Days on the Mountain

     The first full week in Utah began with another day on the trails around Park City. Rather than parking at Deer Valley like I normally do, I took the advice of the guys from the first bike shop I went to in Sandy. I parked behind the Park City Mountain Resort, which is way down at the bottom of the mountain range. My plan was to explore the lower slopes of the mountain. The Mid Mountain trail, like its name suggests, runs in the middle of the mountain. The trails below Mid Mountain are newer, more groomed and the new style of "flow" trails. Most of the trails above Mid Mountain are older, more singletrack, and often more gnarly with both technical features and the difficulty of the climbing.

Climbing straight out of Park City

The CMG trail wastes no time in gaining elevation up the mountain

     I made about an hour on the lower slopes before venturing further up Mid Mountain. I love the flow trails, but the remoteness of the top of the mountain sucked me in. After two hours, I found myself on the steepest pitches atop Jupiter Peak on Scott's Trail, passing by the beautiful Shadow Lake along the way. This was one of the areas I rode last year and I just loved it. It's a fun climb, but the best part is the feeling once you reach the top. You have just climbed above 10,000 ft elevation and now it's all downhill back to the car!

Shadow Lake. The color of the vegetation and water is so bright here.

Vertical shafts of bright yellow flowers growing on the banks of Shadow Lake

Shady singletrack through the woods on Scott's Bypass trail.

     It was a good 30 minutes of descending as I tied together some of my all-time favorite trails including Apex and Webster. I took the all-new Tommy's Two Step trail for part of the journey and then caught the high-traffic Spiro trail back to the car. I liked Spiro, but it is used by many people so you can't enjoy it all the way for fear of running over someone.

On top of Jupiter Peak.

     I got finished with a massive headache and was cold. It was another three hour ride that thoroughly kicked my butt. I had started later in the day today and the sun was already setting behind the mountains, bringing the Fall chill into the air.

     I spent the morning mowing grass for Gpa. He stills rides the big mower, but he needed someone to trim for him. It definitely needed it. The weeds around the edge of the backyard were thick and tall. I had a hard time cutting through them with his weedeater. I didn't bring any shoes suitable for mowing, so I did the trimming in my mountain bike shoes. They were stiff, but worked just fine. I got back to SLC in time to catch dinner with the family at Golden Corral. Gpa and Gma wanted to repay me for my yard work with a buffet dinner. That's my kind of payment! Normally, I will eat until my stomach bursts at Golden Corral, but the headache kept me in check tonight. Stupid altitude. It's still winning the battle over me.

     Shannon got her first ride in this week. After my ride behind Park City Mountain Resort, I thought I had found some trails suitable for her to get in a longer ride without too much climbing. We parked atop Guardsman Pass and started from near the top of Jupiter Peak. We found some fun trails taking us down the mountain. Once we reached Mid Mountain, we rode over to Deer Valley and climbed our way back up the Tour des Suds trail. It's a tough little climb that gave Shannon about all she wanted. She was rewarded for her efforts with a nice descent down Corvair, one of the best descents on the mountain.

Shannon on Scott's Hill

Me on the Webster trail

Webster

    I wish I had been able to ride Corvair with her, but I had to go get the car, which was three miles of climbing away. I did the same steep climb up the road to Guardsman Pass that I did at the end of the ride to Midway last week, but this time I was on a heavy mountain bike. It took me a while, but I made it to the car. I went down the mountain, picked up Shannon, and then we were off to lunch in Heber City at Granny's Drive-In. We found this place last year and they have the best burgers and shakes I have ever put in my mouth.

     After stuffing ourselves, we drove back up to Empire Pass and Shannon let me do a few shuttle runs down the Payroll and Corvair trails. There was a spot on Corvair where fresh pine needles had fallen. One 15 foot stretch of trail was completely green. I had never seen a trail look like that before. After an hour of shuttling, we called it a day as it started to get dark. It was the end of yet another fun day of riding in Utah.

Another great view from the trail

Riding a skinny on Mid Mountain

When I got back to the car on top of Guardsman Pass, I almost went to the wrong car. Parked next to us was a black Taurus exactly like mine. Only my car was 1600 miles away.

     Here's a video that highlights our day on the mountain:

Video: Another day on the mountain

Midway Death March and XTERRA USA

     The second day of riding was also a beautiful day. Temperatures were 70 degrees in the valley and in the 60s in the mountains. This time I chose road for my ride. The drive up to Park City yesterday was so exciting that I could not wait any longer to ride Big Cottonwood Canyon. I mapped out a ride going through the canyon to the top of Guardsman Pass, then descending down the east side to the town of Midway in the Heber Valley. I planned to eat lunch there, then climb back up to Guardsman and descend into Park City via Empire Pass, just like the Pros did on the final stage of this year's Tour of Utah. I would then circle back, climbing Empire Pass and back over the last part of Guardsman Pass before descending back to the car. Distance looked to be around 65-68 miles with quite a bit of climbing.

