Spring Break - Part 2: Flying, Riding, Driving, Eating, Riding, Eating, Driving, Eating, Riding, and Flying

After doing some very last minute packing and doing my mommy duties by way of waiting with Skyler at the bus stop, I was off to meet the guys to get our Western MTB Adventure underway.  Our travels went smoothly, and we arrived in Denver around 4pm to some baggage confusion.  The place where Marc's bike was supposed to be was empty, and nobody seemed to know where it could be... fortunately, after about an hour, someone who knew what a bike box was told him where it was.  A bit of sketchy parking, and some hustle in the busy passenger pickup area had us in Dan's truck and on the road faster than a NASCAR pit crew.

Downtown Boulder, CO

Our first stop was downtown Boulder.  What a cool town!  We went into University Bicycles, and I must say, that place is the biggest bike shop I've ever seen.  I can't even imagine the money in that building with all of the high-end bikes they have for sale.  A shop employee recommended we go to Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery for dinner; the wait was long, but the beer was good. We were all
pretty exhausted after a day of traveling, so after a stop at the grocery store for some necessities, we went to Dan's to crash for the night.  Dan is in the middle of relocating his family to Colorado, so his new home is awaiting all of its furnishings...  it's going to look great with the family in it and some furniture.  It's also quite nice to know that I have a place to crash anytime I decide to spread my wings and fly out West for another vacation.

View from the backseat of the truck

The next morning marks DAY 1 of our MTB Adventure.

Tile from the wall of the pizza place in Vail, CO

Me getting the feel of the Yeti at Lunch Loops 

Here we all are... ready for something EPIC! 

Before we could do any riding, we had to do some driving.  Crammed into Dan's pickup truck, we picked up rental bikes for Kevin and myself at Golden Bike Shop - FS Yetis for us both (SB95), and then we were on the road.  For anyone who likes amazing scenery while they're road-tripping, I highly recommend I-70.  I don't know that it can be beat.  We stopped in Vail for lunch and ate at a pizza place.  I had a veggie calzone without cheese while Marc had the meat lasagna... more on that later.  To sum up Vail, it is a really cool ski resort area if you like spending $1 each on french fries.

Dan played the role of tour guide well, taking us straight to Lunch Loops in Grand Junction, CO where we went from sitting with full bellies in the truck straight to pedaling up gigantic hills at a high altitude. Needless to say, meat lasagna and anything with red sauce was probably not the best food choice.  I can honestly say that I don't remember the last time I felt that awful on a bike.  The trails were amazing, the scenery was unreal, and the bike was a great fit, but my lungs were forsaking me in the worst way.  While it wasn't overly hot outside, the heat was a shock...  I questioned my ability to ride out there.  I also questioned my choice of a full suspension bike (not for long though).  Towards the end of that first ride, I started to feel a little better... it also helped that the ride ended with an awesome downhill run.

That's me coming down the rock in the front... so cool!

Day 2 of our MTB Adventure started with only about an hour drive this time.  We headed to Moab where Dan had the day already planned.  He had also informed us of this plan at least 10 times, but every time he said it, it sounded different so I really had no idea what we were doing.  Well, as it turned out, we we parked at the Negro Bill Trailhead (interesting name choice) so we could ride into town and had pedal uphill to the Slickrock Trailhead.  Coincidentally, there was a Jeep Jamboree going on while we were there, so we got to see some very expensive, very pretty, and very smelly vehicles driving up and down the same slickrock we were pedaling on.  The loop out there is like something I would have imagined on another planet.  It looked like a rolling desert made of rock instead of sand.  Here and there were pockets of sandy soil where plants were growing almost as if someone had landscaped them into the scenery on purpose.  Riding on the rock was like nothing I'd done before.  Rocks in New England have traction when they're dry, but there is still not enough traction to ride up a steep rock without the chance of slipping.  At slickrock, the only thing you have to worry about is having enough power to keep turning the cranks on the way up... if you stop pedaling, you will tip over (possibly backwards).  It took me awhile to get used to climbing on the Yeti, but by the end of our ride there, I was pleased with the bike and the way it felt.

Don't forget to stand on your head!

We took a break at the trailhead and downed some snacks before setting out on our next part of the adventure.  I had no idea what I was in for...

So, to get to the Porcupine Rim Trailhead, most people take a shuttle up the mountain before climbing the technical trail and descending down the 11 mile downhill on the other side.  Not us.  We are all pedal all the time.  We set out up that hill guided by Dan and completely unknowing of just how long we would be climbing for.  We left Slickrock at about 1:30.  It took us an hour to get to the trailhead and another hour of climbing to get to the lookout.  While it would have been nice of Dan to tell us just how long it was going to take for us to get to the top, I suppose it's fair to say that it'd been awhile since he'd done it so he probably had no idea... plus, we weren't exactly doing it with fresh legs.  At one point, Kevin seemed about ready to kill Dan...  I will admit to biting his head off at one point when he asked why were stopping as we were attempting to eat some candy bars before death could set in.  We didn't believe him when he said the lookout was just ahead.  It's funny, Kevin and I thought that after that we'd start descending... WRONG!  We had more climbing to do.  By the time we started descending, I was thinking, 'okay, the long hard part is over.'  Little did I know how long the descent would be.  Full suspension was absolutely the right choice.  I had the time of my life descending back to the truck and even got in some 'hucks' off the small drops while rolling a bunch of other steep rocks.  Towards the end, they guys let me go up front to 'take us back to the truck,' and I had the impression that the trail was going to be more of the mostly rideable stuff we were doing.  Again, WRONG!  The trail got insanely tricky towards the end, and I had to do quite a bit of hike-a-bike.  It was still fun though.

