Last week was the annual Moab Century ride. This time I brought a few friends with me, here are Sally, Kelly and Douglas suiting up before we take off.
We drove part of the course the night before so that Kelly and Sally would know what they were in for, I don't think it helped. Kelly said that she did not sleep well at all thinking about the "Big Nasty" climb. That's actually what they call the hill, take a look at this alluring piece of propaganda.
You are reading it correctly if it says " 3000 vertical feet in 7 miles."
In between the really steep parts I was able to grab this video without falling of my bike.
How did you like my heavy breathing? I will tell you now that it is over it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be but in the middle of that climb it was less than pleasant. It took almost 2.5 hours to go 27 miles.
The rest of the ride was an absolute joy. We saw where the forest fire was. We rode along the Colorado River corridor out past the Dewey Bridge before turning around and heading back to town. Total ride time for me was 6hrs 9 min. I will be looking for a sub 6 hrs next year.
I was struggling with my camera the entire day so most of my pictures did not work out but here are a few that did.
Rain coming in over Fisher Mesa.
The rest stop at the summit, looking into Castle Valley.
The cut in the side of the mountain is the Big Nasty winding it's way up the hill.
This ride is the most scenic ride ever. It even beats riding in Zion National Park. I would really like to find a shack in Castle Valley that is falling apart, buy it on the cheap and spend a few years fixing it up so that I can have a house there. There really is no place like Moab.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Nice pictures! I especially enjoyed the video!
Sallie
I was listening to talk radio the other day and the DJs were talking about cycling. The woman DJ had a really big problem that cyclists wear spandex to ride in. She said that she bikes all the time and never wears spandex and is just fine. Then she admitted that her husband bought her a really nice bike so she would ride with him that cost $400. I was thinking about you the whole time; just waiting for you to call in to their show...too bad you don't get NJ radio stations, huh?
Post a Comment