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Second post in 24hours, aren't you lucky...

The first evening when we were left to fend for ourselves in Moab we decided to drown our sorrows and headed for the Moab Brewery. This is the only micro-brewery in Moab and very cool it was too. It’s amazing how instantly you feel at home when there’s several nice bikes hanging from the ceiling/on the room dividers, including a nice Santa Cruz. Other decoration included a tent, a figurine climbing the wall, a raft, a gilder and half a Jeep Rubicon. The beer cost $3 at the bar and they served Jacket Potatoes, it was like my spiritual home, lol! We tried most the local beers – my personal favourites are Scorpion and Dead Horse encase you’re ever in the area, they had a good range and even sold pint glasses to help me avoid my felonious hobby of collecting brewery’s pint glasses (we brought two in the hopes that one gets home ok). We stopped at the campsite in town ‘Canyonlands Campground’, which was ok if a little noisy, but importantly enabled us to have a shower and was within easy walking distance of the brewery.

The next day we decided to have a day off. Go on, I know you want to laugh. To be honest at times this trip has felt like an epic struggle to avoid the worst of the weather/get to places ‘on time’ to enjoy them properly and, if I’m honest, the inclination to avoid wasting a minute has lead to us being pretty ‘busy’ most the time. So, we got up late, packed up, parked on the street in Moab and after sending quick ‘thank you’ notes to Rob and Jez we spent the morning and early afternoon wandering around Moab.

It’s a nice little town, especially nice as it seems to be retaining some charm (i.e. doesn’t have a Walmart yet). I’m sure it’s not what it used to be as a little mining town as every other shop front is a gift shop/bike shop/café but still feels friendly. We dropped Dan’s bike into Poison Spider, simply as we’d heard of these back in the UK, we finally found someone who could change his brakes over and give his bike a once-over as he was having problems selecting a few gears and after that we trundled off for a late lunch/dinner at the Slickrock Café – now, if you’re in Moab and fancy a smoothy, this is the place to be  We ordered a sandwich and didn’t have to eat for the rest of the day, the food was good. By 3pm we were bored with our day-off (mm, we lasted 4 hours) and decided to head on out on a trail and find a place to camp in the middle of nowhere for the night. We took Kane Springs Creek Road out to Hurrah Pass and did a bit of Chicken Corners Trail, I say a bit as Dan started doing most of it in highbox (at speed) and I wasn’t handling it well after the big lunch! Still, it was getting dark, so after taking some fantastic photo’s and admiring the scenery we headed back down to camp in one of the many marked areas we’d spotted on Kane Springs Trail.


My favourite picture of the holiday so far:


This is the life :-) We weren’t allowed to collect wood and had forgotten to pick some up in town but thankfully, messy campers abounded and we managed to collect enough from used fire rings to have a fire that lasted ‘till 10:30pm. The moon was bright and the stars were out, after all the noisy campsites it’s fantastic to sit somewhere completely quiet. We had a cold night, temp’s down to 25F – I was freezing, but that probably had something to do with not having dinner as I was still full from lunch.



We woke late and had to pick Dan’s bike up, but couldn’t resist trying the proper Kanes Creek Trail which crosses the creek lots of times. It was marked as a difficult, but the Hell’s Revenge hadn’t been too bad, so with promises to turn back if it looked dodgy we headed off. We’d noticed several vehicles in town the day before with lots of red mud – and true to form, even in the dessert we can find mud:



