VIDAmtb: Long Live Ladyshred!

It's both a blessing and a curse to be a lady mountain biker: on the one hand, you have an automatic sisterhood with every other girl on a bike, because you've probably had a lot of the same challenges and experiences. On the other hand, if your parents weren't cyclists or if you didn't start out riding motos, it's likely that you were taught to ride by a significant male presence in your life, such as a boyfriend, and many times it does not go well. My personal history started off a little rocky, with the requisite clipless pedal slow side fall and a trail not at all suitable for beginners, but fortunately my boyfriend-now-husband was patient and encouraging.  I persevered, and since then I have heard many variations on the same theme of traumatizing introduction to the sport.  Boys tend to push us too far too fast and neglect the foundations of good form and technique, preferring to shoot ahead of us on the trail and take a nice long break at the top as we puff our way up, while we're either pretending to have a super time or getting ready to pitch a major fit.  And then on the downhill, they are off again, leaving us to navigate any number of obstacles with incorrect body position and too many fingers on the brake levers (see Step 8 of How to be a Mountain Biker). It's a wonder that those of us who have this experience ever get on a bike again.  Luckily, even if bad habits have been ingrained over years of riding with boys or, indeed, for any other reason, there are mountain bike skills clinics that can help wipe the slate clean. The VIDAmtb clinics, in particular, focus on mastering the basics and building up to achieve confidence and competence in all situations on the trail.  VIDA also has the benefit of being for women, by women, and is the brainchild of two awesome lady shredders who have spent years in the industry and know that having more women on bikes is good for everyone.

(EJ Dilley Photography)

Last weekend I was lucky enough to participate in a VIDA clinic held at the Valmont Bike Park in Boulder, CO, as an ambassador and general helper-outer for the coach of one group of five women who wanted to up their on-trail game.  The coach, Lauren (aka Professor Shred), had a gold helmet festooned with stickers and a brilliant green dirt jumper with bright blue Spank wheels.  I knew we were in for a good time when she said she was from Seattle: those PNW folks really know what they're doing.

The organizers, Sarah and Elena, had used questionnaires to group the women together by skill level and preferences of things to work on during the clinic, but Lauren still had each of the five women give a quick personal background and specific aspirations for the day.  All of them had been riding for a few years, but they wanted to get more comfortable in sketchy trail situations like drops, jumps, and corners.  But instead of getting straight into the more advanced techniques, Lauren wanted to make sure everyone had the basics down, mainly body position, cornering and braking.  There are two reasons for this: first, most women (and guys, for that matter) never got proper instruction on the basics; and second, everything more advanced that we wanted to tackle later would build on having good starting technique.  So many people are shocked to find that they've been doing things wrong for years, and the concept of changing is both daunting and freeing. At VIDA, the correct way is clearly explained and demonstrated, and all that is left to do is practice until it becomes second nature.

Anyway, we started off with a powerful demonstration of why the one-finger (read: pointer) braking plan is best, then moved on to attack position, which allows maximum adaptability in trail situations (body low, weight on feet, elbows and knees loose and bent). Quick note from a previously guilty party: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, GRIP YOUR SADDLE WITH YOUR THIGHS.  On to cornering: this proved a bit more challenging.  A surprisingly large percentage of riders have a great deal of trouble with bike-body separation, which is critical to good cornering.  Plainly said, it means leaning your bike, not your body.
This is correct cornering form:

(EJ Dilley Photography)

This is incorrect:

And this is just completely nuts:

But that last one is Matt Hunter and he can do pretty much whatever the hell he wants.

During this segment I benefited from Lauren's coaching as well, as she pointed out that I was moving my knees all wrong and then showed me how to do it correctly.  Score!

Next, we moved on to rolling up, over, and off obstacles (in this case, a big wooden box). The first drill focused on preloading the front of the bike to pop up over curb-sized things instead of just bashing into them, which suspension forks make possible but is still not ideal.

(EJ Dilley Photography)

After that, and at the request of the ladies, we stacked a second wooden box on top of the first and attached a ramp to the front end to create about a 12-inch edge for them to roll off of.  It was obviously a perfectly rollable distance,but it provided plenty of height to practice shifting weight properly and also "sending" a small drop, or "lunging" as Lauren called it. It took a few laps, but eventually everyone had it down, and we raised the box by another 6 inches.  At that height, rolling the edge at slow speed would be iffy, and only two of the five in the group wanted to try hucking off of it.  They played on it until lunchtime, and then we quickly stuffed our faces with great food provided by Real Athlete Diets so that we could get back out there before it started storming on us.

Lauren took us on a quick lap around the south part of The Glades, which has a few small rock ledge drops with similar heights to what we were working on with the boxes, and then we joined another group that was learning to pump the rollers in the north section of The Glades. Lauren gave a quick tutorial on the anatomy of a roller and what your bike and body should be doing in each part. I rode through while they watched to show how it looks, and apparently the demonstration was well received because they made me do it again while both groups watched, which, even though I've done it a million times, made me unaccountably anxious.  I managed not to pull an endo or get my shorts caught on my saddle or anything, and then I joined Lauren in fussing at the ladies as they did laps around the track. I also demonstrated my utter ineptitude at taking action photos:

Afterward we moved up t the large pump track at the top of the park, which proved more challenging due to the tight berms.  I was struck by how hard it is to explain the motion of pumping; when I learned to do it, I had trouble getting the timing right, but once I did it was easy to tell that I'd gotten it.  A couple of the women had the same experience, and I was impressed by the improvement I saw.

