My friend, Kara, and I had been planning a Moab biking weekend for a while. She had never been there, so I wanted to maximize our ride time and show her all the popular routes. We settled on a weekend in late April and as luck would have it, we now have a few friends who live there. Karin and Max offered to host us and we reached out to a few other friends to check on their availability to ride.
It's about an 8-9 hour drive from Phoenix, but it's a fairly scenic drive. I worked a few hours in the morning, then we hit the road. The nice part about this drive is you get to go through Monument Valley.
Can't really argue, it applies to the entire Four Corners region.
Yeah!! Here we go, Kara doesn't yet know what Moab does to you as a rider. Photo by Kara.
We were laughing at all the people standing in the road for the Forrest Gump shot. It's a bit ridiculous.
Mexican Hat rock, always a cool thing to see. Geology is neat.
We rolled into Moab a bit after dark, but with just enough time to grab a bite to eat at Moab Brewery, as the kitchen was closing in 20 minutes. All fueled up we made it to Karin's place, but she was driving back from Colorado the following day, so we were quiet and tried not to disturb Max - who was planning to ride from home for a huge White Rim Lap, some 150+ miles. We have cool friends.
We reached out to some other local friends, Eszter had recently settled down with a house in Moab and another friend, Amanda was visiting. Andrew & Katie Strempke (Dispersed Bikepacking) don't live too far away and everyone was free for a ride around Navajo Rocks in the morning.
Max had taken off on his ride around 1a, but was back home by 6a due to numb hands & feet, it still gets quite cold in the mornings here. He was also game to join the group, might as well, he's warmed up now!!
We met at a fairly empty trailhead around 9a on a Friday. Looked to be a beautiful day. Let's ride!!
I kept up with Andrew's pace for a couple of miles, but was dropped on the longer slickrock climbs. Surprising no-one.
A rare stretch a super smooth slickrock, which is really fun when you can find it.
Katie, Amanda & Kara mashing up a steep grinder.
Amazing views at every turn. Dots on the landscape.
Pedaling dots.
I was really curious to see how the singlespeed hardtail was going to treat me over the weekend. So far, so good. Photo by Max.
Amanda & Katie on a smooth section.
What a crew!! Myself, Andrew, Kara, Katie, Eszter, Amanda & Max.
Rockstars!! Like, literally.
Andrew cruising down a wide open slope of slickrock.
Max!!
Eszter!!
Kara!!
Amanda!! A really nice surprise to ride with her again.
Katie!! Zoom!! and they were all gone. Time to catch up.
We neared the halfway point of the loop and Andrew's hands hadn't quite recovered from his impressive southbound AZT300 ride a week or so prior, so he and Katie opted to cut it short and get some shopping and chores done while in town. It was so great to see them and get a few quality miles in as well. If you are in need of bikepacking bags, look no further than Dispersed Bikepacking - field tested by the best!! Perhaps our schedules would align again before we headed back to the desert.
Follow the dots, they lead to cool places.
I really like this shot. Photo by Max.
Snack break with a view.
Navajo Rocks is a great way to get your Moab legs going.
Kara lining up a big, fast descent.
This outer loop is a riot.
Slightly awkward move here as the small step-up is angled and slippery, plus you have to navigate between boulders. No problem for Eszter.
Amanda glides through.
No problem for Kara.
Nice view of the La Sal Mtns. over the final miles.
Fun trail routing through here.
It's desert bloom season.
A rare wooden feature, Max took the opportunity to snap some cool pics:
Eszter!!
Me.
Amanda!!
Kara!!
We wrapped things up shortly thereafter and as we were heading out of the parking lot another friend came riding up...
Haha!! Lindsay Nohl was in town teaching a clinic. Rad.
We made our way to the food truck court in town for lunch. What a cool spot.
Subtle reminder about filtering water in the wild. There's uranium in them thar hills.
What a fun way to get things started. So great to see and ride with everyone and the weather was perfect. Kara was beginning to see what Moab was all about. After our lunch break, we still had plenty of daylight, so I thought this would be a good time to show her some of the local chunk. Capt. Ahab loop would be up next.
Kelly and I had planned to meet up for a Sunday ride a couple weeks ago. Little did I know I'd be coming off an incredibly difficult ride in Prescott the day prior. When we met at the trailhead, I asked her to take it easy on me since she knew these trails really well as they were her old stomping grounds. She mentioned something about doing a finisher on the ride, not sure what that meant.