Porcupine Rim's Witches Tongue

Back at the truck, we cleaned up as best and as quickly as possible and drove into town because Moab Brewery could not be ignored.  The food there was pretty good, but with it being so busy, the service was a little rough...  no complaints though; they had what we needed so desperately... sugar and fat!  Unfortunately, our late arrival to town meant that a lot of the shops were closed, so we didn't get to explore, and on the drive back to our hotel, I couldn't keep my eyes open.

Kevin posing on Mary's Loop in Fruita

'More Fun' at Fruita, CO

Day 3 brought us to Fruita (where our hotel was) and back to Lunch Loops in the afternoon.  At Fruita, the terrain was totally different from what we'd ridden in Utah (which was totally different from Slickrock to Porcupine Rim!).  We started the ride off in Fruita with a trail called 'More Fun' which we accidentally did opposite the suggested direction.  This was no problem except that it started off with tough technical climbing that left me feeling like I left my lungs and legs back in Utah.  We saw lots of people going in the opposite direction, and most of them were runners.  Completing that trail, we started onto 'Mary's Loop,' and found that again, there was a lot of traffic going against us, but this time it was all mountain bike traffic.   I've never seen so many people on a trail in my life.  What a gorgeous loop!  We decided that after the previous day's torture, we should stop and have a lunch break somewhere out of the sun, so we went to Buffalo Wild Wings where we made smart lunch choices this time.

Lunch Loops after lunch is only a good idea if you don't eat meat lasagna or red sauce or sit in a truck for four hours.  With tired legs, we made our way up, up, up on some really fun trails.  I think Lunch Loops has the best trail network out of all the places we went... mostly because all of the trails were marked at junctions and all were built by and for mountain bikers.  We rode a trail called, 'Free Lunch' that had huge rollers and drops that were marked by a sign that read, "entering play area," and another sign that read, "end of play area."  Some of the features (okay... most of them) were above my head.  Literally.  I impressed myself by trying some easier rollers.  I have to admit that for our ride at Lunch Loops, I was pretty well spent...  I didn't talk much, and I sure as heck didn't want to stop for too long because I didn't know if I'd be able to get going again...  fortunately, the guys kept things fun and moving along, and we took the same descent out that we took on the first day.  It was an excellent way to end the ride.

The "guys"

Somehow, I was finally able to convince they guys that we should go to a juice/smoothie bar, and as it turned out, everyone liked it!  Dirty and happy, we set back on the road to Castle Rock where Dan's house is, stopping in a town called Rifle, CO at Rib City Grille for what was our absolute best dining experience of the weekend.  The town itself was a little off, but the restaurant was kickass.  The rest of our drive back was not quite as good as our drive out West.  We hit snow storms in the mountain passes which added stress to our exhaustion, and had a near death experience as some butt munch went zooming past us going the wrong way on the interstate just miles from Dan's exit.  It took us all a few moments to register what was going on, and Dan saw the telltale sign of a car wreck in his rearview mirror as that vehicle swerved in traffic and rolled into a ditch.  We were lucky.  And tired.  I never slept so good on a floor as I did that night.

Our last day didn't leave us with much time since we had to be at the airport by 1:30 for our 3pm flight, and we still had to drop our bikes off in Golden.  Fortunately, Rhyolite Bike Park is less than a mile from Dan's door, and behind the park is a mesa with a fast, flat, and flowy 3 mile track.  We rode over to the mesa, climbed to the top, did a lap and then came down the bike park's dirt jump downhill track.  Dan and Kevin wanted to play at the park, so Marc and I went back up to the mesa, and after doing a quick lap, we decided we'd race around just one more time.  It was the perfect way to end the weekend, and we all felt surprisingly good...  I should note that at the top of the mesa, the elevation was around 6,300 ft which is higher than the elevation at porcupine rim!

That was it... we packed up, dropped off our bikes, and Dan cried when he dropped us off at the airport (haha).  The trip back was quiet...  Over the course of the weekend, I'd been trying to get some homework assignments done, one of which was starting and finishing a 300+ page book.  As we were descending into Providence, I finished the book.  It doesn't get much better than that... especially since, in true New England style,  it was pouring rain and chilly.  I was in bed shortly after 2 am and back at school the next morning for 9am.  Best Spring Break EVERRRR!

Fruita, CO

P.S.  Go to Colorado.  Go to Utah.  Go ride a bike!