Going the Distance
Eric, Dan and I were too tired to sleep past 7 AM, so we got up and walked to the bagel shop. For some reason, both the women that worked there were in a pretty crabby mood that morning. Maybe if you run the only bagel shop within 300 miles you don't have to be nice to people.
We were pretty hammered from riding 23 hrs in 3 days, so we decided to take it easy our last day. Keith and Brian decided to take it extra easy, and started for home after breakfast. They are both pretty much lardasses, so we didn't expect them to want to continue the fun. Eric whimpered about his butt hurting. Dan and I said "Tell us about your prison experiences later. We're going riding."
The Moab Rim trail is an easy 15 mile loop from town (1/2 pavement). Our guidebook suggested that strong riders (meaning us) might enjoy doing it in reverse, riding up the steep climb from the river and finishing with the singletrack descent. The book implied that the descent was rideable. The book also noted that the climb from the river has been done in under 12 minutes during the Moab Rocks hillclimb.
Dan and I lounged our way down kane creek road to the trailhead, which is well-marked. We started up the rock-slab climb, pretty much in the granny-gear right from the start. In our exhausted condition it probably took us more than 12 minutes to go the first 400 yards. The climb is rideable all the way up, but it is taxing. It pretty much just goes up about as steep as I could possibly go. I think I stopped once to catch my breath, but Dan rolled right up to the top without stopping.
At the top, we were treated to a nice view of Moab and its surroundings. "Oh, look. Cliffs and rocks. Whoopee." I guess we were starting to get a little jaded by all the spectacular scenery. We meandered along on a semi technical jeep-trail, alternating between slabs, rocks and sand. It was a beautiful day, and we seemed to be ahead of schedule, so we just took it pretty easy.
Our map said stay to the right where the jeep trail divides, so as to miss the sand. We did as suggested, but still found some sand. I assume the other way is worse. Pretty soon we came to some trail intersections of various sorts. We blew off riding up to see some petroglyphs and turned off onto the singletrack. We climbed for maybe a mile, maybe less, then started downhill, across a nice little meadow. For 1/4 mile or so the trail got twisty and really fun, but then... doh! Rideable trail all gone now. Replaced by goatpath. We knew the last bit was supposed to be a portage coming up, but the implication in the book was that we could more or less ride it going down. We ended up doing the less part. Every now and then we tried to ride a bit, but after 50 yards or so we'd have to hike again. It got pretty dang annoying.
It became clear to us that the hot ticket is to do this ride as an out and back. Just go until the trail deteriorates, then turn around and ride back the way you came. Unfortunately it was too late by the time we reached this conclusion, so we slogged it out all the way to the bottom, then coasted down the highway into moab and circle K, where we treated ourselves to icees. We lay on the grass by taco bell, waiting for Eric to show up, enjoying the warm spring day and slurping our cold icy treats. At that point our trip was pretty much a total success.
Notes, Advice, Suggestions, What we would do differently