So ... with all the boys gone and Frase and I left to our own devices ... what do we do? A 75 mile mountain bike ride, that's what!
The day started out a bit chilly - with the rain yesterday came a cold front. Starting out it was 10 Celcious (45 for you Americans). 3 days ago I was making fun of myself for bringing knickers and warm weather gear ... today I was sooo happy I had it. Ibex Knickers, under shirt, jersey, vest, arm warmers, little hat ... and I was good to go. The first 40 miles were pretty amazing - great moab sceanery, no cars, a little chilly but when the sun peaked out from the clouds it was a perfect temp.
We spent the majority of the day in the Canyonlands. Pretty amazing views. After ~35 miles we faced a 'moab wall' (3000 ft + rock wall). we had to climb it. Fortunately this time it was via switchback - no crazy hike-a-bike. 6 miles and 3000 feet later we were at the top. We thought it'd be easy going from there but we faced 20mi/hr headwinds and freezing cold temps (35F or 3C). Yikes. Back on with the arm-warmers, the extra jersey and the hankercheif aroud the neck. The next 30 miles were torture. We had to keep stopping to warm up our hands and we were so cold that we were forgetting to eat so we weren't so co-ordinated :)
After getting out of the wind and into the canyons we started to warm up a bit again... couple more miles and we were home free! It was definately an epic ride - 5.5 hours of ride time, ~75 miles, and ~6500 feet of climbing. Not a bad pace either ...
Sorry - no pictures today ... no breaks, no photos, no nonsense!