    I parked at the entrance to Big Cottonwood Canyon along with a ton of other people. It's amazing how many people ride out here. My wheels were on the road by late-morning and I began the first climb of the day immediately. The first two miles were gradual, then it gets much steeper as you come out of the rocky portion of the canyon. There's two miles that are awful. It's steep and was all I could do to keep the cranks turning over.

Lower slopes of Big Cottonwood Canyon

     That steep section is followed by an easier section where the grade is minimal. It starts to get steeper again as you near the turn onto Guardsman Pass Rd. You make the turn at mile 14 and it really gets steep from there to the top. I was already feeling bad at mile 11 and had to stop for a break and eat a few bars. I felt better up Guardsman Pass Road. There was a great view of Big Cottonwood Canyon and of the Heber Valley from the summit. It was 18 miles from the car to the top. The summit was at 9,734 ft. elevation. Tough way to start the ride, but man was it beautiful!

Climbing Big Cottonwood Canyon

Guardsman Pass Rd.

Nice view atop Guardsman Pass

     The descent to Midway was crazy! It is a rough road and rattled my teeth out. I was rolling 45 mph on the brakes. It was steep! I also had to dodge the occasional car parked in the middle of the road. People were stopping all over the place to take pictures of the amazing views.

Starting down the descent to Midway

One of the nice views along the way down

     My hands were numb by the time I got to the bottom in Midway. Now I know why they climbed this road in the Tour of Utah. I stopped at the visitor's center at Wasatch Mountain State Park for lunch. I had packed a sandwich and plenty of snacks in my giant Camelback Mule.

Pond at the Wastach Mountain State Park Visitor's Center where I had lunch.

Looking up at my next challenge.

    The climb back was shorter. I expected the difficulty to be about the same as the other side up to Guardsman Pass, though I will admit I was a bit worried by the high speeds I hit on the way down. And worried I should have been. The climb was nothing short of brutal. It was seven miles to the turnoff for Park City. The bottom portion of the climb was a steady 14%, then hit 23% in the switchbacks! Backing down to 10% was a relief on the legs. I was creeping up the climb. The Pros at Tour of Utah made it look so easy! I know I'm nowhere near as strong as them, but they must have had compact gears on to be able to keep it turning up the steepest parts of this climb the way they did when I watched that final stage.

      It took well over an hour for me to reach the Empire Pass turn-off. I climbed the 1 km to the Empire Summit, then stopped again for food. I was zapped now. Park City was not looking like a good idea at this point. I decided to skip the Park City section of the ride and just climb the rest of the way up Guardsman Pass and then go down to the car. The last section of Guardsman is just under two miles long and it is just as brutal as what I had already ridden. There are a few steep spots where it was all I could do to keep moving forward. It reminded me of climbing "The Wall" at Brasstown Bald in Georgia.

Looking toward Park City from the top of Empire Pass

From the top of Empire Pass, I still had some tough climbing to do to reach Guardsman pass that sits in the distance

    Once at the top, it was a smooth ride back down through Big Cottonwood Canyon, 18 miles of descending all the way to the car. The bottom section was the most fun as it was the fastest portion and featured the most turns. It irritated me that so many cars were squeezing past me. It was afternoon rush hour in the canyon. It's narrow and most places are not suitable for passing...especially when the speed limit is 35 and I was rolling 40+ most of the time. And most of them had bike racks which really made me mad. Bike riders of all people should know better and be more courteous! You can ride the descent with me below on this video from my chest cam.

Video: Descending Big Cottonwood Canyon

    I ended the day exhausted with 53.5 miles covered with 9,268 ft of climbing. What a day!

     The following day was the XTERRA USA Championship in Ogden. We got up early and drove over to the Snowbasin Resort. Shannon and I rode our mountain bikes up the main climb on the course, Sardine Peaks, so we could watch the riders come up. We got to the top shortly after they began the swim. From our vantage point we could see the Pineview Reservoir in the distance and you could see the turbulence of all the swimmers in the water.

     We sat on the hill for about an hour before the first rider came. You know the leader is getting close when the TV helicopter begins to hover next to you. We did some filming and took pictures while the riders came by suffering up the last climb on a difficult bike course. We saw fellow Tennessean Craig Evans. He was in the top 10 and looked rather surprised to see someone from home standing on the side of the trail.

