Utah, MTB Rides

Our first ride of the trip was actually in Colorado, Fruita to be exact.We hit these trails around 6pm on Friday to break up the long drive. It was sort of a homecoming, "before kids" it seemed like I was out there a lot. Fruita was the place you stop at on your way to Moab. It felt good to be back. It must have been a long time, I had never heard of the "More Fun" trail. We rode this trail last, after Wrangler, Horse Thief, Mary's Loop, and part of Kokopelli. I didn't really think this trail was more fun, by the time we rode it I was out of water, tired and it was getting dark. No disrespect to the trail builders but this one kicked my butt !
        The next day we awoke in Moab and headed straight for the Slick Rock Trail. This was Steve's first trip to the area and I figured Slick Rock was a must. To me it's also a "right of passage", having started riding in the golden years of mountain biking of the early 90's Moab was like a mystical place were a rider would "receive their wings". I still hold this trail in high esteem. The ride however was much shorter than I remembered it, about and hour and a half. After the ride we were off to our second adventure of the day Entrajo Canyon, which I'll go over in a later post.

Weeeeee!    Fruita

Down to Horse Thief.  I'm sure someone can ride this, just not us

Slick Rock, Steve earns his "wings"

Sovereign Trail, super fun

Later in the evening; This fire would have been great, expect someone dumped (a lot of) oil in the sand and ash and it smelled like burning gear oil all night. Around three in the morning I couldn't take it anymore and had to move my tent. 

         Day two we found ourselves at the Sovereign Trail. This time we did a canyoneering trip before the ride so we got a late start and had to hustle to beat the dark. I have not mountain biked this trail before, I did however ride it on a dirt bike many years ago, so I kind of knew what to expect. It was a Sunday night so we nearly had the place to ourselves, until we came upon one lone rider relaxing by the side of the trail. He was pretty cool for a guy from Denver. When he found out we were from Minnesota, and had not ridden here before, a little smirk appeared on his face as he was sizing us up as a couple of pussies. Little did he know I was about to show him what the fuck's what. He jumped on his bike and took off, that was my que, it's race time. I got right on his wheel and waited for him to mess up a little, at which time I nonchalantly passed him. Oh, did I do that. Once around him I grabbed a few gears and really let him have it. Within moments I could no longer see him, I didn't matter anyway, the section of trail was mostly downhill, extremely rugged and I was in the "flow" having a blast. A few minutes later I played dumb again, stopping at an intersection to wait for this guy and get some direction. He pointed and I was on the gas again. I stopped at the end of the trail to talk again and thank him for the directions and the push. He was quite surprised this fat ass from Minnesota took him to school on one of his favorite haunts. + 1 for all us Mn riders. I'm thinking we should get some bumper stickers made in the same logo of the Minnesota licence plate that read "Native".  Disclaimer: I really like Colorado and the people, I really like Minnesota and the people. I'm tired of seeing the Colorado "Native" stickers. Also, the racer in me, sometimes just takes over.