Ahhh FALL!

You know, water skiing is a great sport. Only problem is, you can't do it year round out here on the west coast. I mean, you can, but it just isn't the same. Water is sub 50's and the air is saturated and cold. Soooo, we are constantly looking for the off-season 'fix'. Something to take our mind off the fact that we wanna be out slayin turns.

Since the fall had been so dry out here in the Mtn west, the MTB scene was hittin. With MTB meccas like Fruita and Moab only 1 hr and 2.5 hrs away, it seemed logical to hit the trails AMAP (as much as possible). After a swing thru Moab en route (from Cali to Colorado) and a few trips to Fruita, it was time to head back to Moab for some more classics.

I met up with Cali skiers, Chad Pope & Steve Shroeder (they may be holding hands...I'd rather not know)-->  out in Moab about 2 weeks ago. Steve was on a high after picking up the newest addition to his quiver....the all new Santa Cruz Blur LT CARBON. A$$hole.....the thing weighs like 9 lbs! Pope's VP Free and my Nomad (heavyweights compared to the Blur) gave us that constant feeling of double flats everytime we looked up to see Shroeder pulling away.....with seemingly no effort.

Saturday we hit Amasa Back and cranked all the way out to Pothole Arch, an unbelievably scenic ride.

3 hours later, we were sitting in a pub in Downtown Moab, recharging for the afternoon. An hour later we were slaying (or trying to slay) slickrock trail....a bunch of rookies, we ended up losing a man (spun a derailleur) and managed to ride the loop backwards. Still, super sick, super sticky, steep steep sandstone slickrock sillyness....pretty much an endless natural terrain park for bikes.

It was the perfect day (except for the rear cassette I broke trying to smash up those slickrock steeps!)

Next day, Sunday, we tuned up the bikes (new derailleur, new cable housing on the VP and a new cassette for the Nomad) and hitched a shuttle ride up to the base of the La Sal Mountains (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Sal_Range), which turned out to be unreal country, once again.

 A totally different world than Amasa Back the day before. Well, the ride (Hazard to UPS to....Moab) was legendary.....starting at 9000' and ending just above 4000', it was pretty much 25+ miles of all downhill. Steeps, cliffs, canyons, steps and drops. Classic Moab ride.

Just one little set back. A 5 ft rock drop with a flat landing. I saw Shroeder stick it just ahead of me. I tapped my breaks, then decided to charge it.....shoulda known better.

*/reflects on sequence of events
*/shakes head for the 1,327th time
*/tries to shrug if off and forgets shoulder can't shrug yet....Damn that hurts!

Well, like I said, this is the first broken bone from something other than water skiing, and the first collar bone ever.....was bound to happen.  Only down side to it all was we still had over 1.5 hrs of riding techy singly single before reaching the homebase (the van).  Good thing no one thought it was snapped.  Two weeks in and its healing up nicely. 4 or 5 more and maybe it'll be ready for Highlands Bowl & Squaw.

Till then, there are a few other things in the works to keep the mind off the broken wing.

Stay tuned for more updates and releases!