We were staged off 7th St. at the North Mtn. Visitor's Center. Phoenix Mountain Preserve, PMP, is a sprawling urban playground of trails that see a lot of mountain bikers, hikers and equestrians. A true multi-use system and it's huge!! I sort of know my way around, but not all the side trails or hidden gems. I especially don't really know the area near where we started from.
The first few miles were on fun singletrack, some ups, some downs, but generally not a ton of loose rock PMP is notorious for. I was really liking the ride style over here.
Listening intently to Kelly tell me how little climbing we had...
Kelly recently bought a pair of those Meta sunglasses, so we tried getting some video footage. For a pair of sunglasses, it's not bad at all. Just a couple of amateurs acting goofy and apparently riding much slower than it felt!! Hahaha. I joke with people about why I don't have a GoPro: You'd just be disappointed. Plus, I don't have the time or desire to attempt to put something worth watching together. It really makes you appreciate those well orchestrated videos, especially the ones you want to watch again and again. Anyway, hope you enjoy these short clips.
Generally trending uphill on this rolling climb on one of the early trails.
Kelly drops her chain at the end...this would repeat at least 4 more times!! Get that bike fixed, girl!! Better yet, get a singlespeed!! Hehe.
My attempt at following Kelly on one of her favorite climbs. It was going well, until I couldn't keep pedaling!! Too steep for me. She did clean it.
Fun little ridgeline descent and short punchy climb that I almost made. I probably needed to be heckled more for motivation.
From the saddle, it starts smooth, then gets uber chunky with some gnarly switchbacks. Dropper post engaged!!
Fun, swoopy descent with a small water crossing!!
We were nearing the 10 mile mark of the ride, but wanted a bit more. Kelly's idea for a finisher was going up Shaw Butte. That's a climb I had never done in my 32 years of riding here. I had heard stories of it and never really had it high on my radar. My legs weren't feeling too bad after the previous days ride, but I also knew I'd probably be walking a fair bit of it. I said, let's go for it and I'll see how far up I can get.
Kelly than proceeded to tell me the bottom section is the hardest, but after that first tenth of a mile it levels out a bit and from there it's a cruise to the top. Doesn't sound horrible, even if I walk a bit at the bottom. This should be fun!!
There she goes!! While she couldn't shift into her granny gear, second low was good enough. Powah!!
There was a fair amount of hikers on the route, but that was of no issue, it's a road afterall. Kelly was right, the first bit was steep!! I didn't make it too far, in fact I was off and walking for the above photo.
Sure enough it leveled out and I was pedaling again. I rounded a bend and saw another heinously steep climb approaching...wait a second, did I just get roped in to this or what?? Kelly!!!! Haha. I could see her well up ahead, still pedaling. I passed a couple of hikers who were on their way down and asked them: Please tell me she was struggling a little bit. They said it looked like she was having a hard time and that made me smile. :) Hehe.
Once again it leveled off, but I could tell the upper portion was steep too. I was able to ride a little bit of that, but ended up pushing to the main turnaround point after Kelly rode back down to join me. She apologized for forgetting about the second kick up. I tell you, mountain bikers are terrible liars when it comes to remembering climbs!! I'm guilty of it too. We tend to remember the fun stuff more. Since it was my first time up there, we went all the way to the top, by the towers, heck of a view even on a breezy, dusty kinda day.
That's the look of: What did I just do?? Tell me again about the cruise to the top?? Photo by Kelly.
All smiles for the upcoming downhill!!
Shaw Butte summit.
A bit loose and chunky off the top.
This is where most people end their climb. Nice flat open spot.
Bombs away!!
The haze provided some interesting depth of field as Kelly flies down the road.
Finally, a video that actually feels like we were going fast!!
The Shaw Butte climb may not have been pretty on my end, but I'm glad we did it. Now I know what it's like, maybe I'll try again sometime, but with an easier cog or maybe even gears!! I have even more respect for a few of my friends who have climbed this on a regular basis, smashing it. Super impressive.
Thanks for the tour, Kelly. Those trails around 7th St. are fun and atypical for what I often envision riding at PMP to be like. Not much loose rock over there, it's mostly embedded and a bunch of the trails we rode were actually still singletrack.
