It’s all over…

The generously proportioned female has sung. I finished up yesterday at bicycle mechanics school and received my certificate. I believe we also get a grading in the mail in a couple of weeks time.

This week hasn’t been all that interesting as far as weblog entries go – it’s been full on at school with loads of homework to do at night. I did get out for a ride on Monday night with Mike, one of the guys staying at the same motel.

Ride 18: Buckhorn – Captain Jacks.
This is an up and down trail to the Southwest of Colorado Springs and has views right back across the city and on over the plains. The beginning is riding up dirt road which goes through two tunnels which are carved through rock with very little finishing done to them. It’s a gradual climb the whole way and then you turn onto singletrack which again ascends and ascends and ascends… Mike found it a little tough as he’s a downhiller and was riding an ancient Stumpjumper hardtail which probably weighed more than my full-suspension rig. At the top the views were amazing and then the downhill was full-on. It is a trail used by motorbikes and it was a gravel/scree base – and very chewed up. It was quite an achievement to get down (for me) and not come off as every corner threatened as you ‘slid’ through it. It was about 12km’s but good enough to get a sweat up on a Monday evening.

The rest of the week about the only other thing I did was go for a beer on Wednesday night with Mike as we were both sick of homework.

Today I head up to Denver in my Dodge Magnum which I picked up from the airport last night. It’s a premium vehicle apparently as they didn’t have the basic car I ordered. I’m going to drive up via the scenic route and have a 4 o’clock flight from Denver to LAX, whereupon I get the last flight out with Air NZ…

Adios.

Historic Colorado City

It’s hosing with rain here and the thunder and lightening is pretty full-on. I’m currently in a pub in “historic Colorado City” which is basically a suburb of Colorado Springs. I’ve spent most of the day outside a café/bakery slowly working through my school homework and doing the associated questions I have to turn in on Monday but now the rain has driven me inside. It’s quite funny how the locals act when it starts raining. It’s obviously such a rare occurrence for them. Colorado City is not a bad town but like a lot of towns here there’s not the retail presence that you would see in a main street in New Zealand but rather the odd knick-knack store etc indispersed with food and beverage outlets like the pub I’m currently in. Everything else is in a mall by all accounts. It would be a shame to see this happen in New Zealand especially the small, independent stores that have been wiped out.

The other thing that got to me today was the sheer number of noisy motorcycles – Harley Davidsons and their ilk. Continually roaring up and down the main street, destroying any suggestion of peacefulness. Probably only 5% were wearing helmets too. Interesting concept. These days I wouldn’t consider bicycling without a helmet and yet there are also plenty of cyclists without them as well.

Speaking of cyclists there appears to be quite a large population of cyclists here and by an account in the paper today this is getting larger by the month as petrol prices increase. Be a good time to own a bicycle shop I’d say. Especially one that had a good range of commuter style bicycles stocked; a niche that typically gets overlooked. I visited a fantastic bicycle store yesterday in northern Colorado Springs and spent probably half an hour with the owner chatting about its setup and running. She’d initially selected its location based upon the fact that there was an existing cycle track right beside it and it was there that she needed to go to the toilet when riding the track out of town. Consequently her shop has great restrooms. She also has the obvious shower etc for staff but also a washer and dryer so they can do their laundry during the day if they get wet etc on the way in, in the morning. They have 5 full-time mechanics and 3 part timers. It was a huge place but she says it’s only mid-sized by US standards.

I rode up to Criterium via town where a gathering for bicycle week was going on. Most impressive was the guys on the trials bikes – no seats! They also had a bike mechanics race where they had to reassemble a bike that was in bits and then ride it around a course. It was run and supervised by one of the instructors at our course. Riding home I went via Garden of the Gods, which is a city park filled with huge red rock formations that people try to climb. Not quite as impressive as Arches National Park in Moab but not bad all the same.

One thing about the rain – it has chased away all those damn motorcyclists.

