Will all of the post titles just say "More Moab Riding"?

Itching to get back on the trails the next day, I somehow decided on Garden Mesa in the Sovereign Trail system (just further north of town than the MOAB Brand trails) to be my more difficult ride of the day. As I remember, & it seemed a bit odd, I generally decided what I wanted to ride (especially when the weather turned less-favourable later in the stay) and then would see if anyone would ride with me. Generally, someone was keen for a ride (funnily enough) and I was satisfied overall that I was getting to ride enough of what I wanted - considering the expense of the two-week trip. When the variable spring weather rolled in, it was a little harder to get motivated - but I just kept reminding myself that I've ridden in a lot worse in England. A bit selfish of me perhaps (single & childless & used to travelling alone will do that), but I hadn't travelled halfway across the world to not ride decent trail!

That rambling over, Megan joined me for the Garden Mesa loop on the top side of the Sovereign Trail System.  We climbed up what I remember being reasonable technical (there was one big obstacle that promised over-the-bars action & great peril if we forgot it was there on the way back down) towards the top of the strangely coppery green mesa we had seen north of the previous day's ride.  The climb up was not nearly as bad as both of us were expecting, which is always nice.

Still in trousers.

The striking green is not so apparent here, but in parts it looked like someone had taken to spraying the trail with that spray-on grass seed that is used on the side recent cuttings for freeways.

On top of the mesa, we found it undulating until we got to the northerly most part of the loop (where we quickly found we did not want to be on the Fallen Peace Officers trail) and headed down a long, sandy in parts, gentle flowing descent in a wash.  There were two such sections on top of the mesa and they were most enjoyable.  We were still finding reasonably technical slow parts that needed careful negotiation/a bit of walking, but they were fine & there was always the vast spaces to look out over.

Before long we were descending off the mesa.

I had to pose like this just to show Chip I haven't forgotten everything.

Family ride for the day was a late afternoon ride up to Klondike Bluffs, well almost - the last little part is in Arches National Park, so we had to lock our bikes up & walk a little to get the views. The ride started off as a brief sandfest along jeep track before turning up the hills and getting more rocky. Before long we were just riding on huge slabs of rock - great for traction; it was a gentle climb that promised to be fun while descending.

It was not long until we had safely stowed our bikes - but being so late in the day, there was no one around to take them. On the climb up we saw a lot of people on ATVs coming down - the size of the people prompted much cause & effect debate. Finn with his new found freedom from the Tout clambered up & over everything up to the viewpoint.

The bluffs and extensive views were indeed impressive, as was the serenity (I think he just liked the word).  Various portraits were attempted in the light of the setting sun.  One of the four people involved managed to ruin each of them, so I'll just post the one where I look like a tool.

Back on the bikes, it wasn't long until I was enjoying hauling down the big smooth rocks.  Not many pictures here - suffice to say, it was fun.

Moab riding begins again.

With my bike picked up, we were off to find some relatively easy singletrack to test gear on - also, I was a bit rusty as far as singletrack went.  Alex & Megan had recently (a week before) received a Tout Terrain Singletrack trailer for towing Finn on singletrack.  With it being single-wheeled, cushioned by Rock Shox & quite narrow it enables towing a child on rougher terrain than a lot of/all other trailers.  Finn wasn't too happy usually to be put in it, but once the bike was moving he was content to look around at everything and occasionally go to sleep.  Anyway, this new acquisition needed proving and our bikes needed a shake-down - so we headed to the family friendly MOAB Brand trails.

With so much riding over ten days, hopefully my ride reports won't be as verbose usual as all the riding bliss blends into one big happy memory; rather they should be photo heavy as the scenery was spectacular and there were others carrying cameras for a change.  Credit for most photos of me will go to Megan or Alex, as will some of the better landscapes - as it's rare for me to find good riding photos of me & their panoramas are better than mine.

Alex getting used to the Tout

We pottered around a bit on the pretty easy trails enjoying being out on bikes in Moab (!) for a few hours.

Follow the line, there's plenty of rock to get lost on. Clearly not that warm, as I wasn't regretting the bike trousers.

After our first little ride, it was off to set up camp above town in the Sand Flats area (close to the world famous Slickrock trail). As the cold weather seemed to have scared everyone else off too, we had our pick of the campsites. We settled on the first one we looked at - it had grand views of the La Sal mountains, a big rock for Finn to climb and was set well back from the parking lot. I was greeted with resounding laughter as I carried two suitcases in across all the sand - I maintain it was the most practical option of getting so much riding paraphernalia across the world.

It didn't look too bad at night either - not Montana, I know, but big skies all the same

I rather optimistically declared, not factoring in spring weather, my intention to ride twice each of the ten days - one family ride, one harder/more technical. With not much of the day left, Alex & I headed to the base of the ridge on the other side of town ride Pipe Dream (Megan had scoped this out for us the day before, itching to go for a run after days cooped up in the car from Alberta). Close to town, it's a relatively short trail that packs in a lot of up & down with plenty of technical challenges - mostly involving balancing. I was pretty happy to only dab (put my foot down while trying to ride) once.

