Utah – Colorado Roadtrip Pages

I’m starting to get the Utah – Colorado Road trip report put together.   I’m going to roll it out as I get each of the days done vice waiting until I get all eight days completed.   Here is the main page that wil link to each day of the trip.  I hope to get a new day of the trip up every other day or so.

Utah -Colorado Roadtrip 2008

Amasa Back with La Sal Mountains in Background

-Bill

The bike is back in the home rack.

Well I’m back from wandering through Utah and Colorado.  What an incredible trip.  We rode each day of the trip including our travel days.   Shoot, we rode twice a couple of days for a total of 10 rides in 8 days.   I met some cool people, touched bases with old friends, rode great trails and managed to get that monkey off my back the Goat Camp Crash.  It was truly the kind of stuff that you remember for the rest of your life.   I’m swamped with pictures and random streams on thought that will take some time to get all together.  

 Here a few more teaser pictures for now:

Kevin on Gunny Loop
Kevin on the Gunny Loop in Grand Junction (Rode from his front door) 

Zion Curtain
Cruising on the Zion Curtain

Moore Fun
Someplaces are really “Moore Fun” 

Church Rocks
Church Rocks 

Brew Time
World Class trails with World Class Brews!

Wandering through Utah

Life is good!   My buddy Bill and I have been running amuck through Utah.  Yesterday we finished up our sixth ride in five days.   We spent a day near St. George doing some mesa riding before heading over to Moab.   We hit up a few of the marquee trails as well as some of the not-so marquee trails.    Big Country – Awesome rides.   Last night we pulled up chocks and rolled into Grand Junction, Colorado to hang with some friends for a couple of days and hit up a few trails here. 

Here a few sample pictures from the trip so far.  

Utah
Little Creek Mesa

Utah
Porcupine Rim

 U?tah
Poison Spider Mesa

Utah
Bartlett Wash

utah
Slickrock a plenty.

The wanderlust continues, gotta go for a ride…

Busy Week and New Beginnings

I'm the dude on the left 

After 22 years of active duty in the US Navy, I retired this past Friday.   Actually, I’m not officially off the books until the end of July but I have stacked up enough vacation days over the years to take a few months off.   I had a really great career as an electronics/computer geek turned manager, but it was time to do something else for a living.  Shipboard duty in the Navy is quite hard on a family and I would have been separated from my family a bunch over the next four years.  My long term goals are to raise my two sons so be successful men, husbands and fathers.   With Will approaching his teenage years I believe it is really important for me to be close and involved (Wither he likes it or not) to achieve those goals.   

So this past week has been a busy one around the house:  Last minute retirement paperwork to,  a hockey tournament, parents coming in from North Carolina, extended family coming in as well, the ceremony…..  A lot of really cool and fun stuff going on.    All of which seemed to push “Get a ride in” down on the priority list.

Preexisting Biking Condtion
Sidenote for my wife – This is proof that biking was indeed a preexisting condition when we got together 🙂

The big question that I have been mulling over the last six months has been:

“What do I want to be when I grow up?”

Okay I still don’t have a good answer for that, but the good news is there are lot of opportunities for my next career, so I need to narrow things down over the course of the next few weeks.    I have always found that some of my best thinking gets done when I am at or near my maximum heart rate with lots of good clean air in my lungs.     

Hmmmm, I’m thinking that some Utah slickrock and narrow Colorado singletrack should help quite a bit with that effort.

Singletrack

Here is a few more pics involving the Navy.    If you think my dream career involves your company please contact me.  Starting on Saturday, I will be sporadically off the grid for about a week so expect some delay in responses.