My First Wheel…

I’m about to begin my fourth day at bike mechanics school and I’m part way through building my first wheel. Bike mechanics school, so far, has been fantastic and I’m learning stuff that “I didn’t know that I didn’t know” – if you know what I mean. The days have been pretty full-on with combinations of lectures, demo’s and hands on labs. Then there’s homework at night!

Last night though we managed to have a night off homework and a few of us went into Manitou Springs to a presentation by one of our instructors on mountain biking trips she runs in Bhutan. It’s a very similar thing to what Suze & Doug run. The photos she was displaying were amazing. It sounds kinda like a trip of a lifetime thing – very expensive because of Bhutan’s tourist tax. The presentation was held at a mountain outfitters store – which just happened to also have a license to serve beer. It was quite a concept to be browsing raingear and tramping boots with a beer in hand. I like it!

Other than this I don’t really have much time to do much else. I’ve been for a couple of quick rides just to get some fresh air but nothing too serious. Hopefully this weekend I’ll make a bit more use of training at 6’000 ft.

And so that concludes…

Yes, that concludes the 2 weeks mountain biking section of my holiday… We drove back to St. George to Mark Erickson’s place where he had kindly offered to allow us to wash our bikes down, and pack them up. This took a while in the hot sun but it was great to have good facilities to do this at (rather than a motel room).

Arriving in Las Vegas we first dropped Vicki off at a hospital to see if they were going to be able to do any more for her wrist – it still hadn’t been seen by an orthopaedic surgeon and still probably needed to be plastered. Neil and I drove to our hotel – the Stratosphere. This was at the “top end” of the strip and kinda borderline with the “old” Las Vegas but our room on the 18 floor was ok and the view out over the desert was pretty good. Checking into the hotel was quite an experience – you had to walk through part of the gaming floor. There was noise and people everywhere playing pokies.

After picking up Vicki (still nothing achieved – our health system doesn’t suck quite as much as the US one) we freshening up and headed out down the strip. First stop was a “all you can eat” buffet for $10.99 at the Sahara as Neil and I were starving. Neil wanted to know where all the beautiful people were… they certainly don’t hang out at the $10.99 buffet!! But it did fill a gap quickly. Further down the strip we went into another casino to have a look around and try to get a drink. This was harder than it looked. Unless you were sitting playing a game of some kind the drink waiters didn’t want to know you. We eventually found a bar where we all started off with a very strong Margarita.

I don’t remember all the names of the casinos we visited but the countries they were trying to represent. We went to Venice, Rome, Paris… all very funny, ostentatious… It was kinda odd really as I didn’t really like the place due to the outrageousness of it all but at the same time it was also entertaining. The Bellagio was putting on a massive water fountain display to music as we walked by and others all had something on to try and draw punters in.

The most entertaining moment of the evening though was Neil playing his first poker machine. I suspect that Neil and I have the same view on gambling and I certainly wasn’t that bothered about putting money down the drain into a pokie machine. Neil put in $5 and proceeded to push buttons at random. The credits slowly ticked down, and down and then all of a sudden he won 100 credits… he immediately cashed out… a whole $17!! Vicki and I fell about laughing… it was very funny… but it paid for another round of drinks.

Saturday 17th
We were up early, checked out of the hotel, and headed out to the airport. Neil and Vicki were heading in the hire car down to Phoenix while I was catching a plane to Denver. I had a bit of luck checking in. I was expecting to pay $50 to get my bike on but the lady asked if it was a table and I just nodded… the padded bike bag has got more valuable.

Denver airport is massive! It’s obviously a major hub for central US and it’s plonked in the middle of the plains well out from the city. Being in snow country they even have a special luggage conveyor for skis and snowboards. Getting to the hire car I was allowed to choose what car I wanted and ended up with a Chrysler PT Cruiser. It was perfect in that the rear seats folded down and then the boot was big enough to stuff in the bike bag without ended stuffing…

I’m now staying in Manitou Springs, Colorado for the next two weeks in a cheap motel while I attend the Barnetts Bicycle Institute. It’s perfect in that it has cooking facilities etc as I couldn’t envision myself eating out for breakfast, lunch and dinner for two weeks. It’s also very quiet which appears unusual for hotels/motels here as they are normally positioned as close to the busiest road as they can. The only downfall is that the bed is the lumpiest I’ve ever slept on.