Hehe! Ok, so it was splashy mud, but by the looks of the tyre tracks going in and out it was quite popular. We enjoyed the trail, lots of wash-outs, narrow rocks and tippy sections made for interesting driving, but again, Charlie Camel walked it all with confidence. We got to a section that looked a bit dodgy and both got out to have a look, half the trail had been washed away and built up again with stacked up rocks, with a fall of about 30ft if it collapsed I thought I’d better test it so jumped on the rocks only to almost disappear down the canyon! I won’t be driving the Camel over that then! We found another route over the top, but in involved a steep decent and assent on sand – Mm. Remembering the last time we drove on sand we didn’t think it was a good idea to attempt it encase Charlie got stuck in a v-gully with nothing to winch from. So, reluctantly we made the decision to turn back. Just as we did an older couple in a Rubicon trundled up the trail, the chap was spotting for the lady but not really looking what she was doing and she was pretty much ignoring every instruction… it seemed oddly familiar, lol! They got to the wash out and had a look, they also didn’t really fancy either option but were determined to keep going. Bizarrely they chose the washout route as they didn’t want to risk damaging the skid plate on a rock on the safer trail… err…ok… personally I’d prefer that option to rolling sideways down a gully, but their choice! They did however pick a good route and although the lady pretty much ignored the bloke again and almost run him off the edge of the track whilst shouting ‘coming through!’ they made it unscathed. There’s something to be said for short, light vehicles. Even then, they had put ½ a tyre on the loose rocks, so even though we were tempted, it was pretty obvious Charlie would probably put a *whole* tyre on the loose rocks and without anyone else to help us out should we get into trouble neither of us really fancied the risk. We stayed around to ensure they cleared the obstacle safely as they didn’t have a rollcage and after they disappeared into the distance we made our way back.

Err...




I got to drive this time and was quite proud of myself considering there was some *very* big side slopes, my own personal enemy. It’s all about the confidence.

After we got off the trail it was coming up to 2pm so we decided we really should head into town and pick Dan’s bike up. We got to Poison Spider and the bike was ready and waiting, they brakes had been swapped, but the gears hadn’t been looked at – despite us paying for the work. I left Dan to have a word with the chaps whilst I went off on my Stumpy to look for a shop who may be able to get me some angled handle bars. Mine are great, but without any upsweep they put me quite off balance when negotiating downhill sections. I hadn’t been too impressed with Poison Spider (talking on the phone whilst serving you, you having to wait until they’d finished their conversation about the weekend before asking if they could help etc) so wanted to find somewhere else, ideally someone who’d have some Specalized bars to match my bike (yeah, posy I know). I found my way to Rim Cyclery and wandered in off the street with a filthy bike (it’d been on the back of Charlie) and I couldn’t have found any more helpful guys. I spoke to Johnny who had a ’07 Stumpjumper Hardtail so was impressed with my good taste in bikes, lol! He wasted no time in grabbing my bike, telling me off for it being dirty and using the wrong lube for Moab (in a nice way though!). He got straight too it and tried adjusting the bars as much as possible to try and get me into a better riding position, he put them up as high as possible and adjusted the angle explaining to me all the while what he was doing so I could adjust it myself afterwards. It didn’t quite work though, but not to worry they had several handlebars I could try – from $20 cheapy’s upwards. We tried a set of Specialzed ones that they use on the full suspension Stumpjumper and they worked perfectly  Not only that, they looked like they belonged on the bike. Whilst talking Johnny mentioned enviously the white saddle on my ’08 Stumpjumper, I laughed and said I’d much prefer a black one! It took him about 10 seconds to pull a new body geometry black one from under a counter, the same as mine, only new and black – the deal was on. He also cleaned and lubed up my bike, adjusted my gears and brakes and checked all the vital components before letting me out the workshop. He refused to charge me for labour and threw in some stickers and a water bottle – he must have really liked the white saddle! Needless to say, my bike is transformed, even with the small amount of riding I did this afternoon it feels so much better to be a good riding position and I think it looks ‘awesome’ with the black saddle. As Johnny said – ‘You’ve got to Represent’ … I’ll work it out soon. If in Moab, go to Rim Cyclery – don’t bother with Poison Spider (in my opinion of course).

Now *that* is a cool bike:



Only problem was, I’d told Dan I was just going to go for a quick ride. Opps. Almost an hour later he was getting worried! Still, he laid on the emotional blackmail and didn’t give in until I’d brought him dinner and several pints of beer (from the joint account! - Dan).

After a busy afternoon we settled for finding a campsite to do washing/update the blog and plan some trails for the next day. Now Dan’s bike is sorted and I feel 100% more confident we’re going to hit the first of the trails on the bikes to give Charlie a day off and see if we can last without a trip to hospital. I can’t wait :-)