Bridge of the Gods - 100.4 miles!

I had to ride around the block to officially bump myself over 100
miles, so I'm counting every extra 10th of a mile!

Abby and I did the Bridge of the Gods ride today-which is basically
north across the river to WA, east out until you get almost to
Stevenson, across the Columbia on the bridge and into Casacade Locks,
OR, and then back west along the historic Columbia Hwy and into
Portland.

It was a gorgeous day - the temp was about 58. I had never been out
on the historic hwy before, and it was really beautiful! Overall a
pretty flat ride - with one climb around mile 60 up to a point where
you get a fantastic view of the gorge.

I am trying to get better about knowing how many calories I need to
take in on rides (in general I would guess I probably have a tendency
to overeat) - I read somewhere that for long races/rides (like 6 hrs
plus) a good rule of thumb is about 2 calories per pound of your body
weight per hour. So for me this would be about 300-320 calories per
hour. We were riding for about 6.5 hours-which would mean I should
have eaten ~1900 calories. I kept track of what I ate over the course
of this ride (which I did not pre 'plan'- just ate as I went. Took
some snacks, plus stopped at a gas station when I felt hungry):

Liquids (not counting H20):
24 oz. Bottle of carbo rocket (110 cal)
20 oz. Flat coke (240 cal)

Solid food
4 shot blocks (120 cal)
1 power bar (240 cal)
1 Luna bar (190 cal)
1 almond snickers bar (230 cal)
1 bag smokehouse almonds (340 cal)
2 servings gel (180 cal)

If my quick math is correct this was about 1970 calories - and I
rolled into the house just starting to feel hungry - so I'm thinking
this was just about perfect! I've decided I really like smokehouse
almonds on long rides - they have an obscene amount of salt on them
that tastes fabulous mid-way through a long ride. Coke in my water
bottle the second half of my ride is my other new favorite thing. I
like the caffeine.

Happy Easter! Plus pics from our last two rides

Hello! Our fabulous trip is coming to an end, and we're wrapping up a
great Easter Sunday here in Colorado with Sheri and Daphne. We had a
delicious breakfast at Seasons in Durango (I had an amazing grilled
cheese with pesto, tomato, mozzarella, chevre, portabellas and
prosciutto. Yum!) - followed by an afternoon of puttering and watching
'The Dark Crystal' - a Jim Henson classic! It was snowing here - so a
slow afternoon was perfect.

On Friday morning we rolled out of the Fruita area to head back to
Moab. We spent the afternoon riding the Slickrock trail, and after
banging myself up on Thursday I took it slow. We rode this trail 1.5
years ago when we came through for Christmas 2009, and it was fun to
get on it again - both Thor and I thought it was easier than we
remembered, although there are still a few climbs that are so steep we
can't climb them!

Saturday a.m. we got up early and drove from Moab into Cortez to ride
at Phil's World with Fred again. Those trails are great! Nice and
rolling single track - Thor and I are both jealous that Fred gets to
ride them on a regular basis!

Since it was our last ride Thor and I swapped pedals so I could try
out his bike (an Ibis Mojo HD). His frame is a little large for me,
but I could still tell a huge difference in the frame geometry -the
slacked out head tube angle rolls off obstacles much more easily. The
HD is soooo much fun - it just WANTS to catch air! I couldn't believe
how much more comfortable I was jumping on his bike due to a) how
easily the bike takes off, b) how stable it is in the landings. (and
just to keep things in perspective, by 'jumping' I'm talking about 2
ft of air MAX. Nothing crazy). Anyhow - now of course I'm lusting
after a 6.5" travel all-mountain bike. Sigh...a girl can dream,
right? :)

Kokopelli Trails

Well it's a good thing we left the vote out yesterday - because Fruita redeemed itself with the Kokopelli trails today - they were great! Super fun, rolling singletrack -it was fantastic! The only bummer was that I managed to endo on about a 2" rock and smack my face in the ground. Hmph. AND i wacked my hip and hit my femoral nerve, so my whole right quad is numb. It could have been MUCH worse though, so overall I feel lucky that I was able to ride away.

We started out the morning nice and easy reading at camp before meeting Tony (the guy we met from pdx earlier in the week) to ride. We had a blast riding with him, and clocked close to 30 miles with him - a solid day!