Well it’s Tuesday morning here and as I have to be at school in half an hour so I’d better leave any more till later.

Redefining Mountain Biking

We arrived in Salt Lake City and had to arrange a hotel as this was the first night we didn’t have anything booked. We also tried to find Vicki a orthopaedic surgeon to have a look at her wrist but only managed to find an assistant at that time of day. She was very helpful however and restrapped Vicki’s arm to make it more comfortable for her. All feeling a bit jaded we grabbed some takeaway Thai and sat in the room watching TV. It was the best Thai I’ve had in a long while.

Wednesday 14th
We decided to take a day off from riding and play the tourists. We drove into the city centre and wandered over to Temple Square. This is 35 acres in the middle of Salt Lake City that is the headquarters for the Mormons. It has a pretty impressive looking temple in the middle that we were keen to take a closer look at. We were pounced on the moment we walked in the gates and offered a free tour. Fair enough we thought. First up we got a bit of history about it all but when talk shifted to us being good Christians and going to church etc I began to feel rather uncomfortable about this “free” tour and bailed, with Vicki and Neil close to my heels. From what we gathered general public are not allowed inside the temple to look about so we made do with wandered about on the outside.

The city itself has a very weird feeling about it like some tourists turned up and were wandering about wondering where everyone went. We tried getting some lunch in a nearby mall and the foodcourt which was obviously once bustling had only two food stalls left. Of the rest of the shops there was one or two dotted about open but the rest had closed down. Obviously fallen to the rise in suburban malls as further out we found pretty good shops.

We decided to drive out to the “Great Salt Lake” and take a look. This is apparently one of the most saltiest bodies of water on earth. There once was a massive pier built on the edge with amusements and a rollercoaster etc but it burnt down twice and now it’s just a rundown aircraft hanger with a couple of minarets tacked on top in which they hold dance parties.

Heading on we drove up into the mountains and did a loop around Mt. Timpanogos to get to Provo where we were staying for the night. The views were pretty amazing and we stopped in at Sundance ski resort where they were holding mountain bike races that evening. For $10 you could spend the day getting a lift to the top and coming down on your bike. Wednesday evening we went out looking for a steak restaurant and ended up at a Brazilian place that served up portions of barbequed meat off skewers. Neil had ‘happy birthday’ sung to him in Portuguese.

Thursday 15th

Ride 15: American Fork Canyon – Tibble Fork Trail etc.
We’d managed to arrange to hook up with Dug, a local, to show us about the Ridge 157 trail network at 9:30. The hills look huge so when he shows up with a singlespeed with a girls basket zip-tied to the front one can’t help but feel intimidated.

It was a most enjoyable time up in this trail network and we can’t help but think that it would be a pretty good place to live nearby. But this is we refine the term “mountain biking”. Neil and I discussed afterwards the trail we had ridden and decided that while we thoroughly enjoyed it, it would have killed 80% of the riders who currently venture out to Woodhill. This was “riding mountains on bikes” rather than “riding dirt on mountain bikes” and these days at Woodhill I push myself faster and faster to feel that burning sensation – here you couldn’t help but get it by just riding. We ascended 750m to an altitude of 2500 metres and across a saddle before heading down a fantastic singletrack that is Tibble Fork Trail.

