Winter Holiday break in the desert

It is hard to go past the opportunity to take 4 days of vacation time and get 11 days of play in return but that is how the Christmas/New Year holidays fell this time around.

So Amber and I packed up the car and headed to the desert for some mountain biking.

Day 1 saw us on an old favorite as we did Gold Bar Single Track. The climb felt hard to both Amber and I and this was likely because we hadn't been on our bikes since Thanksgiving at Gooseberry and that ride has very little climbing in it.


Sean starting the single track.


There was quite a bit of snow around Moab, but fortunately the south facing slick rock melted of very quickly and our ride was in perfect shape. (which is partly why we selected it).


Amber riding along happily.


And cruising the rocky section of the ride.


As always Moab makes for photogenic shots.


My bike seems to be getting heavier as it gets old (much like our dog). I recently put a 160mm coil fork on my bike and am absolutely loving the Lyrik.


Fresh tracks!


Our dog Moab relaxing in front a pretty vista.


We spent a bit of time on this fun little lift trying to get it to be a natural move for Amber. She wants to get the lifting motion like I have such that it is more like breathing, for this ride she really had to work on her position very deliberately. (she started to get it naturally later in the trip when we got to Gooseberry area).


Heading back down to the car.

Conditions in Moab we cold but perfect for riding. We decided to camp at least for the first few nights and found a good sunny spot out towards Sovereign.