Charli, Bill, Mike and I had Monday and Tuesday off, so we took a quick trip to Moab. We started Monday morning by loading up the Ski Lex with as much crap as possible; 10 Nalgenes/water bottles, five sleeping bags, four full-grown adults (800 lbs.), four sleeping pads, four bike helmets, four backpacks, three tents (including one doggy dome), two dogs, two dog packs, and two bikes. Somehow we managed to get all of it in, or on, the car.
The most extreme looking RX300 ever!
We set up camp somewhere on Wall Street and made our way to Arches for some hiking. Mike and Bill hiked out to Delicate Arch while Charli and I found a couple places to illegally bike and run the dogs. We finished the day with a good night at the Moab Brewery, eating dinner and drinking Dead Horse.
We woke up pretty early on Tuesday, poorly re-packed the car and made our way into town to rent a couple bikes for the day. Mike and Bill used the Rockhoppers, while Charli and I opted for a Kona Dawg and Rocky Mountain Element respectively. Apparently insurance is not available for mountain bike rentals. [foreshadowing]
The drive to Bartlett Wash took a good half hour, but we were on our bikes around 10 am, plenty of time before the sun got too hot. Not really knowing where we were going, we followed a variety of markers, pedal scrapes, and tire marks to the top of the Toilet Bowl. We spent the next three hours cruising around on the slickrock.
It got up to 100 degrees before we decided it was time to get the dogs back to the car. On the way back, I found a good sized ledge to jump. Not having a great amount of biking experience, I decided to drop a seven foot ledge onto a flat landing. The takeoff was good. My landing would have been successful had the landing not been flat. I landed directly on the front tire, bending the rim and blowing out the bike tube. I walked away unscathed and a new rim set me back only $50. Sucks, but it makes for a good story.
Check out some slickrock riding video (me jumping a more manageable rock):
Riding the Slickrock from fatbearfehr on Vimeo.
[...] Go to the author’s original blog: Moab Bike Trip / Mountain Biking Day #10 [...]
You will try a jump, with a bike, landing on flat ground, in the desert, on rock, but wont attempt to do a backflip on your skis, in snow, and wearing extra clothing/padding? WTF?
(cough)pussy(cough)
Thanks for writing this.
Thanks for writing this.