Now while I was being fairly careful we were still barrelling down these trails at a pretty good speed and going down a tricky rock section Dug catches his front wheel in a rut and somersaults over the handlebars and nails himself on the head, shoulder, and back. I was right behind him and my first thought was that I hoped he was ok. The second was “damn! wish I had a photo/video of that!” – which isn’t very nice when someone you barely know is writhing on the ground in pain. But it was rather spectacular. The third thought was that this isn’t supposed to happen to Dug, it’s supposed to happen to those he takes out mountain biking. But we do make it back to the car and Dug takes off – hopefully he’s ok. And as for the trail – it didn’t suck (the American equivalent of the Kiwi understatement of “not bad”)

We take off back to the hotel and while we’d tried to arrange a late checkout we arrived back to find all our stuff outside in the hallway and Vicki fending off the cleaning staff to allow us a quick shower. We were pushing the boundaries a little.

Driving south for a few hours we arrive at Brian Head which is a ski resort just about to open for it’s summer season of mountain biking, hiking etc. It’s pretty high up and consequently freezing outside. We’d like to go for a walk but I simply don’t have the clothes to be outside in these temps. On the weather channel we see that the nights low will be below freezing.

Friday 16th
There’s no inclination to be out early this morning. We have the plan to ride a long downhill ride with Vicki picking us up at the end. With it being so cold though we don’t actually start riding till 10:00am

Ride 16: Bunker Creek
It’s freezing! The car temperature gauge says 5° but we’ve come to realise that it’s about 3° out and adding windchill I’d estimate the “real feel” to be near zero. I put on another icebreaker top before setting off and there’s no mucking about as we kick into a climb. The elevation tops out at 3470m and there are patches of snow still lying about. It’s a beautiful bit of singletrack that wanders across alpine meadows and aspen forest before splitting into “easy” and “difficult” sections. We take the difficult one and don’t really find it that technical but nearing the bottom I come around a corner to find a fallen tree blocking the track and I can’t brake in time before hitting it. The result is a handlebar in the crotch and a gash in the shin which spills a bit of claret. Nothing major though but it makes me slow down a bit. The bottom section turns into rollercoaster doubletrack before we hit the general store at Panguitch Lake where Vicki is waiting for us.

So now it’s back to St. George to wash and pack up the bikes and then on to Las Vegas – to pay some “stupid man’s tax”.

2 snakes, 2 snakebites…

Sunday night we head out to the Arches National Park again. While we miss the sun setting we see the most spectacular moonrise. The moon is full and the pictures I manage to take in the dark with the little Canon IXUS are very impressive considering the camera.

Monday 12th
Neil and I got up early and after dropping Simon off to catch the shuttle to Salt Lake City we headed out to do the Sovereign Singletrack. This trail was out North of town a way and there was only one other vehicle in the car park at 7:30am.

Ride 12: Sovereign Singletrack
This started off with dusty doubletrack turning into gravel singletrack, slowly climbing up onto slickrock and then across fingers of tricky technical sections. It really had a bit of everything. We were doing some of this stuff when all of a sudden there was this hissing noise and Neil took off. I was falling about laughing as he’d got a snakebite puncture and actually thought it was a snake.

Later on in the ride in separate occasions we actually come across 2 snakes sunning themselves on the rock trail – Neil gets up real close to take a photo with my camera. On the way back Neil gets another snakebite flat – he’s not having much luck with the rear tire. Back at the car we decide that it was a pretty good trail with a bit of everything but the singletrack we climbed didn’t turn out to be quite as flowing as we’d hoped on the way back down.

Getting back to the hotel we checked out, got a coffee in down at our favourite café Mondo, before heading for Fruita. Café Mondo has stickers on the door proclaiming “Friends don’t let friends drink Starbucks” and “Coffee – Still legal in Utah”. Fruita is just over the state line in Colorado and is a bit of a one horse town apart from one of the best bike shops I’ve seen so far. Over The Edge Sports had all sorts of exotic frames hanging from the wall including the Salsa Juan Solo singlespeed I’ve previously admired as a perfect Woodhill bike.

