Moab Training Camp Part 1

Over spring break the Tokyo Joe's development mtb team went to Moab for a 5 day training camp. Last year's trip to Moab was one of the best trips I had ever had, so I had high expectations of a great time. I wasn't let down, but there were some interesting surprises and experiences.

We left from south Boulder on Wednesday the 27 early in the morning with 15 people. We stopped in the mountains to pick up another, then didn't stop again until we were in Fruita. This was the first ride if the trip and one of my favorite trails called Mary's loop. It was the first time I got to ride the bike I borrowed for the trip, so I was super excited to get riding. Mary's loop has a great combination of technical and flowy sections, which made it the perfect place to get used to a heavy trail bike. By the last descent of the day I was comfortable enough to get 3+ get of air, and started to understand the appeal of having a trail bike to ride. The ride was short, and after loading the bikes back onto the car we left for Moab.

The Great Showers at the Lazy Lizard Hostel

After a fairly short drive we arrived at the Lazy Lizard Hotel. It was dusk so we couldn’t get a full look at the hostel, but we could still tell how disgusting it was. I was ecstatic that I brought a sleeping bag, but when I took a shower I realized I forgot a towel. And when I went to see if the hostel had towels I found an unpleasant surprise. The towel was covered in grass, which worried me because there wasn’t a patch of grass anywhere near the hostel. I tried not to notice the painted plywood walls of one of the showers, the mold, and the plaster surrounding the faucet while I dried off with my shirt. Another fun discovery was the stains all over the carpet and sheets of the beds. Eventually we figured out that the building was 2 mobile homes put together using scrap metal and wood.

The first night was a little hard to sleep. There were weird noises, and holes going to the outside of the house. The best part was the animals crawling around in the ceiling. We could tell there was a family of some sort of animals living in the ceiling. In fact I only think 3 people actually slept that night, and the rest of us were either too grossed out or scared to sleep. In the morning we could really see how nasty the place really was. Almost everything was broken or stained, and the kitchen was a mish mash of tables, islands, stoves and dust. Even the light covers that were glasse had holes in them. At least we only had to spend about 3 hours of time awake there, and the rest would be on the legendary trails of moab.

My Favorite Trail Amasa Back

The first trail that we rode in Moab was Amasa Back, my all time favorite trail. The technical climbs and descents makes you stay on your toes constantly. The trail starts with 15 drops to go down, and then almost immediately after there is a 3 foot drop. I would have gone off the bigger drop at the bottom, but there was a line of about 30 jeeps in the lading. We were able to get around the jeeps pretty fast by doing the bike only single track, but right around the corner was another line of jeeps waiting to go up the main climb. This time we had to wait 20 minutes until they finally let us by them. From there we had the trail to ourselves, so we went a little nuts because of how excited we were. I was still able to clear all the lines on the climbs I could before, but I was able to clear lines I didn’t think were possible on the downhill.

After Amasa Back we were too tired to even care about the condition of the hostel. We all took showers, then one of my teammates had the idea to go to the rec center to swim. We were all for it because it would get us out of the hostel and keep us from being bored. The rec center had high and low diving boards, so we ended up swimming for about 2 hours. We had competitions to see who could do the best trick off the high dive. I was the first one to do a flip, and I was happy I did because Jack tried to match it. He jumped off and over rotated straight onto his stomach. He doggy paddled to the side of the pool and just waited there in pain for a second. Naturally we couldn’t stop laughing, and after the pain went away Jack was laughing too. Then right after we stopped laughing about Jack, Denzel went and did the same thing. I had never seen anything funnier while swimming before. Just for that it was worth the money to go swimming.

Day three started out with a fairly disappointing decision to ride Mag-7 instead of Porcupine Rim. Almost everyone was mad because of how legendary Porcupine Rim is. It has a reputation of being flowy, technical, hard, and fast singletrack. Not to mention that it is completely downhill. There is a long dirt road climb, but the actual trail is completely downhill. I knew immediately that I wasn’t going to have a good day. The second they changed the ride I knew that even if the trail was great I wouldn’t like it. It was a 30 mile car ride to the trailhead, and when we got there I knew there would be a lot of gentle yet brutal climbing. But to my surprise we didn’t do any climbing. There was a long downhill with lots of short but easy climbs, so I didn’t expect to have to do much climbing at the end. The trail was pretty good, but it would have been so much more fun on a race bike. There were shallow descents that required pedaling, and pedaling was not a strength of the bike I was on. Along with the shallow gradients, there weren’t many sections that made the extra weight and suspension worth it.

Lunch Time on MAG-7

Everyone on their light efficient race bikes loved the trail, but by the end some of them hated it like I did. The last part of the trail was a sandy uphill mess that had nothing remotely fun on it which ended abruptly in a dirt road. Long, steep, and boring dirt road was the last thing put Mag-7 on the never ride again list. I realize that I had a bad attitude towards that trail from the beginning, but I still won't even give that trail a second chance. We drove back, and immediately went back to the rec center for some more swimming. When we got back we were so tired we didn’t even talk. Instead we stared off into space and quietly ate our dinner. We still played cards which rejuvenated the team a bit, but we still went to bed early.