My Moab adventure didn’t end on Saturday. The Colorado mountains were slated to get ~1 foot of snow Saturday night and in to early Sunday, and I knew that I70 had the potential to be terrible. I talked to a few enduro people about riding Sunday morning with the idea of hanging around until later in the day for the roads to clear and had some possible ride options. Another option was to join Tim Lutz (2nd place finisher of the CTR last year) for a long ride of some sort.

As I’d expected, the mountains were angry Saturday morning

I was sitting around in my yoga pants drinking coffee and enjoying the scenery when Macky and Syd messaged me to let me know they were headed to the trail.

I didn’t want to make them wait, so I decided to catch the Tim Lutz pain train on its way through town (he’d started riding early that morning from his camp north of town and would be passing through Moab on his way up Sand Flats Road about 25-30miles later). Tim’s plan was to do a loop similar to what I’d done last time, linking together the Slick Rock and Porcupine Rim Trails. I met him at the bottom of Sand Flats Road (which takes you to both places), and we were off into the mountains.

This is the part where I realize that I’ve gotten a little soft. I haven’t really been “training” per se, more like riding and taking lots of photos and/or socializing. Basically, I’ve been tooling around and taking lots of pause to enjoy scenery since sometime last fall. So, once we were on the Slick Rock Trail, I felt like I was dying just a little. Tim doesn’t stop much. And, when he does, it’s for seconds. Like this <1min clothing change:

That trail is basically a collection of 30sec-1min steep as hell climbs and descents. My dropper post stopped returning before the final race stage the day before, so I was forced to either not use it or to use it and stop to yank it up by hand once I was down whatever I was descending. Even though Tim was going “I’m not going to burn any matches today” ‘speed, my matchbook was set ablaze and mostly charcoal by the time we finished.

The ~1min bathroom break:

Once we were on Sand Flats Road headed up towards Porcupine Rim, Tim said he needed to lube his chain. In my head, that was worth at least two minutes. Nope. World’s fastest chain lubing:

In my head, I gave myself a little tough love, ate a Roctane, and resolved to this being the hardest training day I’d put in for the past few months. I needed it.

Instead of going all the way up to the Upper Porc Rim trail on Sand Flats Road, we turned off about halfway up and went up a jeep road climb to Lower Porc Rim.

It intersected the Porcupine Rim Trail at a really nice overlook.

We hauled ass on the way down. That’s the 3rd time I’ve ridden that trail now, and every time, I ride a little more and go a little faster (though, I purposefully didn’t hit the “big” drop I’d accidentally done the previous ride on the Mach 6). Not only is Tim a total machine, endurance-wise, he’s excellent at handling a bike as well.

At the bottom of the trail, we split and went to change before meeting back up for food. Apparently, his post-ride appetite rivals that of Matt’s. I was wonderfully exhausted and enjoyed doing mostly nothing for the remainder of the evening.

Sunday morning, the roads looked to be clear. I packed up and went to gather little Indy (happy birthday, Old Man… he turned 15 just a couple of days ago!) from Karen’s Canine Camp. I snapped a pic of Karen and all the other little dogs who he made friends with while he was there:

My plan worked well. The snow was well-melted and traffic was moving smoothly. I went to the shop Monday afternoon and gave my bike a once-over. The brakes had felt funny a couple of times. It probably had to do with the boiled mineral oil inside of them.

I also found out that 24 PSI still isn’t enough:

It still holds air like a champ, though. I trued it and I’m gonna keep rocking it for the forseeable future. I will be somewhat more prepared for the next race. My kneepads came in while I was gone-

And, my Mach 6 is on the truck RIGHT NOW for delivery! Also on its way, a carbon Enduro wheelset from Industry Nine and a RaceFace 35 Bar and Stem. I haven’t been this excited about a new bike for a very long time.