Mountain Biking Moab and the Canyonlands

Posted on by Rich Sharples

For Spring Break this year, my 11 year old son Jack, and I and a couple of other dads and their sons spent the week in Utah with the goal of riding the White Rim Road in the Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. The “Road” is a reasonably well maintained “Jeep Trail” mostly devoid of any signs of civilization aside from a handful of primitive camping sites and some rather decent enclosed pit toilets. The camp sites are merely designations – there are no facilities other than proximity to one of the aforementioned pit toilets – they’re mostly just a sign and some markers showing you where you can and can’t pitch a tent.

If you are superhuman and don’t require much water or food – you can ride the 100.7 miles of White Rim Road in a single day – the level of fitness and logistics required to do this are beyond my comprehension. Instead, we opted for the four day, three night tour (there is a three day tour as well). RimTours our well equipped and very capable tour guide company provided a decent range of bikes, a support truck for transporting our camping gear, food and luggage and two extremely competent and affable tour guides.

In addition to the White Rim Road – we  had a couple of days either side of our 4-day tour so we explored some of the local bike trails and hikes around Moab.

If you’re thinking about doing this trip – I’d highly recommend RimTours – my son and I will likely make this kind of thing an annual event and I wouldn’t hesitate in using RimTours again for one of their other tours.

There are 7 parts to this post (including this one). They are, in chronological order :

I’m posting this because I couldn’t find much information on-line – hopefully these posts will provide you with some additional information and inspiration to make your own trip. Enjoy.

 

Day 1 : White Rim Road : Shafer to Airport

Posted on by Rich Sharples

If you’re not already awake by the time you start the decent down Shafer (about 7 miles in); you soon will be. It’s a pretty exhilarating 1500ft descent through alpine switchbacks – if you take it easy on the dusty / gravely corners you will probably make it down in one piece.

The rest of the first day’s ride was fairly flat, fast  and easy – following the natural contour that is the White Rim. We made decent progress despite frequent stops to enjoy the stunning views.

My trusty Garmin 800 had few issues in some of the more sheltered canyons but we clocked up a fairly easy 19 or so miles on the first day.

Day1-map

We arrived at the Airport campground mid-afternoon – which left plenty of time set up camp, play some Petanque / Boules, eat dinner and explore  a little and get to know our fellow riders. But mostly we were trying to get out of the wind, which, by dusk had picked up enough to threaten my trusty antique tent (note RimTours provide much nicer, much newer tents). This is the same tent that my wife and I used to back-pack around Greece and Turkey about 25 years ago.

 

 

The camping gear we bought was :

  • 2 x inflatable roll mats
  • 2 x inflatable pillows
  • 2 x 4-season (ie .very warm) sleeping bags
  • 1 very old – 2-person, 3-season tent
  • 2x headlamps
  • 2x solar chargers

In hindsight – I should have bought a newer tent or rented one from RimTours and a large beech blanket or something to throw on the floor of the tent would have added to the comfort. Aside from the first night – we were warm and dry and slept pretty well.

Read Day 2 – Airport to Murphy

 

Gone Tubeless

Posted on by Rich Sharples

The cold weather this weekend had me looking for a bike related activity that didn’t involve grinding through semi-frozen piedmont clay. I’ve been thinking of turning my 2014 Specialized Epic Carbon Comp tubeless and spending 30 very cold mins. yesterday fixing a pinch puncture on the trail sealed the deal.

The Epic’s tires are Specialized Fask Trak 2Bliss Ready so all that was required was to find the tubeless valves that came with the bike and to buy some sealant and actually make the transition.

I started with the front. Fitted the valve (there’s an obvious right an wrong orientation), put the tire back on, unscrewed the valve and then added sealant via the valve stem with a Stan’s syringe kits. Rolled the sealant around by rotating the wheel through a couple of different axes, fitted he valve back on then tried to inflate the tire using a track pump. Lots of pumping but no seal. Used a 20g CO2 canister  and instantly the tire popped onto the rim and sealed – nice sound. But there was still little air (and a little sealant) coming out of the valve so I had to wiggle and rock it while tightening the nut until it stopped.
The rear went on much quicker – fitted the tubeless valve tight by applying some sealant to the area and rocking it and wiggling it while tightening the nut. Didn’t bother using the syringe to add sealant – just poured some into the bottom of the tire before popping the tire on. Another  C02 canister instantly inflated the tire and popped the tire onto the bead. Just like a pro !

IMG_4216

I inflated both tires to 60 psi using a track pump and witnessed the magical sealant doing it’s job on an old, decent sized hole in the front tire. I rode the bike to the end of the street and back just to circulate the sealant and left it in the sun for an hour or so. Checked the pressure when I came back and everything looked good so deflated both tires to my usual 40psi.

IMG_4215

I did a quick trail ride but didn’t notice any immediate difference – I suspect that’s more to do with the current conditions (ice, mud, clay); looking forward to a longer ride later in the week. Will still be packing a spare tube until I’m confident of the sealant’s ability to fix small punctures. I did notice that my usual 40psi feels rock solid so will likely have to experiment with pressure a bit. I’ll post an update when I’ve ridden some more.

Also what should I carry on the trails for repairs now ? Just sealant and C02 ?