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”.
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”.
posted by Tim at 12:06 AM
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