Waste Of a Ride

Tried to go on a quick ride, turned into a huge mess, hiked more than I biked, still pissed about wasting my time on this ride. Don't feel like talking much about it. Time to redeem myself Monday, still so short on riding time and would love to get to Park City area but it's just too far away. Trip is coming to an end thursday morning when we leave I think I might have time for just 1-2 more rides wish me luck!

Waste of time at EveryTrail
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The 2nd ride

I did a bit of research and learned about some trails above the small Provo race loop. I had little interest in the race loop since it was small and I like big loops. I had just finished my Coyote Canyon ride and this one was right on the way home so I could ride until I was out of time. It started up a stupid steep gravel road that sucked but I somehow had the leg to get up it where I ran into a maze of forks and tried to pick the best uphill route. Playing roulette I evidently lost and ended up hiking and finding a cool line skirting a cliff that I was able to pedal most of. I was still really lost but kept at it and ended up find another trail above the race loop but it was still stiff climbing that had me hiking. I took a bad fork and ended up on a bushy thick trail which did lead to a really rocky steep trail that was ok. So far I had not been impressed nor was I going to be. I was way confused where I came out and took a road near where I was earlier and dropped into the race trails and to the car where I was pissed at how much that ride sucked. Still happy to put down 30+ miles that day riding on new trails but not the fun alpine adventures I look for. I am sad to be staying in Utah Valley I wish I was in the SLC valley where my favorite rides are. The closest rides are 45 minutes away and the best are hour+ which sucks when I am trying to be around as much as possible. The Corner Canyon ride was good but I don't think this trip I will have the time to do the rides I really want to do since they take up such a large amount of time and that is ok. I will be back next summer perhaps for good we think.

Race loop above 1st attempt at EveryTrail
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Coyote Canyon Loop

So time has been of the essence and unfortunately the massive ride I had planned was not going to happen, this trip anyway. LuAnn went to Salt Lake to visit a friend So I naturally took off for a ride. The destination was Heber, it't a little city that lies south of Park City up in the mountains. This was only my second ride of the trip so I had to make it count! I read on Utahmnountainbiking.com about this new loop that was built and it seemed like something different. As I left the trailhead with sore legs from the hike the day before, they quickly loosened up and put out the steam I needed. I started on an empty belly from the beginning which was a bad idea but had some energy packets to hopefully get me through. The loop was 22 miles with 2900ft of climbing so I was in for a pretty good pedal. I had a decision to make which was clockwise or counter, I went with clockwise and really glad I did. The trail was lined with menacing cactus and I was terrified of hitting one and having to change a tube and pull out thorns. The trail was probably 6,000 ft elevation so I was really surprised to find such a dry cactus filled trail but oh well. The trail climbed very well for what elevation needed to be gained. It took a long time to reach some shade and was nice since the trail was pretty exposed and was getting pretty boring to be honest. I was fearing I made the wrong choice for this ride but kept telling myself it was something new which it was, only being finished just months ago. It was really choppy in some areas, a bobcat cut 90% of the trail and plenty of roots were exposed and it will take some time to shape in but no big deal. I finally reached some aspen groves and welcomed the change in view, I now was pretty high above Jordanelle and was finally making ground. Now I was halfway around the mountain and still climbing mostly on buff trail. I soon reached some switchbacks where I descended finally! This was a pretty fast downhill that was nice and steep but very choppy and lacked rollers to catch some air. I descended for a long time and it felt so good as I was low on energy and worried about my finishing time. Eventually after a tremendous amount of downhill I was back climbing on a comfortable grade until I closed the loop and rode down to the car. I was pretty happy with the ride despite it was not as good as others but a good change I suppose. Turns out I did 22.64 miles in just under 3 hours, not a bad clip for a beater like me. I headed home and found out LuAnn was going to be in Salt Lake a little longer so I hit another brand new spot called Provo Canyon race loop.

