Monday. Lately, I love Mondays. Took a long time to get here, but if you aren’t working for long enough … you get here. I love them because the trails are not crowded, especially now that most folks are done with vacation, since they had to take the kids back to school.
Anyway, loved yesterday, although I had places hurt that have not hurt in a long time – hell, most of them still hurt today! I wondered why my ribs hurt on the right side – probably from all the bike lifting yesterday – we walked a BUNCH. Especially that big entry and exit at Horsethief. But it was fun!
Today was another fun day. Got up, and no rain! Ate breakfast and headed out to Fruita, out to the 18 Road trails. No, it’s not 18 trails on a road, although there are a bunch, that’s the name of the road. No, really! See?
Yup, the corner of 18 Road and N 3/10 Road. Now here is the kicker – that N 3/10 Road … does that mean North 3/10 Road? Probably not. Why do I say that? Because of this nearby intersection:
Yeah, 17-1/2 Road and K-3/4 Road. We were camped near B-1/2 Road. Gotta love it!
Anyway – we went to ride, met a nice guy who gave us a lot of good information on the local trails, verifying what we’d heard, so we rode three trails, one of them twice. You come out of the parking lot at the trailhead and go up Prime Cut – a fairly easy uphill-only trail – here’s the top of it:
From here, you can take PBR (Pumps, Bumps, and Rollers), or go back to 18 Road to catch more trails, or Chutes and Ladders. We’d heard about C&L – lots of hard climbs and tall tables (a flat area you drop off of) so that one was out. We were told PBR was the one to do first – it takes you back close to the trailhead, meeting with Prime Cut close to its start, so that’s what we did. The Bumps I had figured out, it’s a bumpy mountain bike trail. Ditto the Rollers, it just means the trail rolls up and down, little dips that give you enough oomph to coast to the top of the following climb – a lot of fun, especially because it takes so little effort – consider it payback for the climb at the beginning. But the pumps were new to me. These are little ramps along the trail that can help you catch air (jump), or can help you pick up speed. Not sure how that works, and I did not want to catch air, so all they did was slow me down and took some of the fun out of it. Meh.
Back close to the start, we took Prime Cut back up so we could take the connector to 18 Road from the intersection where we’d been. We had a plan! Another really good trail is Kessler Run, which starts at 18 Road and goes back close to the trailhead where we were parked, though of course, on the other side of 18 Road. WHAT. A. BLAST! Almost as fun as Upper Drain back at Bear Basin outside McCall, ID, though not quite. If I’d felt better, I’d have done it again! Yeah, my chest still hurt, and for some reason my right knee decided to really start hurting … then it quit hurting, but why chance it? We’d put in 12 miles, so it was a good day. And nothing could have beat Kessler Run.
Back in town, caught a photo of the Co-Op silo in Fruita:
Kind of gives you an indication that Fruita is all about mountain biking! Ok, and dinosaurs, there’s a dinosaur painted on the other side, to let you know they have a dinosaur museum.
That was it! All the riding we’ll do here this trip. We have GOT to come back. Next year’s trip is shaping up better and better! Tomorrow we go to Crested Butte, and no camping!