Night Riding

Over the last couple of weeks I have incorporated some night riding back into my schedule.   Will has hockey practice at the Escondido Sports Complex on Wednesday nights from 7-9PM.    The facility is only about half a mile from the north side of Lake Hodges so I have been hitting up Hodges while he is practicing.  The first go around was a run up to the top of Bernardo Peak and back and the second time was a speed run to Hernandez Hideaway and back.   After the first ride, one thing is for certain, my night time skills needed some brushing off.   It did not help that I had not been on Bernardo Peak since the October 2007 fires.  Sunset was approaching while I was climbing so I got a good look at the damage.   The vegetation tunnel towards the bottom of the climb has been completely rerouted.   This was a good call by the rangers.  That section was just one big rut with the cool feature being the tunnel.   Since the vegetation tunnel is gone, it was a good time to reroute the trail in a more sustainable manner.     I enjoyed the watching it get dark from the top before coming back down.  That is when I realized there were a bunch more loose rocks on the trail that I had remembered from the climb.   The shadows from the lights can make things seem a bit more interesting and I’m sure my hiatus from night riding had something to do with it.   The lack of vegetation on the hillside could have caused more rocks to erode into the trail as well.  One other slight annoyance was that I my current handlebar mounts don’t work well the oversize bars so the best I could was to have the flood been slightly angled to the left.   Either way, I had a downright gingerly descent off the peak.   I’m leaning more toward the “I’ve become a night riding weenie” explanation that those other technical things.  

Sunset from Bernado Peak in August 2005

The second ride the following week went better but I did keep it near the lake.   I had not been on a speed run ride in a while so it was fun just to try and hammer around the lake and back.    With both rides I was back about 30 minutes before Will was done, so I will have to add some more trail the routine.  My goal is to get back with only about 10 minutes before Will is done.      Gotta get in the miles when I can.

Arizona South Mountain Video

So I finally got around to getting the video together from our couple of days on South Mountain.   This video by far has more climbing scenes in it than any othe video I have done.  While Greg, Jerry and I all had our moments in the sun, Keven seemed to always be putting on a technical skills clinic.  I am always amazed at how well he can finesse stuff, particularly climbs.    This video was also the first time I had some inputs from Will on how to put it together which was a fun bit of Dad, Son time.

December 2020 Update:   Please check out this post for the remastered video up to more modern standards:

Anywho  RIGHT CLICK HERE to download the 9 minute video that will set your hardrive back 123MB.

-Bill

PSA – Poison Oak

Last week I was on scouting trip checking out a way old trail that could possibly be reclaimed for mountain biking.   Don’t ask, it is currently on the Double Top Secret – Specialized Compartmentalized Information List.  There are Navy Seals posted on the roof of the building across the street right now with laser-pointer sights shining through the windows as I type.   Somewhere along the hike I came in contact with the evil leaf and now I am all jacked up with the stuff. I used to stroll the stuff as a kid, but over the last five years I have progressively gotten more sensitive to the stuff.   While I have a full complement of goodies to try and keep the stuff off of me and scrub the stuff off afterwards.  Ever year I seem to get a patch of the stuff.   This time is especially a bummer due to some of the locations.  Lets just say I taint interested in getting my saddle time right now.

Anyway, thought I share some of the pages I have browsed off and on on the subject.

Poison Oak FAQ

Here is stuff on natural remedies

This is a good site will lots of info was well as a review of specific products.

Sorry no ooze shots here 🙂

 -Bill

Spring in AZ08 Pages Up

I finally got around to getting all my pictures and stuff from my fun little jaunt out to Phoenix. We had some might fun playtime on South Mountain and in the White Tank Mountains. Some of this is not totally new, but it is the first time I have gotten it all together.

Day One on South Mountain – Telegraph Pass and Upper National

Day Two on South Mountain – Mormon Loop, National, Geronimo and Mormon.

Day Three – White Tanks Mountain Regional Park – Mesquite, Willow Canyon, Ford, Goat Camp and Glendale ER.

I would like to give a big thanks out to the tons of folks who gave me well-wishes and sent good vibes and thoughts my way after the crash on the Goat Camp trail. It really helped to keep my spirits up through a rather painful healing process. I have tried to get back to everyone but I am certain I have missed a plenty.

Thanks,
Bill

Gutting It Out

Quote of the Day: “This would be so easy without the cramping”

 I was going to be climbing Nate Harrison Grade up to the top of Palomar Mountain for my weekend ride as I was to met with a lady who owns to chunk of property up on the mountain.  This is no small ride as it is an 11.1 mile climb with 4,700 feet of climbing.  Will heard me talking about it on Saturday afternoon and said he wanted to go.  He remembered this from a drive we had done in the truck a few times.   I stressed to him that this was a serious ride with an 11 mile climb.   In true young mind fashion that never ceases to amaze me he replies with “That means we get to go down the mountain for 11 miles…COOL!”.    I warned multiple of times about the size and effort required for this ride.  I also reminded him that I was not going to let him weasel out of hockey practice that night.   He was undaunted, so I woke him up bright and early Sunday morning and we headed out.  

