Red Mountain

About twice a year I get myself psyched enough to ride the Red Mountain Trail. I never go with anyone else because I don't want to hear them complain like little girls the whole time. The trail is kinda rough, check out this first pic.

It's like riding up a flight of stairs with loose bowling balls on it. The bad part lasts for about 2 miles and it will put the hurt on you in a hurry. As soon as you are thru the worst of the climbs you get to the sand. David Hasselhoff and the Baywatch girls thinks that the sand up there is deep.

After the suffering has subsided you end up looking into Snow Canyon. The canyon literally starts at your feet and opens up in front of you.

The way that the white stone fades into the red sandstone is absolutely beautiful, I took this next picture to try and show the size of the thorn that I had to pull out of my rear tire . What you can see better is the interesting way the red sandstone left stripes on the white stone as it erodes away.

That thorn was a monster. You can see that I had to get out the pliers to pull it out. Thank goodness for tubeless tires and Stans miracle formula.

This shot is looking back towards Pine Valley Mountain from the other side of Snow Canyon.


Did I tell you that this trail is rough?



Up on top is a huge area with exposed capstone around the outside edge and a sandpit in the center. This is what the top of the Red Mountain looks like. On the left hand side of the picture, if you look really close, you can see the Black ridge and Bluff street right below.
Due to time constraints I did not have enough time to ride out to the lookout over Ivins/Tuacahn. Maybe next year. On my way back it actually started to snow, it didn't last and I made pretty good time. By the time I was done my hands and shoulders start to ache from all the maneuvering that is demanded by the terrain.

All in all it's a great ride........ don't ever ask me to take you.

Court and Cake

I had to attend traffic court today. I gently rolled thru a stop sign in Ivins about 3 weeks ago and was apprehended by Johnny Law. Ivins does not provide their own court system for traffic citations so I had to head over to the Washington County Courthouse to take care of the odious business.
The ticket reads that I must appear later than five days but no later than 14 days from the offense. I forgot all about it until today. As one who does not spend a lot of time around the Utah Justice system I always find it interesting what kind of degenerates you find there. There is the drug guy, the DUI guy, the Bail bondsman, the small claims court group, the kid who has his Mom with him, the lawyers and other human debris.
Most of the people are completely confused as to what they should be doing and where they need to go. I was in that category, Washington County residents should know that the government is not wasting any money on proper signage at the courthouse.
I thought to myself, "who knows the most about this process and can tell me what to do?" The answer.....26 year old drug guy. He has been there at least a half dozen times and knows all the ins and outs. He told me just where to go to handle things quickly. It turns out that unless you want to dispute your ticket you can just go strait to the cashier and pay up. In case you are wondering what a stop sign infraction with late fees will run you in the thriving metropolis of Ivins, $132.
My good deed for the day, showed an old man how to turn off his cell phone before going into the courtroom.

Next topic, my wife broke her pattern today and made Texas Sheet Cake. She did this because she is totally awesome and loves her man. She does not particularly enjoy cake the way I do so this was all for me. We called the Jackman's next door to ask if they would like to help us devour the delectable confection only to find out that Anne had made Picnic cake from my mom's recipe. Could I be so lucky, two cakes on one day. My karma circle must be very small, I help out Old Man Cellphone and two cakes show up. I wonder what I would get if I did something that actually took some effort.
Both cakes were completely delightful and right now at 8:51pm I am feeling a little queasy . I'm going to have to ride 50 miles tomorrow to pay for overindulging.

Moab revisited

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.

Oatmeal Cake

Many of you may not know that I love to frequent gas stations for lunch. I do work in the construction industry so I guess I fit the stereotype. I of course have my favorite stores that serve the perfect blend of diet Pepsi or cheese filled corn dogs and Little Nemo Cakes. I have even got Sarah to eat a Bahama Mama hot dog at Maverick, that was a big step for her.
So when I came across this little jem I had to buy it. Sorry about the photo quality I took it with my phone.