Across the south end of town to the La Sals

Alex trying not to sneeze too hard, lest it all comes down

Back in Utah!

After a repeatedly & much-delayed flight from O'Hare, I was back in Utah for my fourth visit in less than four years - being one of my favourite western states, I was much excited.  That excitement was muted a little by the lateness of the hour, picking up the rental car & completing the easy drive across Salt Lake City to Jeremy & Pam's house.  It was fairly late in the planning of the trip that I realised I did actually, sort of, know people in SLC - having met Jeremy & Pam riding a very nice river trail in central Oregon two years previous.  They came through for us time & time again during our Utah stay.  With the late hour, there wasn't much to do apart from say hello to those I'd kept from sleep, make a bed and hit the hay.

Waking up, I was a little concerned & surprised that it wasn't much warmer than the dreary English weather I'd left behind.  After a brief, more awake, re-acquaintance with Jeremy & Pam they were off to work & we were out the door to a huge breakfast at a diner (complete with learn-your-US-presidents placemats - mostly remembered for the impressive quiffs of bygone centuries) chosen by Jeremy (as this trip progresses you'll see we began to take any of Jeremy's recommendations as gospel).  With a bit of faffing round looking for odds & sods for me, our small convoy (two Subarus) set off south for Moab.

It was a pretty leisurely drive down south over a pass as we struck off I-15.  The fresh snow was concerning considering ten days of mountain-biking & camping, but not too off-putting.


We stopped in Wellington City, of all places, for a playground expenditure of energy for Finn. I think I may have been the most worn out. I should have mentioned by now that I flew to SLC to meet best-friends from living in Canada, Alex, Megan & their son Finn for Moab adventures - this time biking. Moab being possibly the most famous mountain-biking destination, I was thrilled to be back (I had been here with Valerie on the roadtrip two years ago) and salivating at the chance to ride proper bike trails with rocks, climbs, singletrack and all those good things.  The plan was to camp for our entire stay, but rolling into Moab it was much too cold to be setting up camp with a toddler (a handy excuse), so we got a cabin for the night.

In the morning it was off to Poison Spider to pick up my rental bike - more about that later (except to say it was at the low end of the Moab rental bike range and cost more to hire than a late-model Subaru Forester - cars are cheap in the States!). And off to ride!

A little bit more of Chicago

I know I said I'd post more on Chicago, but more photos will have to do.  As good as Chicago was for two days, Utah was exceptional & I'd much rather talk about the best holiday & mountain-biking I've had in ages than prattle on about a rather neat city.

From Willis (Sears) Tower

Downtown Chicago

Watching the tourists in a R44 watching us on the viewing deck

That's a hundred-odd stories down.

Wandering under the L on the way back from Wrigley

More photos of trains

Sue - the largest T-Rex

The infamous Tsavo Lions

Random sculptures near Grant Park

Chicago briefly

So I've been back in the land where everything is big, bold brash & in-your-face unsophisticated for a couple of days now & I still love it. The streets take twice as long to cross, the trucks/lorries/semis are the proper size, I still recognise the different-to-Euro-spec cars, one can buy root beer & pink lemonade and most of all, it's warmer than home. Needless to say, this two day stopover in Chicago has been a great start to a holiday that is much needed & promises more.
This will be just a brief post as I'll soon tire of my phone keyboard and most of my photos are on a real camera. Landing at O'Hare it was no surprise to find it's huge - being one of the world's busiest airports. The L runs all the way into town and its trains are delightfully all stuck in the late seventies as far as decor & finish go - even the new ones.

Chicago is not as easy to walk around as European cities due to the vast amount of space that was available to take up all the people - but with a 3 three day CTA pass I had a pretty good go at walking my feet off. Highlights were going up the Willis (Sears) Tower on Sunday morning before the crowds, admiring the architecture & the parks, riding the L a bit out of town to Wrigley Field (home of those perennial losers, the Cubs) and eating an awful lot.

With a six hour time difference from home I've been sleeping & eating at weird times, but that's all part of the fun. I had most of today before I had to head out to O'Hare, so spent almost five hours at the Field Museum (and saw about half of it)- which has quite a natural history collection. In the Museum Precinct on the shores of Lake Michigan it is vast building displaying only a small part of the collection. The taxidermy is extensive and very impressive considering it's mostly a century old - although never as good seeing animals alive in the wild. The Tsavo lions are there, as well as a fascinating exhibit about wolves in Idaho. There's a fair amount of Egyptian relics, but after the Christmas trip they failed to capture my imagination. The replica and exhibit of the Lascaux cave paintings is really good too, especially since you can't even go in the real caves in France anyway.

They also have, in the atrium, the biggest T-Rex skeleton ever found. The biggest surprise however was stumbling across a wharenui (a Maori meeting house) all the way from the East Cape of NZ via Hanover in the nineteenth century.  So that's enough about Chicago for now - here are some of the few photos I did take on my phone:

I ordered a burger and got this - it was fantastic

The wharenui at the Field Museum from Tokomaru Bay

My fascination with old signs painted on buildings continues while riding the L