Will at start

On the drive out, I talked to him about pacing yourself and how Nate Harrison Grade is a great teacher of pace and rythm climbing.   We were climbing by 7:30AM with a nice temp of only 60 degrees.  I knew it was going to be a roaster today, so the plan was to get up in elevation before the valley turned into a large scale brick oven.

Will early on

Will started out all charged up zipping ahead and talking some smack.   I snickered as I knew that would not last long.  Fifteen minutes later, the tables had turned and my boy was suddenly more interested in the “wisdom” I had to offer vice the “babble” I was spouting a little further back down the road.   So while acutely listening this time, I noticed he had grown enough as of late to warrant a few tweaks to the seatpost and saddle.   While I did not take a picture of it, his seatpost looks a lot like our dated height marks on the closet door back home.  Geez they grow quick. 

Stopping to smell the lupins

There were plenty of wildflowers in bloom along the climb and we took plenty of breaks along the way.  He was really finding “his” pace and a good rhythm.   The temps were climbing faster than we were and just about when I was going to declare it hot, we reached an elevation where things started cooling off.

I think I can, I think I can

At around the seven mile mark, Will started getting the first twinges of cramps in his quads.   We was not interested in turning around.  We did take breaks more often, and he was more open to the mocha flavored Clif shots, banannas, and electrolytes that he was turning down earlier.

Around the nine-mile mark the boy was suffering and the “This would be so easy without the cramping” statement came out, which I could only reply with (with a bit of laughter in my voice) “Yep, been there done that”.   At this point the thought of turning around did come up.   I told him we could turn around if he wanted to, but we were really close and getting to the top would be quite an accomplishment.   After a long break, he decided to keep climbing.   I was impressed. 

Near Top

Most of Nate Harrison Grade is a fairly smooth dirt road,  with the last mile or so at the top being pavement.   Just before reaching the pavement is the rockiest section of the whole road.  While normally it would be no big deal, when your fighting off cramps it can be a real pain.   He soldiered through it and once on the pavement he spun along nicely with the cramps mostly subsided.

We enjoyed ourselves at the top,  grubbing down on the remainder of our trail food.   I could tell that he was stoked to have pulled off the climb.  Will spent little time actually looking around and when I called him over to check out some particular sights he reminded me of our “mission” for the day, “Dad, I did not pedal up this mountain to see the view.  I came up here to ride down.  Lets Go!”   

Weeeeeee

So down we went.   Gleeful giggles were heard many times.   The Dad in me was scared a few times at his speed, but at the same time the mountain biker in me was going “HELL YEAH!

Down the hill

What took hours to climb took somewhere around 20 minutes or so to descend.  It was a stupidly hot 99 degrees at the bottom.   No big deal, when you have a 30+ mph breeze in your face.  After some Mexican food on the way home and a dip in the pool, he was ready to head out for hockey practice.   He did look a little flat on the rink, but I was pretty freaking impressed with how he gutted things out over the course of the day.   Oh yeah, he had no issues going to be bed early that night. 🙂

 -Bill

Quick Spin at La Costa

This past weekend’s Archipelago Ride really beat the snot out of me.  While it was probably not the smartest way to get back into the saddle, it sure was fun.   I was stupidly sore on Monday and Tuesday.  I normally ride on Wednesdays during the week, but skipped and instead let the midweek ride slide until today.    I decided to catchup with my buddy Michael (aka Yeti_Rider) for a spin through the La Costa Preserve on his lunch break.   I got there a little earlier and as I pulled up I was treated to a bit of a hottie-fest.    Four great looking, fit, spandex clad ladies with knee and elbow pads on.   I tried my best not to look like a perverted leecher.  I’m not sure if I pulled it off our not.  Needless to say, creative domain names for a spinoff of this site started going through my head.    The show was quickly over and within minutes one of the other crazies from the Archipelago Ride showed up.  He was showing his buddy the connector to Elfin.   Good to see the word is spreading.   Finally Michael showed up and we did a loop.  Nothing fancy, nothing long, just some catchup chit-chat along the trail before he had to head back to work.   Just a great day to squeak in a ride on the bike.    

 Greenage at La Costa