Grandma Bonnie's Oatmeal cake. G'ma Bonnie must make this stuff at her house and wrap each piece by hand. She even leaves the cakes in a little basket at the counter for that special homemade presentation.
My Mom used to make Oatmeal cake all the time when we were kids. She would take it to any outdoor function that we attended so we called it picnic cake. She had this cool old school metal pan with a sliding metal lid to keep it safe during transport. Mom's cake is better than Grandma Bonnie's and I wish I had some right now so Mom, when you read this please send recipe asap. Feel free to leave it in your comment so that all the faithful readers can partake of the oatmeal goodness.

What the.........

As the days grow shorter it is darker and darker in the mornings. Last week as I left at 5:15 to ride the infamous Utah Hill - it was very dark. I have a flashing red light on the back so no one hits me but no light on front. Ivins City and Kayenta have city ordinances against streetlights except on main roads in order to maintain the night sky so as I turned onto 400 west and headed north I might as well have been riding with my eyes closed. I was navigating by the stars and maybe should have slowed down a little because at 13.6 mph I hit this.





Someone had strategically left a large pile of gravel in the roadway. You can still see where my tire made contact.
I was flipped straight over, broke the fall with my face and ended up on my back completely confused.

I pulled myself together and figured out what I had hit, cleaned myself off and started riding again.
As I started to sweat I realized by the burning on the left side of my face that I may have left some of my dermis back at the gravel pile. It felt like I had been hit in the face with a burning track shoe.

I finished my ride and went to buy a light.




Stupid construction people.

Two'fer

If you think this looks like an ordinary bike log you would be wrong.


This time I have two guest stars for your enjoyment. The first is the famous Anthony Vance. He and Lynette stopped by on their way home from Texas by way of Las Vegas. No they are not geographically challenged or lost, they had the time and the means to visit the people most important to them....................the Bruderer's.
Anthony and I took a quick ride tuesday morning on the Barrel Roll trail. Here is Anthony at the top of the first climb s t r u g g l i n g not to lose the enchiladas from the night before.



I know that he will be happy to see that picture. :) Your my boy blue!


He got himself right and made the rest of the trail look easy. Here he is about to clean the nasty part of the trail.



The second guest star is the smooth and svelte Douglas Shaw. He and I rode the Ulcer 111 again this year. Maybe some of you will be able to see that I ripped this picture from the web.



Douglas is the guy with the blue helmet. I'm not sure who the other good lookin' guy is but he looks like he was doing all the work.

I finished with a 5 hour and 12 minute saddle time. I had big plans for this year but I was 17 minutes slower than last year, I am going to blame it on lack of sleep and bathroom privacy.
I did see the best and biggest crash ever! So no matter how bad I felt I know that I was doing better than the 20 or so dudes who piled it up at 28mph in downtown Provo. Oh the humanity.

Wishing on a star

I wish I had my own bathroom.

Hugh Hefner thinks I share a bathroom with too many girls.

The entire house hold uses our bathroom as the go to place for teeth brushing, hair coming and various other beauty regimen to which I remain ignorant to. There are 3 other full baths at their disposal but they choose to walk in on me when I am less than fully clothed.
Without fail every time I step into the shower at least 2 people stop by to find something or do their hair or in Janie's case just stop in to say "hey." Luckily for me I had a builder that built a shower in such a way that when you are au natural you can not be seen by others in the room.

In this home I have been able to separate my garage and my office very well. The only junk in my garage is my junk and the only way to get into my garage is thru the office. Ingenious if I do say so myself.
My next house is going to have a boys only locker room so that I won't have to clean toothpaste out of my sink before I shave. I won't have to move hair product and other goo gaws off of my side of the counter. Nobody will steal my towel. My shower drain won't clog up with long hair. There will only be 1 shampoo in the shower, no conditioner. I will still have a loofah but it won't be pink, nobody is saying that a man can't ex foliate. I will add a stackable washer and dryer for convenience and maybe a hidden door to the office or garage, the other man spaces.

The problem is that by the time I am ready for another house nearly all these problems will be gone. Until then I will just keep wishing and keep my towel tightly wrapped.