Coyote canyon loop at EveryTrail
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Mt. Timpanogos Hike

There are not many other hikes that I have been on that give you as good as bang for the buck as this trail. I was planned for a morning mountain bike ride but decided to take to my own two feet with my new buddy Rick. He picked me up at 6am and we were off on a long drive to the trailhead. I had to be back in the valley by 12:00 to meet LuAnn and Landon at the recreation center where we would swim in the pools and water slides. We were cranking up the trail at a good speed and had plenty of shade and nice cool temperature. Don't let that guys age fool you he is an avid road biker and is in good shape. We came to the last bit before Emerald Lake and I was pretty disapointed that we would not make the lake. We took in some peanut butter jelly sandwiches and admired the beauty of the area. Wild flowers were pretty prime, they really made my pictures look all the better. We got down in two hours making a little over a four hour hike and then it was off to the pool. Spectacular hike, I have done it 3 other times and never was one as good as this one. With more time I have got to summit that dang thing one of these days. I did not mind at all that I did not ride cause it was a good change of pace. Hit Scout falls on the way down and got under what little water was flowing off it and it felt might great! Not a bad way to spend a morning. Hike down timp at EveryTrail
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Zipping

Running behind on my blog but wow on tuesday, we finally got to try Zip Lining, surprisingly I had never done it before so that left me and my wife's Uncle Rick and I the fresh meat for the zip line. We got all trained up and then we were off in the gondola up to mid mountain where there were two zip lines one smaller one and one large one. LuAnn rode the zip line with ease and it was pretty fun getting to experience racing down the line with here right next to me. She beat me pretty bad on the first ride. Once we took our ride on that one me and Rick were off to the large one, when we got to see what we were up against we both nearly crapped ourselves. After watching everyone go we were dead last and set off and with hesitation and complete reliance of the equipment. I guess the zip line was 2111 feet and extremely high up as it spans the canyon, at the midway I must have been flying over 800ft dangling from a cable. It was by far more scary than any other Amusement ride I ever experienced. After that we met back with LuAnn and did another ride comfortably on the smaller zip line. It was a great day up there, it was slightly difficult watching riders taking runs down the mountain bike park trails but I know I will be getting me some soon. Way fun!

So so awesome

We arrived Sunday into Salt Lake after a long morning of flying, our day started at 3:00am and we made a extremely smooth adventure with the 8 month old. I was so stoked as I drove through the Salt Lake Valley in anticipation to finally have some alone time and eating at all our favorite spots and oh yeah eventually pedaling the trails. After we settled in Sunday it was a super long day and Landon was outstanding the whole day taking it in stride. I set my bike up that night from being shipped from CT and was having a hard time getting the rear gears to tune. I guess I am not so fantastic after all. So monday I stopped at a shop and got a cold shoulder vibe from those fools so I dipped and decided after test riding I was going to ride Tuesday on my mechanics. I was all set to ride with my good homie Brent at 8:30 in Draper Utah. The ride location is known as Corner Canyon which sits at the end of the Salt Lake Valley on a ridge that divides it from Utah Valley to the south. I always loved this ride location since every visit it seems to get better. I had some time to kill since my friend was running late so I checked out the bike skills park. It was smallish and offered a pumptrack and three different level short flow trails. Easiest was a joke, medium was pretty fun but had awkward flow and hard had some good gaps and a wall ride but I was not hitting it since I had alot of trail to ride and did not feel like injuring myself since I could never forgive it if it happened

A About 30 minutes of screwing around I took off a known trail for a short stint and then back to the parking lot to meet my homie. I had a new loop in mind that would be a lot of climbing and two new trails I had not ridden yet. We got cracking just short of 9am and dayum it felt amazing to be be riding my home trails again. We rode up the shoreline trail and did quite easily, despite a minor elevation at 4600ft starting elevation I was right at home going up hill. Things are super buff here, my legs were working differently since I spent so much time sitting on my butt versus powering up every climb out east. Made our way over to Ann's trail which took more effort than I expected but once we were on Ann's things were wide and moderate climbing. The views opened up as we climbed upwards and it was stunning. Luckily we got a little rain right before we rode so the moon dust was minimal and it was cloudy which made it tremendously more comfortable. It was pretty awesome to be riding with my good friend, we use to ride here and there when I live in Salt Lake and we have good memories. He has been riding more this year when he could and was doing just fine keeping a good pace with me.