Leader and eventual race winner Leonardo Chacon

The legend, Conrad Stoltz, in second

Nicolas Lebrun

Carina Wasle

Ogden Canyon from one of the Sardine Peaks overlooks

Shannon and I on top of Sardine Peak

     After watching for a while at the top, we began to carefully pick our way down the descent. We stayed out of everyone's way, stopping every time a rider came into sight and filming them as they streaked by. We saw a few good spills, but of course the camera was never on at that time.

A rider on the descent of Sardine Peaks

     See our race footage posted below.

Video: 2013 XTERRA USA Championship

     XTERRA's highlight video of the race is posted below as well.

Official Race Highlights from XTERRA

     Most riders were off the bike by the time we got back to Snowbasin. We watched the finish for a few minutes, then called it a day on the trail. I jumped on my road bike to ride a few more minutes before we left. I did one short climb out of the resort, then had a 5 mile descent down to the Pineview Reservoir. The descent was sketchy as I had a stiff crosswind at the top. Then the road curved left and the crosswind became a strong tailwind. I was rolling 53.3 mph at one point! It was so much fun! I even passed by a parked police truck doing 53 mph in a 45 mph zone. He didn't seem to mind though and let me have my fun.

     I stopped at the bottom where Shannon was waiting. I hopped in the car and we drove down through Ogden Canyon and then over to Roy for lunch at the Burger Bar. We have been wanting to eat here since last year when we got home and saw the place on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network. They are the classic burger joint, with huge serving sizes and everything hand-made. They even offer up Elk and Buffalo as meat options. I had a big Buffalo burger, a plate of their famous onion rings and a big milkshake. Not exactly recovery food, but it sure did hit the spot!

My lunch spread: Buffalo Burger, onion rings, fries, fry sauce and milkshake.

Unadapted

     Even though I did not race XTERRA this year and had no plans to race XTERRA USA again in Ogden, UT, we still decided to go out west to Utah for our vacation this year. The riding out there is just too awesome to pass up. And we get to hang out with Gma, Gpa and Amber. They are pretty cool people, so it's a fun trip all the way around. This year we saved up a little more time-off from work and took 2 1/2 weeks off for the trip. We worked 11-hour days at work on Monday and Tuesday, then hit the road Tuesday evening and did the red-eye drive, only stopping for gas and bathroom for most of the trip.

     Driving all night is always interesting. Usually, I am the strong one after midnight, carrying us until Shannon is rested enough to start back, usually in the daylight. It was quite the opposite this time. I was tired from the late nights of packing after work and from being sick. I have been coughing at night and it has kept me from sleeping soundly for the past two weeks. I was useless much of the night. I just couldn't stay awake as long as I normally can. We did 4-5 hour shifts behind the wheel while the other one dozed. The weather cooperated for the most part, though we did hit some nasty thunderstorms in Missouri and in Wyoming.

5am moonlight in Nebraska

A few storm clouds ahead as we cross the middle of Wyoming

     The only stop for longer than 5 minutes was in Cheyenne, WY at Sierra Trading Post. We didn't score as many killer deals as last year, but I did leave with a nice pair of Carhartt pants for work. We arrived in West Jordan just before dark after a little over 24 hours of driving. Gma and Gpa had brought a little pop-up camper for us to sleep in. It was the perfect accommodation for us. We were out of everyone's way and kind of had our own little house. Perfect for a vacation!

     I took three bikes again this year. This time though, there was a road bike tucked in the backseat instead of my hardtail. I brought just one mountain bike for me, the big mountain Remedy. Shannon brought my Dad's Superlight, which has been her mountain bike of choice since she started riding trails a few years ago. I was determined to hit up some of the awesome roads I saw last year. I couldn't wait to see how high I could climb!

     The first morning after our arrival, I wasted no time in getting on the bike. The plan was to hit Park City and ride some of my favorite trails that I have been missing for almost a year now. I realized during preparations at the house that I had forgotten the shock pump that fits my Remedy. It has a tricky valve on the fork that requires a deep head on the pump. I brought a pump, but it was the shallow one. So, my first stop was at the local bike shop around the corner in Sandy. They didn't have a pump with a deep head, but did have an adapter that they said they use on their older Manitou forks.