Vicki isn’t thrilled to be confined to the hotel room but with her wrist there’s not much else she can do and there’s certainly not much in town to look at apart from the dinosaur museum which she gives a miss. Neil and I head out to do an afternoon ride north of Fruita in 37°. There’s quite wind blowing and it’s like standing in front of a hair dryer.

Ride 13: Chutes and Ladders.
This starts off with hard packed singletrack through grassland and stumpy juniper trees, and slowly climbs all the way until we come up next to the cliffs. After some serious short grunty climbs it winds around the fingers off the cliff with some serious technical switchbacks on very loose gravel. 2/3rds of the way it opens back out again to smooth flowing singletrack all the way back down the grasslands again to the carpark. It wasn’t very long but in this heat it’s about all we need and we head back to the hotel to grab a beer.

Monday night ends with a rack of ribs at the Fruita Rib City Grill – hey, you have to experience the culture while you’re here right?

Tuesday 13th
Ride 14: Horsethief Bench
Another early start to beat the heat we drive a couple of miles east to Loma and the start of the Kokopelli trail. Here we wind our way along the side of the Colorado river before dropping down onto a “bench” which is a plateau of grassland lower down beside the river. The trail follows the river before heading back up a dry creek bed and alongside the cliffs to loop back on itself. Again a bit of everything thrown in; Neil gets another snakebite puncture and is starting to get quite envious of my tubeless tires.

Checking out of the hotel we sit in the park behind and cook up a couple of coffees in my espresso maker – American coffee is so crap apart from the very occasional café with a machine and someone that knows how to drive it; it seems like Moab has a monopoly on them so far. Now we’re in for a four hour drive up to Salt Lake City.

Hailstorms! Scenery! Moab!

Not long after I finished writing the last entry (in the car on the way to Moab) we ran into a hailstorm! There is about 6 inches of hail on the road and the temperature plummets to 6°. This is quite a change from the 47° we struck two days ago. As we move on the scenery gets more and more spectacular. Each corner we turn there are exclamations of wonderment.

With it raining the rest of the way we finally reach Moab at 6:00pm – a six hour drive. Mark had warned us that the scenic route was an extra two hours but after doing it we were glad we did. We arrived at the Apache Motel with it bucketing down and we got soaked just getting from the car to checkin.

The motel is certainly nothing flash but we’re only sleeping here right? The lack of wireless internet is a bit of a downer after all the other hotels but wandering down to town we find so many open wireless access points that it isn’t a problem.

Tonight we experience Utah’s drinking laws by having to join the pub as a members to be able to purchase beer. This involves us paying $4 for “membership” and getting a $4 voucher for food. Weird… but then the membership runs for 3 weeks and we get to eat wood fired pizza (as much as you can eat!)

Friday 9th
This is our rest day and while I’m supposed to be having a sleep-in I end up wandering down to Main St. to grab an espresso at 6:30am. Wandering further up the road I find all the bike shops and people starting to get shuttles out of town to start their morning’s rides.

Moab is certainly a tourist town and there are more than quite a few stores selling the obligatory tee-shirts, hats and coffee mugs etc. We grab some breakfast at the Jailhouse Café, and spend the morning relaxing, getting some washing done and generally hanging out.

Saturday 10th
We ride downtown and get on the shuttle at 7:00am to get up to the Kokopelli/Porcupine Rim Trail.

Ride 10: Kokopelli / Porcupine Rim Trail
The shuttle van drops us off high in the foothills of the La Sal Mountains and we don’t hang around for long as it’s pretty chilly up there. Cruising down to the rim of the cliff overlooking a massive valley the ride is pretty much all downhill. There are some serious rocky sections with dropoffs etc that has Vicki nervous but after a while she starts to get into it. We pass the top of the climb that is the beginning of Porcupine Rim and get on a couple of miles when Vicki wings a tree and in falling over puts out her hand and factures a bone in her wrist. Bugger!
Neil and I do our best to administer strapping, a sling and a couple of aspirins before we head back along the trail to try and get out along the road. Neil rides ahead to try and find some assistance and I take Vicki’s and my bike while Vicki walks. It’s a really rocky trail and its tough going.