We climbed out of Ann's and into Maple Hollow Canyon and views opened up even more to the Salt Lake Valley floor, offering inspiring views of joyous glory. By now we had been climbing a really long time, we took a few breather breaks since this was a minor social ride. We hopped on a trail i have not rode which sent us up to the top of the trailhead, it was hard not to drop into the Maple Hollow Downhill trail filled with flawy fun and kickers. But on a mission we found Eagle Crest Trail which was narrow and skirted the nice homes on top of the ridge. There was still a little more climbing surprisingly. Soon we were on a steady nice roll down to pavement where we crossed onto double track.

We rode double track for awhile up to the top of Jacob's ladder, Brent was feeling the hurt I was putting him through and luckily he chose to steam on so we could reach Jacob's ladder where we plunged a steep loose and fun descent. From the top it is over 20 minutes of not pedaling down a 2,000 ft descent. Ghost falls trail was so ridiculously fun as it always was and a huge smile struck my ugly mug as Brent tried to chase me down. In a bit of a time crunch we straight shot it to the car and Brent was off.

After 4 hours of riding I went back up the mountain just one more time and rode up Clarks and then down the Flow trail. Finally this trail actually flows with lots of doubles and greatness. By then I had rode a good 25 miles and could call it a day after a good trail day. Such an amazing morning ride spent with good company, can;t wait until the next one, maybe tomorrow Am but definitely Friday will be another big ride. Oh yea, snapped a spoke and needed a tune, I called a mobile repair bike man, yes it does exist in this spectacular state! I made an appointment and 30 minutes after I got home a knock on my door and 40$ I had a bike all ready to go and ready to rock! Really nice guy and was so interested in his little business. Could not get any better, never left the house. Suck It CT!

Warm up to epic corner canyon at EveryTrail
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Rippa

Set off for 7pm start in Gay City, was looking for a fast easy ride and this certainly did the trick. Me and Bentley set off on Red with a plan to ride into case and hti Al's trail and then navigate the way back according to darkness. Starting and ending in gay city is not very exciting but it is a fast easy ride to and from. With some rain in the morning I was so happy to find the insects at a minimal compared to the last two weeks which was very nice. We hit Birch Mountain road in a mere 20 minutes since I did not use the ribbon trail and we crossed into case and rode the gravel road to Al's. Nothing short of sweet as usual for that trail, I notice Bentley was fading a bit as he fell behind, I have come to realize he just is not the 1-2 year old pup he use to be. I found myself on the brakes alot trying to keep him no more than 50ft behind me on the lengthy decent from Al's to the reservoir. When we hit the reservoir I decided to let him have some water time since he usually seems to enjoy that. Found a stick and he reluctantly went out to retrieve it, probably cause he swims like a sally. I have no idea where his Golden retriever genes are when he hits the water, he has always been a terrible swimmer but now it's just embarrassing. I will give him some credit to keeping to his word and bringing the stick in, he knows as he gets close to shore he will touch soon but the problem is this silly dog tries to touch bottome when he can't which mean his back legs are trying to touch and he can barely stay afloat with his head just above water and cannot move until he touches or tries to get closer to shore. So he circles by the shore as I shake my head and can't help but laugh at this dog with webbed toes and this terrible habit he has always had trying to touch bottom. Well after that ordeal we were back at it. With my daylight closing in I had to take plan b back home and then back into Gay City where I took plan B there as well and made the quickest route to the car. By now the dog was really lacking behind, poor guy, I am going to see if we can get him back into prime condition when I get back from Utah. As I rode out of the lake I was warned they're closing the park and I narrowly got to my car and sped out of there. Probably my last ride until next week when we are in Utah. I plan to ride Tuesday morning with my good friend Brent, going to do a 20 miler in Corner Canyon with some serious DH action! I can't wait to descend for 30 minutes, you just can't do that here in the East and I can't stand it! Got a few other rides planned, I have a monster planned for an entire day ride, hopefully I can find time to do it, probably around a 80+miler with 10k vert, see what happens I guess. I am pretty sure if I do it, I would be the only one who ever even though of it. Quick roll gay to case at EveryTrail
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