Mountain Biking

I've been mountain biking a few times this summer (I'm sure Lindsey would say more than a few times). I think she feels like this sometimes. Anyway, on Saturday I went with some friends up Big Cottonwood Canyon to ride the Wasatch Crest trail. Here's a link if you're interested. We Started at Guardsman Pass and went down the Mill D trail. It was a lot of fun and some of the best and most intense downhill I've done. The ride starts with a brutal ascent up "Puke Hill". Here's me at the top of Puke Hill at about 10,000 ft. I made it without puking but I did have to stop and rest twice and I walked my bike for a short section.

Here's a cool picture up above Desolation Lake just before I made my attempt at riding down the spine. I was not very successful as you will see.

The trail kind of disappears down the spine and becomes a choose your own adventure event. The adventure I chose was to first take a drop, realize I'm going too fast to continue on my desired route, hit my front brakes too hard, and endo over the front of my handlebars. I thought, no matter, Wes rode the spine and didn't crash, I'll be ok from here. So I got back on my horse and the next adventure was partially caught on film.


When I got home I reread the short brief that talks about this section of the trail on UtahMountainBiking.com and here's what it says:

"Unless you're one of the elite, plan to walk your bike over this area -- or plan for some on-trail repairs and bandaging. Our last ride, we watched quite a few expert riders "try-and-die" as we were repairing our damaged steeds. Not one rider cleaned the ridge."

Nice to know... Wes, who had ridden the trail a few times made it down like a pro, I crashed like somebody who wishes they were a pro, and Josh knew better after watching me bite it and took a more cautious approach.

The downhill section after that was insane. It was crazy fast and the trail had some cool steps and roots in it that you could get air on as long as you slowed down enough before the next step so that you didn't get yourself in a bad situation. After a good downhill section, we were stopped to take a drink and rest when my tire suddenly lost all the air in about 5 seconds. The brake pads heated the rim up so much it popped the tube. Luckily Wes is a good Boy Scout and had an extra tube or I would have had a miserable walk down to the bottom. Thanks Wes. Looks like I may need to invest in some disc brakes sometime in the future.

We had a lot of fun and it was amazing how lush and green the mountains were. There were tons of wildflowers and it was nice to be in the mountains doing something I love.