Pix from Moab

Just a few pictures from the trip so far. All from southern Utah/Moab area. The big group shot (of people we didn't know) is taken at the lookout on top of Porcupine Rim. That's also where the dude is posing with his bike on the edge of the cliff. The picture of me is taken at the beginning of Bartlett's wash. Us standing around the back of Sarge's truck was taken when we finished riding at Bartlett's wash. Stay tuned for more. Good work Chris and Scott for keeping the WNR flame burning in my absence.

Lights, Camera, Ride!

As the daylight hours have become increasingly shorter, we are relegated to donning the headlights for our Wednesday NIGHT rides. With that in mind, Scott & Chris packed the camera to try to catch a few shots. The night was cool but beautiful, low 40's and clearing skies made for a beautiful sunset (which we didn't catch adequately in time to do it photographic justice.) We rode the typical route at Boyne, from the meadow to the South peak, across to the North peak & onto the bridges where we trialed & errored but captured a couple great shots of the bridge at night. It looks a lot scarier in these photos than on the bike but that is half of the fun of night riding...the pace slows, the corners sharpen & the trail narrows with saplings jumping out of the shadows. The remainder of the ride was mildly eventful as the loggers have strayed from their previous trail avoidance causing some 'cross riding. All in all a great night ride, even a glimpse of a crescent moon through the trees followed by the yips of a coyote up Sarge's trail as we loaded out gear and unloaded a couple hopped refreshments. Still a couple of weeks before opening day to get some miles in...ride when you can...weather permitting.

Moab Rocks

We're just winding down from our funfilled, slickrock weekend with Sarge and Ginny Biggs. To say that the mountain biking in Moab is awesome would be an understatement of epic proportions. While it's certainly unnerving at first to be riding on solid rock for miles on end, one gets used to it very quickly. It is some of the most technical riding I've ever done, and consequently some of the slowest. But the views combined with the amazingly fun rolling nature of some of the trails more than make up for it. Day one: we didn't arrive until almost four o'clock due to a freak snowtorm in the rockies, so we just rode the practice loop at slickrock with Sarge and Ginny. 2.8 miles took 50 minutes. You do the math for the avg. speed. Day two: Did a car drop at the bottom of Porcupine Rim and drove Sarge's truck to the top. It's mostly down hill.....after the initial 3.2 miles which are all uphill...almost 1200 ft. After that it's mostly downhill with a few climbs. Many of the sections were so technical that even Sarge had to get off and walk. Needless to say, the other three of us were walking quite a few of the more narly sections. Overall, it was a hair over 20 miles. 2777 ft. of climbing and 4594 ft. descending. Just over five hours with the rest stops and picture taking factored in. Day three: we went to Bartlett's Wash. It's only five miles give or take, but it's like mother nature's bike park. There's no trail really. You just ride wherever you want on sweet, rolling slickrock out to where the wash ends at Hidden Canyon. Then you turn around and ride it back. One book described it as surfing on a bike, and I would have to say that's a fairly accurate description. I've got some sweet video footage of sarge ripping it up in a little canyon like he's on a skateboard in an empty pool. That shit was unreal. Today: we're heading back to the Slickrock trail before we hit the road. I shall report back from New Mexico later in the week.

New (to us anyway) North Country Trail Exploration

Chris and I (pete) rode some new sections of the north country trail last weekend. We started off at thumb lake rd. courtesy of a drop-off from Sarah. We followed the blue blazes all the way to the turn-off by Pumco. From there we took the bike path past the airport to Chris's house in Woodloft. Totals: 34.3 miles 8.1 mph avg. 4 hours 17 minutes. We were both under the impression that it would be a fairly easy ride once we got north of maxwell rd. However, that was the section we had never ridden before. To say that it was harder than we expected would be an understatement of epic proportions. It was almost all singletrack and hills the likes of which you don't see very often in this area. There was one climb in particular that took us almost fifteen minutes.....to walk up it. Yuck. There were plenty of hills that were simply to steep to ride. All in all though, it was a good day and one hell of a workout. Next year I think we're going to try and ride the nct to middle village road and then left to my house. That should put us well over the fifty mile mark and probably closer to sixty. Hopefully, we'll be able to round up a few volunteers to torture themselves with us.

team terpening fall color tour

chris, scott, and pete took in the fall colors with a good 30 mile mountain bike ride. weather was perfect, and the colors were just short of peaking.