     I drove the back way from the valley over the mountains into Park City. The drive took me up Big Cottonwood Canyon Rd., a road that I was hoping to ride sometime in the first few days. It was a beautiful drive through the canyon and had some steeper pitches at the top as you near Guardsman Pass. The road brings you out at the top of the Park City area. I parked pretty high up the mountain and planned to hit the Deer Valley Resort trails first. I got changed, pumped up my tires and then got the new adapter out to adjust my suspension air pressure. I screwed it into the fork and SNAP! The thing snapped right off, leaving a huge chunk of metal inside my fork valve. I didn't freak out at first. There was a tab sticking up, so I grabbed some pliers and attempted to grab the tab and twist the piece out. It was a great idea, but the metal was weak aluminum and the tab popped right off. I must have moved the metal a little bit because it was enough that it engaged the needle inside the valve and let out all my air. Now I was stuck on the mountain the first day with a flat fork.

     Back into the car I went. I descended down the mountain into town where I stopped in the first bike shop I came to. I went inside and asked if they had any tool that could remove the piece. They told me it would take most of the day and I should just leave the bike, but they were sure they could get it out. So I left and headed back toward SLC to eat lunch with Shannon and the crew. I got on I-80 and the phone rang. Bike was done! Heck yeah! The guy fixed it and didn't even have to replace the valve. I was so excited!

     When I got back to the shop, the guy that had fixed the bike was gone to lunch. The guy that checked me out must have thought I was an idiot. He kept saying that he had never seen anyone break an adapter because nobody uses those. He also tried to tell me my bike was in bad shape and needed a full tune-up. Yeah, buddy, I don't think so. He tried to play off of what he thought was my ignorance. I checked for a shock pump and then left. They only charged me $10 to fix the fork.

     This shop did not have a pump either, so I went on the lookout in every shop in town. Luckily, Park City is full of shops. Finally, I found a place with a pump that would fit! And it was $65! I almost had a cow. It's a nice Specialized pump that will also double as a frame pump for tires. It's a great trail tool, but I still was kicking myself for leaving my perfectly good pump at home.

     The pain in my wallet was gone as soon as I hit the trail. It was late afternoon now, but I was finally getting to ride! I tooled around Bald Mountain for a while. It was my first ride on a mountain bike since February. Kind of sad huh? Never thought me, the hardcore mountain biker, would ever go 6+ months without riding on a trail. I felt like I hadn't lost a step though. I made a few mistakes jumping roots and things, but the Remedy is very forgiving with its six inches of suspension. It made me feel like I was just as sharp as last year, even though I know I wasn't quite as fast in the corners.

Looking toward Park City from Empire Pass

Another view of Park City from the Team Big Bear trail

Looking into the Heber Valley from the remote Bow Hunter trail

Huge dandelion along the side of Bow Hunter

    I took the advanced way down the mountain. I wanted to hit the bike park next week so the best way to get comfortable on the mountain bike again was to go right after the big stuff. I rode down some steep downhill trails with lots of roots and rocks and even a few sphincter-clinching drops. Once at the bottom, it was time for my second climb of the day back up to the top of the mountain. I climbed up above where the car was parked, so I got to ride down one more time to end the day. There's a new groomed downhill trail called Payroll that I took back down to the car. Payroll has some huge berms on it and a few cool jumps and drops. It's a well-built trail that isn't too awful for Beginners, but can keep a Pro happy as well.

Looking down on the Jordanelle Reservoir from the top of Bald Mountain

Looking west from the peak of Bald Mountain

USGS marker atop Bald Mountain. 9356 ft. elevation.

     Here's the video of my first day of riding:

Day 1 video

     I didn't get in as much riding as I had hoped, but the altitude made the short ride plenty long. I was exhausted after only three hours. I felt so out-of-shape. Those six hour road and mountain rides I had planned for this trip were starting to sound more like death marches. Like my fork adapter, I am feeling broken after the first day.

Big City Nights Video

     I have prepared a new video, this time of night crit. racing. The video is set to the song "Big City Nights" by the Scorpions. It seemed appropriate for a video about racing in cities at night. It took us over a year to do the shooting, with Shannon filming most of it while I was racing.

     The video features clips from the following races:
     2012 Sunny King Criterium - Anniston, AL
     2012 Athens Twilight - Athens, GA
     2012 Spartanburg Regional Classic - Spartanburg, SC
     2012 MoPro Loop de Loop Grand Prix - St. Louis, MO
     2012 Lynskey Performance Southern Sunset Criterium - Chattanooga, TN
     2013 Crossroads Classic - Mocksville Criterium - Mocksville, NC
     2013 Crossroads Classic - Cabarrus Creamery Criterium - Concord, NC
     2013 Crossroads Classic - Sun & Ski Sports Salisbury Criterium - Salisbury, NC
     2013 Crossroads Classic - Downtown Statesville Criterium - Statesville, NC
     2013 Gateway Cup - Tour de Lafayette - St. Louis, MO

     Watch it below or find it on YouTube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npQ-sKTVQJA