground the whole time and just relaxing. That's what old men do I guess.
When we got there, I wanted to try out the Moab Brand Trails and there were some new trails in the area. It's probably a good area if you want some good singletrack and go for shorter rides. Even though some of them are kiddy trails but if you do all of them to make a big ride out them, it's pretty dang fun. There are brand new trails that were probably built last fall, EZ and Lazy Trails and Deadman's Ridge. EZ/Lazy are probably designed for beginners and kids but I guess they were a good warm up though. Then I did Deadman's Ridge which is a more of an advanced kind of trail and more technical. They did an awesome job making those trails, they are really good trail builders or something. After that is the Bar B, another technical trail(there is a video of it below). The Bar B and Deadman's Ridge are my favorite trails in the Moab Brand System. Then did Rockin' A and Circle O after that which is all slickrock, really fun to ride on some slickrock.
After I was done, went back to the campground by Willow Springs Road, ate dinner, hung around with dad and Duke, and slept. I really like my new tent, great tent.
The next morning, the sunrise was really beautiful and we ate french toast, juice and hot chocolate while watching the sun rise. Then I did one last ride before we went home which is just down the road, the Sovereign Singletrack. I did this trail last fall and I really liked it. It is still my favorite trail in the Moab area. It started to get cloudy as I started riding, met some other riders from New Mexico and I had a blast. I went about 6 miles then it started blowing really hard but I was almost to the end of the trail, and I turned around anyway because it looked like it was going to rain. By the time I got back to the trailhead, it started blowing a lot worse and on the road back to the campground, it was hailing and snowing but only lasted 10 minutes, it was still painful though, then it was nice and sunny again, but still a little wind.
The first day was very beautiful weather, in the 60s. As I was riding out there, there were other bikers in long leg tights and jackets or winter coats and I was in freakin' in shorts and jersey with the zipper all the way down(jersey zipper). I was hot! I think those people were probably from the east or Cali or something but it made me laugh.
It was a great trip and I should go down again.