moab

i enjoyed (thanks Helen!) 4 days in the hot desert riding my bike last week. Left Wednesday am for Moab and was on the road with Pat pretty early. The only disappointment was that our traditional Glenwood Springs breakfast joint, The Daily Bread, was closed for remodeling. So we went next door to a coffee shop, which had great joe, but terrible food. Oh well. we were too excited to have that put a damper on the trip. we rolled into Moab just after lunch time, and checked into our "cabin" for a couple nights. Soon we were slapping on a lot of spf 30 and heading out south on 191 to get to the Hidden Valley trailhead. Connecting to Moab Rim made for an epic 20 miles on our first ride. The next day we took a shuttle up to the Kokopelli for the UPS to Porcupine Rim. An amazing ride through the La Sal mtn loop road brought us up there, to start about 20 mi of mostly downhill. Friday we rode the Sovereign Trail for about 3.5hrs. I forgot how techy that stuff is, and how crowded it can get out there. We then left Moab Friday eve and drove out to Fruita for the night. Saturday we rode Rustler's Loop and Horsethief Bench, which were awesome. Compared to the bone-jarring trails in Moab, these felt like the bike path. Almost 80mi offroad out there should help me ease out of my base period and into some interval training to prep for Chile Challenge in NM in a few weeks.