Guess Where I've Been...

My good friend Carol, her son Tyler, his girl Jessica and Carol's youngest son, Colin, invited me to meet them in Moab for a few days. I had Friday off, so I took them up on the invitation. Since Tyler was the only one of the bunch which had ever been to Moab, I was basically enlisted as tour guide.

And, that's always cool with me. I enjoy showing people the places which hold special significance to me, and introduce them to a different style of mountain biking than what we find here on the Front Range of Colorado. So, I met the bunch of them in Moab, after they spent the first part of the week in Glenwood Springs.

Our first ride was a short jaunt on the Slickrock Practice Loop. Colin and his mom took to the rock pretty well, after the initial strangeness wore off.

Carol rode my bike, since Jess was riding Carol's M2.

I was pretty impressed that she rode as well as she did on a bike one size too big, sporting On-One Midge bars and friction bar-end shifters!

The group at Echo Point

She rode her own bike on Amasa Back, though, and I pulled Colin on the Trail-A-Bike. I'm not sure the T-A-B people had 2 foot high rock-ledge drops and huge slickrock climbs in mind when they designed their product, but it seems to work pretty well in some fairly gnarly circumstances.

We dropped off of stuff I wouldn't have dreamed of dropping on my own. The beauty of the Trail-A-Bike is that you have a counterweight cantilevered off of the rear of your bike, and you know there's no way in Hell you're going to go over bars. Gives you a lot of confidence. The steering is weird, though, and you occasionally just have to follow the bike rather than picking your best line.

On Friday morning, Carol and I rode the Porcupine Rim Trail up to High Anxiety overlook, and back. The morning temps were decent for riding, but I didn't want to be in the lower canyon part of the ride at noon, so we did the out and back option.

I rode the fixed gear, after I finally got the bottom bracket adjusted. I had noticed that the bottom bracket had loosened up on the Slickrock Practice Loop, and realized that I didn't have a bottom bracket lockring tool with me. That was once a tool you wouldn't dream of going to Moab without; but no longer.

Since everyone has cartridge BB's now, the bottom bracket adjuster is no longer the indispensible tool it once was. So, I didn't think to bring one on this trip, to accomodate the old-school fixed gear. I managed to get it adjusted using a crescent wrench, a cone wrench and a big rock.

The big rock...nature's all-purpose tool.

Our last morning in Moab was spent touring Arches national Park, including a hike out to Delicate Arch. Of course, everything is an adventure, and we got off the trail and turned a 3 mile hike into a 5 mile death-march. Still, I think everyone found the experience worth it when all was said and done.

Today, it was back to reality. I did my laundry, mowed the yard here at World Headquarters, packed and shipped a fixie I had finished before going out of town, and started getting another one ready... all part of the rock-star Grinder Bikes lifestyle!

Lizard!