Grand Junction Trails

Today we rode at the grand junction trails -which I think are technically still part of the Fruita trail system. We rode Tanaguache up to Pre-nup, down to Holy Cross (which was techy and fun), and then back up to do Eagle's Wing (definitely the best trail of the day-nice views). We did a couple other minor loops, but I can't remember the names right now.

So far Thor and I are a tad unimpressed with the Fruita trails. They would be GREAT to have in our backyard - don't get me wrong - we'd be stoked to have access to trails like these in Portland to ride on a daily basis, but in terms of them being 'destination' mtn. bike trails...well...our vote is still out! We have one more day of riding in Fruita at the Kokopelli trails tomorrow, and we'll see what we think after that.

On the food front Fruita has Moab beat (at least in terms of dinner!) We ate at the Hot Tomato tonight (www.hottomatocafe.com)-and their pizza was really good! We're already contemplating a second trip tomorrow night. (don't worry though - Double Mountain still has them beat).

Yesterday we rode in Moab again and did Amassaback to Pothole Arch, and then came down Rockstacker and Jacksons. It was beautiful! Definitely the most scenic riding we've done so far this trip. It was also easily the most technical riding we've had all trip! I had to walk quite a few features, but Thor did great and rode some of the hardest lines he has ever tried! It was fun to watch. We would definitely come back and do this loop again.

More Porcupine Rim

Porcupine Rim

We just finished riding Porcupine Rim, and we had a blast! It's
basically a little over 20 miles (if you do both upper and lower) of
downhill fun! A good blend of flowy trail and technical slick rock/
chunk. Very fun!

Thor has more pics on his phone, but in these you'll get a sense of
the beautiful country we are riding in (and a shot of Thor fixing his
chain - we had 3 broken chains today!)

Fruita

We got up early this morning and rolled up hwy 128 along the Colorado River to head north, then east to Fruita. The drive was beautiful - it was great to see the morning sun rise along the canyons.

We rode the BookCliffs area of Fruita, and we had fun - although there were a TON of people. More people on mtn. Bikes than we have ever seen. Most of them were families too, which was neat.

We ran into a nice couple from Portland - small world.
The trails we rode were: prime cut (about 4-5 times), joes ridge, chutes & ladders, kessel run, and zippity do dah. Zippity do dah was by far our favorite - those are what the pictures are of.
We were quite tired by the time we wrapped up our riding, and ready for a well earned Tecaté!

Moab

After a delicious breakfast of elk chorizo and egg breakfast burritos
with Daphne we rolled out in 'Petunia' for Moab. Petunia is a
passenger van that Sheri acquired last year when the state of AZ
decided to reduce their fleet size. Sheri and her boyfriend, jack,
have been tricking out the van for camping and it's awesome! There is
a platform bed in it-and jack developed this neat shelf system for
storing all sorts of bits & pieces.

Anyhow. We rolled into Moab around noon, and after quick stops at
Uranium and Poison Spider Cycles we were ready to hit the trails. We
rode the sovereign single track system north of town, and it was
fantastic. Nice and techy - with plenty of ledges to ride up and down
- and slick rock! We got about a 4.5 hour ride in before calling it a
day and heading back to town for buffalo burgers and beers. Yum!

Mancos/Cortez

Thor spent the day building bikes - and Daphne and I tooled around
mancos and Cortez running errands (such as buying stan's fluid for the
wheels).

We ate lunch in Cortez at this amazing cafe that grows all it's own
food. It's called The Farm. If you're ever on a SW roadtrip and find
yourself near Cortez I highly recommend stopping in ( www.sevenmeadowsfarm.com
)

We were able to sneak out on a short afternoon ride at Phil's Trails
with Thor's uncle Fred. We had a blast - and the trails were smooth
and fast. It was a good thing we did a mini test ride after building
the bikes up, because both of our suspensions need to get dialed in a
bit.

Thor Built Bikes

Thor spent all afternoon today building up our bikes. They started out
in two suitcases, and ended up fully built out! Riding here we come!

Sun!!!!!!!!!

We left Portland and the depressing, april rain we've been having.  Mom came and picked us up at work and we treated her to a cup of coava coffee on the way to the airport (great new coffee we recently discovered). 

Despite almost missing our connecting flight in Denver (as we were deboarding our Portland flight we heard an announcement that our Durango flight was going to take off 25 minutes EARLY!!) -we arrived in Durango early to clear skies. All our baggage (and bikes!) made the flight too.  Gorgeous, clear evening skies at the Durango airport.