Several miles down a young lad comes running up – Neil has sent him in to give us a hand with Vicki’s bike. He is from Florida and quite funny to chat to. He asks us where New Zealand is and is it by England? After another couple of miles Neil arrives in a 4x4 with a very helpful chap who has driven in on the trail. We get Vicki and the young lad in the 4x4 and Neil and I nail it down this rocky trail back to the road. The 4x4 arrives after a while and we head down to where the driver is camping with his wife as he has offered to drive Vicki into town.

On arriving at the campsite though the chaps’ wife is going off her head! She’s howling and shouting at him “how long have you been cheating on me?”… Neil reckons she was fine when they first left. Very, very weird. The guy is obvious pretty anxious and in trying to work out what to do gives Neil the keys to his vehicle and tells him to take Vicki to the hospital and I ride back down the road to town to get our SUV. Neil and I get back in the respective vehicles at the same time which I was pretty happy about but the wife has calmed down and apologises. We still get out of there pretty quick. The guys himself was absolutely stoked to have been able to give assistance and was obviously having a ball driving his 4x4 up the rocky track to rescue a lady…

We drive back to the hospital where Vicki is waiting; her arm is splinted up and in a sling… bugger!

We spend the afternoon hanging out and the local café and enjoy their free wireless access before heading to grab a takeaway dinner and then on out to the Arches National Park. The sun is heading down and we catch some amazing views of the rock formations and the sun setting. It is truly stunning. (Check out the photos)

Sunday 11th
Ride 11: Slickrock
Getting up early Neil, Simon and I head for to ride the infamous Slickrock trail. We kick into the ride at 7:10am and it’s already fairly warm out there. Slickrock trail is unlike the other slickrock trails we’ve done in that it is all totally on rock. It’s very much a up, down, up, down, up… The ups are a huge grunt effort and the downs are off the back of the seat. 2 miles in the loop begins and Simon decides that it’s going to kill him to complete the whole thing as he’s pretty puffed already. Neil and I carry on around the loop and manage to complete the ride in 2 hours.

We decide afterwards that it’s one of those trails you do because its character building not because its fun. I wouldn’t bother doing it again but glad I’ve done it to find out what its all about. Gooseberry Mesa had sections that were more technical but it also had some real nice flowing sections of single track that overall made it far more enjoyable.

Night Riding, Little Creek & Grand Canyon

Ride 6: J.E.M. Trail (again but at 10:30pm at night)

We drove over to Mark’s place and spent time fixing his very expensive lights to our helmets and bikes. We had two lights each; one on the handlebars with a very wide beam and then a helmet mounted HID on our helmets. These lights were amazing and we felt privileged to be using them. They were basically brand new.

Mark drove us out to J.E.M but tonight we started down the bottom so warmed up with a half hour climb. The downhill section was fantastic, fast and flowing like this morning but darkness added a different dimension. Riding along side the canyon in the second half was rather freaky… all you could see was blackness beside the trail. It was still pretty warm, even at 10:30 at night we had 37° but as the ride went on and we got nearer to the river we could feel things cool down. However I went through another 2 litres of water during this, bringing the days total to probably near 6 litres!! We didn’t get to bed until 1:30am.

Wednesday 7^th

Today we checked out of our hotel in St. George, packed up the car and headed out to meet up with Mark some 40 minutes drive away. We met in a service station rest area and left our car there. Mark then drove us through numerous dust tracks to the start of our first ride…

These next two rides couldn’t have been more contrasting. The first had sections of like riding on the moon. Smooth rolling rock and tricky technical climbs and descents on the slickrock. The second was through pine forest and very easy coasting singletrack which every now and again gave you the vista of one of the natural wonders on the world, the Grand Canyon. Simply breathtaking.

