What a cold, cold Winter it has been for Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. The trails have been
getting a much needed break, which will make them that much better this Spring. In fact, with
responsible locals setting first tracks into the freeze-lifted dirt, the trails should be regaining
some of their classic narrow Fruitian singletrack lines.
Monday I found myself awakening in a strange land, surrounded by miles and miles of various types of
sandstone. The Sun was peeking in and out of mostly overcast skies in the direction where we really
wanted to ride. Even so, my local friend and I headed that way just to check things out. Driving
out, we could see the obvious line of demarcation in the cloudiness and decided upon arrival in the
target area that riding in the Sun would be better.
It turned out to be a doorstep ride. Doorstep rides in this area are not as plentiful as they should
be, but can connect up with miles and miles of varying routes. The standard access is by bike path
and a bit of a paved climb after that to some sandstone. It may as well all be paved, except the
sandstone is devoid of most vehicle traffic, has better grip and many cool natural features to ride
on a mountain bike.
The great things about the cold, wet Winter in this particular area is that the sandstone is
"cleaned" off and the by-product of that sandstone is hardpacked, making it all easier to ride. We
topped out and were greeted by a cool breeze, so dropping into a low spot for a short break seemed
like the intelligent thing to
do. Sitting on a hunk of sandstone and admiring the surroundings, my friend pointed out a pristine
clump of cryptogamic soil with a huge Claretcup cactus clump in the middle of it. He made a
mental note to return to photograph it when they start to bloom this Spring.
Break time over, it was time to get riding. The undulating nature of the route and varying surfaces
made it fast and slow all at once. Riding the sandstone lines was like playing a jazz tune, just
jamming and playing our own riffs over the slabs. On the climbs, I kept to the steepest lines
because I felt like it and could. The drops were the same, though most were approached with caution
before throwing that notion to the wind after ensuring the runout was not too nasty.
The best thing about sandstone is the grip it can have with the right tires. Any decent tread with
climbing shoe rubber on the knobs is just the ticket for this kind of riding. They are probably the
slowest rolling tires you can imagine, but they rule completely on the sandstone, especially on off-
camber slopes. This became even more evident when connecting up our original route to another. It
was a kind of sandstone slab hop-scotch, the connection well known to us and obviously not used by
anyone else. It features a few ledge moves and is mostly off-camber, but all on the rock when ridden
correctly. After having ridden that section with less than grippy tires, the climbing shoe rubber
tires made it very easy.
The last part on the trail found my compadre taking the low road, while I decided on the high one. I
really felt the need for a few more steep pitches and wanted to see how my middle-ring climbing was
faring. At the top of the second pitch, there were a couple of other people on mountain bikes (the
first we had seen). They seemed to know the etiquette for yielding to the uphill rider, or were
taking the view because they decided let me pass. Of course I bade them a good day and thanked them
for the yield as I scooted over the top and jammed down the other side.
After meeting up near the trailhead, we jammed back down to town at mach speeds on the road
previously climbed. It sure was much easier on the return flight. The bike path back to the
doorstep was a little more crowded with pedestrians, but we were in no hurry and mostly coasted
back to my friend's casa. Once back, it was beer:30 and we broke into his private beer stash to
celebrate the first ride from his new house and (his) first ride of the year. It doesn't get much
better than that.
JD