Krushed by the Kokopelli
well, now i'm up to four dnf's in my riding/racing career.
real epic mountian bike riding here folks. the trails were awesome, the sun was brutal and until the start there always seemed to be some sort of scramble to keep things on track- pack the crap/bike, drive to alex's, make it to metro for the flight to slc, get bike fixed up after flight, pre-ride in slc, drive to moab, more pre-riding on porcupine rim, pre-race prep and nap before the 12:01am start, etc, etc, etc, hence, so forth and so on... you get the idea.
finally the hour had arrived and we were off to the start at the slickrock trailhead, being privvy to the sight of the entire lot filled with cars and people. it was surreal. '15 minutes', '5 minutes', 'go' and we were off into the night, starting right off with a long gradual 4000' climb into the la sal mountains. a 2000' decent (35+mph in the dark!) and another long gradual 2000' climb that put us onto the summit and into a long fast sandy rocky decent into fisher valley.
at this point the sun was creating an ever increasing halo of light on the horizon.
two canyons (the cottonwoods), the famous 'rose garden hill' and a fast gravel road decent later i arrived at dewey bridge for my first attempt at pumping water from the colorado river. this went well and after a short breakfast i left dewey and made my way up the climb into yellow jacket canyon.
this is where things started to get a bit more tedious. the sun was now high in the sky and w/o clouds, baked me to a crisp over the next 20-ish miles, passing through yellow jacket, mcgraw bottom and fish ford. this stretch also conceded a 100oz bladder of water. i was only too happy to see the cisco boat launch, have the ability to ladle myself with cool water from the river and once again, fill my bladder.
from cisco to westwater was fairly uneventul, sans the incessant headwind along the fairly flat sandy desert prarie. as i arrived at westwater road, i decided that i still had enough water to skip going the extra 4ish miles round trip to the ranger station and forge on with the next fill being at salt creek at the beginning of the final 11 mile singletrack section.
unfortunately this was not going to be the case. after riding the pavement to the trail cutoff and ascending more rocky sandy jeep road, my body would not go anymore. it's wierd how in as little as 5 minutes you can go from 'i feel pretty good' to 'i feel like total shit'. i was totally cooked and was having those 'chasing the white bunny' flashes in my eyes. i was ready to pass out after dismounting and plopping down on the side of the trail. about 15 minutes passed until two four wheelers (atv type things) rolled up and asked how i was doing. after i explained my situation they agreed to assist me in taking me all the way back to westwater where i puked all over my shoes and found more assistance in getting me a car ride to the finish at the loma trailhead.
a quick chat with mr. curiak to inform of my drop out and we headed for the motel in fruita for a hot shower and some chinese grub. amazingly, i only ate about half my food and drank one beer.
all in all, it was a hell of a trip and an truly epic bike ride, i just wish i could have finished the entire trail. well, that will have to wait until next year or maybe i just need more practice in the art perseverance (ie: not puss out until i'm totally unconcious) in light of extreme circumstances during these virgin runs.
ahh, so much to learn, so little time. at least i didn't jump in salt creek with my ipod and camera!
results and more stories here.
map to follow my course story here.
finally, here are a few pics from the trip:
1) alex is happy to be in utah and stopping for lunch!
2) looking at the la sals from sand flats road. yea buddy, we're going over those!
3) dewey bridge. behind those rocky ridges in the background is yellow jacket canyon.
4) cisco boat landing on the colorado river, the la sals peeking over the red rock canyons in the background. you'll have to click the pic and zoom to see them. also, those trees are about the only shade from the mts to cisco. yuk.
5) fairly typical views in this part of the country. these are taken on 128 along the colorado river.
real epic mountian bike riding here folks. the trails were awesome, the sun was brutal and until the start there always seemed to be some sort of scramble to keep things on track- pack the crap/bike, drive to alex's, make it to metro for the flight to slc, get bike fixed up after flight, pre-ride in slc, drive to moab, more pre-riding on porcupine rim, pre-race prep and nap before the 12:01am start, etc, etc, etc, hence, so forth and so on... you get the idea.
finally the hour had arrived and we were off to the start at the slickrock trailhead, being privvy to the sight of the entire lot filled with cars and people. it was surreal. '15 minutes', '5 minutes', 'go' and we were off into the night, starting right off with a long gradual 4000' climb into the la sal mountains. a 2000' decent (35+mph in the dark!) and another long gradual 2000' climb that put us onto the summit and into a long fast sandy rocky decent into fisher valley.
at this point the sun was creating an ever increasing halo of light on the horizon.
two canyons (the cottonwoods), the famous 'rose garden hill' and a fast gravel road decent later i arrived at dewey bridge for my first attempt at pumping water from the colorado river. this went well and after a short breakfast i left dewey and made my way up the climb into yellow jacket canyon.
this is where things started to get a bit more tedious. the sun was now high in the sky and w/o clouds, baked me to a crisp over the next 20-ish miles, passing through yellow jacket, mcgraw bottom and fish ford. this stretch also conceded a 100oz bladder of water. i was only too happy to see the cisco boat launch, have the ability to ladle myself with cool water from the river and once again, fill my bladder.
from cisco to westwater was fairly uneventul, sans the incessant headwind along the fairly flat sandy desert prarie. as i arrived at westwater road, i decided that i still had enough water to skip going the extra 4ish miles round trip to the ranger station and forge on with the next fill being at salt creek at the beginning of the final 11 mile singletrack section.
unfortunately this was not going to be the case. after riding the pavement to the trail cutoff and ascending more rocky sandy jeep road, my body would not go anymore. it's wierd how in as little as 5 minutes you can go from 'i feel pretty good' to 'i feel like total shit'. i was totally cooked and was having those 'chasing the white bunny' flashes in my eyes. i was ready to pass out after dismounting and plopping down on the side of the trail. about 15 minutes passed until two four wheelers (atv type things) rolled up and asked how i was doing. after i explained my situation they agreed to assist me in taking me all the way back to westwater where i puked all over my shoes and found more assistance in getting me a car ride to the finish at the loma trailhead.
a quick chat with mr. curiak to inform of my drop out and we headed for the motel in fruita for a hot shower and some chinese grub. amazingly, i only ate about half my food and drank one beer.
all in all, it was a hell of a trip and an truly epic bike ride, i just wish i could have finished the entire trail. well, that will have to wait until next year or maybe i just need more practice in the art perseverance (ie: not puss out until i'm totally unconcious) in light of extreme circumstances during these virgin runs.
ahh, so much to learn, so little time. at least i didn't jump in salt creek with my ipod and camera!
results and more stories here.
map to follow my course story here.
finally, here are a few pics from the trip:
1) alex is happy to be in utah and stopping for lunch!
2) looking at the la sals from sand flats road. yea buddy, we're going over those!
3) dewey bridge. behind those rocky ridges in the background is yellow jacket canyon.
4) cisco boat landing on the colorado river, the la sals peeking over the red rock canyons in the background. you'll have to click the pic and zoom to see them. also, those trees are about the only shade from the mts to cisco. yuk.
5) fairly typical views in this part of the country. these are taken on 128 along the colorado river.
posted by JimL at 10:26 AM
2 Comments:
That race sounds crazy. It makes me feel like a total wimp for racing around in a circle and having someone hand me my water :-)
See ya soon at the Lumberjack 100!
Jim,
it was a cool trip. Thanks for the company. We now officially have a mission: ride that stupid trail!
Also, cool pics, and I think I either need longer t-shirts or not pull my arms up in the air when I wear that particular one...
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