Ride 7: Little Creek Mountain

Ride 8: Rainbow Rim Grand Canyon

Finishing up at the Grand Canyon Mark drove us back to our car at Frodonia and we went on to spent the night at Panguitch. The pasta meal I had a Grandma Tina’s restaurant across the road from our hotel never tasted so good.

Thursday 8^th

A late start this morning with us driving over to meet Mark near Bryce Canyon. We jumped in with him and drove up into Bryce Canyon to play the tourist and look at the view up there. Simply spectacular with all the red columns of rock called “hoodoos”. With little minarets and columns it resembled an crumbling temple.

Ride 9: Thunder Mountain

Back up the road a little we drive off to the trailhead. The start of this trail is undulating singletrack of gravel before riding through more hoodoo columns and cliffs. This is a multi-use trail and we run into a horse trek 2/3’s of the way along. The horses really dig up the trail and the combination of that and the loose gravel make for some very sketchy riding in places.

The final part consists of a long flowing downhill which ensures that we all arrive in the carpark where Mark is waiting with big smiles. Here we pull the bikes apart and stack them in the car and bid our farewells to Mark, Ken and Tracey. Someone has the bright idea of leaving the bikebags with Mark considering that we have to come by his place to get back to Las Vegas next week and this gives us a little more room in the car.

Leaving the Bryce Canyon area we follow HW12 through Escalante and up to Bolder. Along the way we encounter some serious lightening and thunder storms with the hugest raindrops we’ve ever seen. Also this is a very scenic drive with massive areas of slickrock, canyons, cliffs, and columns. Everything about this place is big!

Riding Days 1 & 2

Monday 5th
Mark was very prompt at picking us up from our hotel right on 7am. The hotel just gets better and better with free wireless internet and free breakfast; a breakfast that is actually worthwhile that is.

Ride 1: Bearclaw Poppy - Full Trail Description
Mark drops us off at the top of this ride and it begins with a small uphill on a 4x4 track. After jumping a stile to prevent motorcycles the track begins proper with a nice downhill for a bit before our first challenge of the trip – the three fingers of death… This was kinda scary to begin with as we’re really not used to this kind of riding but by the end we’re having a blast. The braided runs of BMX style bumps ensure that all three of us have huge grins at the bottom where Mark is waiting for us. The icy cold Gatorade he has for us is also very welcome.

The ride temp is 26° and the heart seemed to be running a lot faster than normal. I’m blaming the altitude and heat but it will only get worse…

Ride 2: Church Rocks Loop – Full Trail Description
This is more of a challenging track with some climbing involved. With it being a loop Mark drops us off at the bottom and waits in the car for us. We really enjoyed the intro to riding the slickrock and also the views of the surrounding hills. By the end the temp is 34° and the Gatorade is even more welcome.

We stop for lunch and to drop Vicki’s bike down to the bike shop as it has problems with the rear brake sticking on. No amount of pushing the hydraulic pistons back in seem to alleviate the problem and I reckon that only bleeding them will solve the issue. This is exactly what the bike shop ends up doing.

Ride 3: Bearclaw Poppy again.
Mark has picked up a Canadian couple who will be joining us and we decide that Bearclaw Poppy was such a great warmup ride for us that we’ll do it again with Ken & Tracey. It’s really, really, warm this time around and the temp has reached 40°. The second time around the trail flows a lot easier with us and the end section Neil and I race on down to the car. It was serious fun… The Gatorade at the end is now essential!

We were supposed to go and do another ride but all decide that it’s really just too hot and we adjourn to the hotel pool (which is luke warm) to cool off a bit. Later on we check out Marks recommendation of Café Rio Mexican café. It turns out to be as good as he says. By 9:30 we’re all done for and make an early departure for bed.

Tuesday 6th
Mark picked us up this morning at 6:30 and we head over to our first ride of the day.

Ride 4: J.E.M Trail – Full Description
The top section of this really put a smile on our faces. It was real nice flowing single track but with a downwards bias it involved little effort for the reward. The second part is more up and down but brings us on to some amazing views of the Virgin River deep down in a canyon as we ride above it. Due to the time of day this is a lot cooler ride than our previous ones.

