March 7th - Moab

It was another clear weekend on the roads through the mountain so off to Moab we went!

Saturday was a full Sovereign ride, we hadn't done this ride for a while and it is always fun. Unfortunately it is also pretty hard to get photos as there is so much fast and flowing riding that you never stop.

I had a lot of "god I love my bike" moments on this ride particularly as you get to pump the fast flowing sections on the downhills.


Amber at the end of the open fast section after the first hill. They have also put a re-route in to take out the steep rocky technical section in the creek bed. I guess it makes the ride more consistent but that was always a good technical challenge up and down.


It was a pretty warm day with temperatures in the 70's. Our dog still has her full winter double coat going so she was feeling the heat. We used most of our water of her, but luckily there is a big pool of water in the second half of the ride that she could totally cool down in. She is starting to show her age as she turns 9 years old later this year.



Amber is a short little roller in the middle section. This is one of my favorite sections of trail on Sovereign - the section between the two big hills as it has lots of rocks and still lets you get same flow going and both hill are a blast to go down and a brute to ride up. (We always do sovereign as an out an back to avoid the horrible sand road options and the ride is awesome in both directions)


Amber another part of the same section. For some reason these sections with the broken flat plates of rock always remind me of home in Australia.


Heading back to the car - the rocky hill with switch backs. This is much easier up and down since they re-routed it a couple of years back.



We had planned on riding something like Porcupine on Sunday, but unfortunately Amber's TALAS 32 blew a seal so we just relaxed Sunday morning and headed home early. I will drop her bike into The Fix Monday so that it is all ready to roll for next weekend.

We have a long weekend on March 21st that will see us in Moab for the last weekend of Jeep Safari. I always used to avoid riding Moab during safari week but last year they changed how they do things and now the jeeps can only get on the major trails as a part of a safari week group - it makes for awesome trails for the mountain bikers as we are exempt from that!