Kristin Rides

We felt a bit better after a full night’s sleep (although a crappy hotel breakfast) on Fruita Day 2. We were out by 9:30am and headed to Cocopelli Trailhead to ride Horse Thief and other associated trails. Another beautiful day in paradise. At 10:30am I we had already stipped off the arm and knee warmers and were basking in the sun’s glory.

Today’s trail was much more rocky, including patches of slickrock. I’m so used to rocks being slick, moss-covered death traps that it took me a while to trust the fact that my front wheel wasn’t going to slide out from under me as I rode impossible angles on them.

There were definitely some large stair steps and technical rocky bits I could not ride, so I got in a lot of CX remount practice (if I can do it on my huge 29-er, I can do it on any bike!) The canyons we were riding on were unbelievably amazing (pictures forthcoming), and there were some long single track sections that were pure uninterrupted riding bliss, that were just technical enough for me to use my meager skillz but not too much that I got overly frustrated (except the last bit where I had to walk).

I could have ridden way more, but I’m trying to keep in mind that I have another 4 days of riding ahead of me. Thankfully my legs felt pretty fresh, it was more my head and all my other bits that were tiring, since I’m not used to throwing a beefy 29er around and having a full water pack on and all that jazz. And to top it off, I’m getting a tan, total score.

It seems that every day my mojo comes and goes in waves and I get overly frustrated at one point, where I stop taking chances and start walking everything, even stuff I just rode 5 minutes earlier. I suppose that’s just how it goes; the worst is getting frustrated about being frustrated. One thing I must learn is how to ride up stair steps, ie learn to manual. I know I can get my front wheel up to some degree, but I’m not really sure just how high. At one point I tried to get up something I normally would not, biffed it, and hit my junk on my saddle. Ow. But one must take chances to learn, that’s just how it goes.

After the ride we ate in town then found our Super Secret Training Camp Condo Lair; we arrived, and expected to find the key under the mat, but there was none. We called and got it figured out, but it turns out I had messed up all the hotel reservations and missed a day (apparently you should overlap check outs and check in, who knew?). So we’re actually spending 4 nights in Moab, not 3. Thankfully no one was spending the night here so they let us stay.

Our evenings have been pretty tame since everyone is thrashed from riding all day in the sun and not sleeping too well (although I’ve been pretty much sleeping like the dead). I have really eloquent blog posts written in my head while I’m on the trail, but they seem to evaporate when I’m in front of a computer. I need to voice recorder or something, except that all you would be able to hear is my breath in the mic.