We then head over to Zion National Park where we drop Simon off as he going to do some walking up there and then head to the Gooseberry Mesa trailhead.

Ride 5: Gooseberry Mesa – Full Description
This is a completely different ride again with lots of technical slickrock to challenge us all the way. I’m amazed at what angles we can actually ride on this stuff. The views along the way are extreme and I’ve begun to run out of superlatives to describe it all. The photos will have to speak for themselves. Although this ride is at a lot higher elevation and therefore cooler both Neil and I are very surprised to find at the end that we are out of water. Over the two rides we’ve both drunk 3 litres from our Camelbaks, plus topped them up with another small bottle of water, plus two Gatorades each. I think this is possibly the most liquid I’ve ever drunk in a day and its only 1pm.

We head back down to pickup Simon and then its straight home to the hotel pool.

Tonight we’re looking at riding J.E.M again but at night with lights! Can’t wait.

LAX to St. George, UT

I'm sitting here in St. George at 3:30am. Wide awake. I reckon that this is as good a time as any to setup and start a blog of our trip.

We arrived at LAX on Sat at 12:30 and were last through customs. No hassles though and our bikes were waiting for us as well as all our bags. Neil found us at Auckland airport and was sitting a row in front of us on the plane so that was handy. Simon, his brother, was waiting for us at the exit of the terminal so we headed off on a shuttle to pick up the hire car.

The hire car, or massive great gas guzzling Dodge Durango SUV, just fitted in 3 bikes, 4 packs, daypacks etc and us four. First stop was to drop off Simon's snowboard at a left-luggage outfit and then we headed down to Redondo Beach to meet up with a mate of Nigel Furze, who we are going to leave a bike with on the way back,

The GPS driving navigation system on my HP iPaq PocketPC worked fantastically. There was one huge cloverleaf turnpike that we drove through on the way to Big Bear Lake that we all reckoned that there was no way we could have navigated without "Jenny", the posh English female voice from the GPS telling us where to go.

After leaving the outskirts of LA we wound our way up the San Bernandino mountains to Big Bear Lake. The elevation increase was massive - 7000 ft at the top - and the view we could only imagine as being fantastic apart from it was obscured completely by smog. Big Bear Lake, however, was stunning as we arrived around 6pm. We immediately stopped and took photos before heading on and checking in to our hotel for the first night.

Vicki and I stayed at The Block; supposedly a “snowboarder” hotel, that came equipped with 2 king beds, a massive 150” TV, playstation, ipod dock etc. etc. However by the time we’d sorted things out, grabbed a steak for dinner, all we wanted to do was sleep…

Sunday morning we were awoken by the sound of Harley’s being revved. We’d chosen the same weekend to be in Big Bear as a motorcycle convention but at least they didn’t keep us awake during the night. After a breakfast of pancakes we drove off heading for Nevada.

The scenery changed pretty quick as soon as we rolled down the other side the San Bernardino mountains and the hazy view of desert went on as far as the eye could see. First stop of the day was to grab some lunch at a highway services that was filled with outlet stores. The heat that greeted us was immense. 42°!! I had to take a photo of this displayed on the car temperature gauge but later on, on the outskirts on Las Vegas it hit 47°!!

Speaking of Las Vegas we did a drive by down the strip… While Vicki had been here before, us lads were wowed the ostentatiousness of it all. The photos kinda say it all.

We reached St. George at about 6pm and headed straight for the pool – it was lukewarm but still refreshing as the temperature was still sitting around 40°. After grabbing a quick dinner Neil and I headed over to Mark of Mountain Bike Buddies to assemble our bikes in his garage. He was a very friendly and helpful chap and has managed to suggest a pretty good sounding couple of days ahead for us.

We’re heading out to attempt to beat the heat at 7am so I might attempt trying to catch another couple of hours of sleep.