Then, it was on to the dirt jumps, where we practiced rear-wheel lifts and level lifts (bunny hops are hard to master on clipless pedals, which most of us were using that day...oops) as helmetless male youths provided aerial distraction nearby:

We took the hopping to the XS and S dirt jump lines with the daunting goal of using parabolic motion to clear the small, friendly table jumps.  Lauren showed us how much more fun dirt jump bikes are on dirt jumps:

Braaap! (EJ Dilley Photography)

With ominous black clouds looming over the Flatirons, we used our last hour to play around on the small slopestyle line. I finally got our group to tackle a small drop at the top of the line, which, not being entirely rollable but only needing moderate speed to clear safely, was fairly intimidating to begin with.  I remembered feeling squirrelly about it when I finally got back on my bike after a nasty spinal injury at Keystone in 2011, so I totally related to their trepidation.  Lauren and I clowned around on the drop first:

"Magnum! Dear God, it's beautiful!"

Tongue-out jumping: don't try this at home.

Yes, it's a small drop.  But a drop is a drop, and drops can seem really sketchy until you get the hang of them.  This one is 99% mental, which you can see from the concentration on the faces of these two:

But they totally rocked it, and once it struck home that they really just did need a little speed, it was all rainbows and butterflies!

Watching other women shred is one of my favorite things.

The participants reconvened at 4:30 for wrap-up, a raffle, and tech talk, while the coaches and ambassadors took advantage of the continuing lack of rain to play in the park a little longer.  We finally had to retreat to food and beers when the storm began at 6, almost as if it had been waiting all day for us to have a successful clinic.

I've taken several clinics in my seven years of being a mountain biker, and each time I've had my mind blown in one way or another by the difference between doing something the right way and the wrong way.  More than once, one of the women in our group expressed amazement at the ease with which Lauren or I performed a skill that has become natural to us.  This is not to say that I'm a pro or anything; I'm just lucky that I was taught by people who really know what they're doing.  Good clinics and coaching are critical to those of us who didn't grow up with a pump track in the backyard, and in addition to giving women a supportive and fun environment to practice skills right alongside other motivated and rad women, they are an investment in a future of better riding.  It's also an opportunity to network and find other folks to ride with in your area.  The ladies in our group were excited by their own progression and kept saying their friends would never believe what they had managed to do during the clinic, and they are going to take that enthusiasm out on the trail with them and hopefully inspire more women and girls to go out and ride.  I can't wait to see what happens next!


*Thanks to EJ Dilley Photography and Sarah Rawley for providing the good photos.  The terrible ones are, obviously, mine. Also, thanks to Real Athlete Diets for providing the delicious breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks. And much thanks to Professor Lauren Shred for having a great sense of humor and being generally rad.*

Go Forth and Coach!

I've posted previously about my volunteer coaching activities with the Pocatello high school mountain bike team, and last weekend I started the process of becoming an official assistant coach.

Fellow assistant coach and parent of a team member Troy and I traveled to the Idaho Leaders' Summit in Eagle last weekend to undergo training and get some coaching tips from our Lord and Savior Lee McCormack (and, as a bonus, take advantage of the much more varied opportunities for craft beer sampling in the Boise area).

We left Pocatello on Friday afternoon and arrived at The Edge brewing company right as our stomachs started to grumble, and our first glance at the bar made me feel like I was back at a proper Denver tap house:

So many choices!  Also, the bartender had lots of tattoos and an ironic facial hair thing going on.  I told him I wanted ALL THE BEERS, so he asked if I trusted him, then poured me a flight of 4 of their best.  He chose wisely, so after that flight I had another and a gigantic burger as well.

Once I had mopped most of the barbecue sauce off my face, Troy and I continued on to our lodgings for the weekend: his sister's house! She had generously offered to put us up, and we were happy to save the team a few bucks by forgoing a hotel.  Even better, they had an enormous, very enthusiastic young German shepherd named Henry, who immediately shanghaied me into playing tug with him (I lost).  After a glass of delicious oatmeal stout with our hosts, we were off to bed and resting up for a long next day of Powerpoint presentations.

The summit began at 8:00am, so Troy and I left the house at 7:00 in search of bagels and coffee.  When we arrived at the venue, we found...bagels and coffee.  Blast.  I chose a seat at a table about halfway from the front and close to the exit, but as soon as the room filled up, a guy came and asked if there was space for him to squeeze in next to me, then proceeded to slurp the bejesus out of his coffee for the entire morning.  Blast again.  This is why I can probably never go back to school: other peoples' noises.

The guys running the show, Austin McInerny and Dylan Gradhandt, kicked things off by having everyone introduce themselves and say where they were from and what they hoped to get out of the summit. The answers to the latter question mostly followed the theme of getting more kids on bikes.  There were  lot more women in attendance than I had expected, and they all (myself included) expressed a specific goal of getting more girls on bikes and onto teams.  Several people also mentioned creating lifelong cyclists, and biking has an advantage in this area over other sports, because how many kids keep playing football or soccer or water polo after high school?

After the introductions, we dove right in to starting and managing teams.  Austin's presentations included lots of personal anecdotes from his time as a coach (he's now the head of NICA) and were very relatable and easy to follow.  Next, we got a quick tutorial about registering teams online, and crash courses on the NICA rulebook, connecting with and motivating the kids, convincing school administrators to let us steal kids from their precious football teams so they can get fewer concussions by riding bikes instead, raising funds and finding sponsors, and involving parents in the community.  It was an avalanche of information, and since they gave us flash drives already loaded with the slides and a whole mess of other stuff, I just jotted down ideas for our team here and there.  I especially liked the suggestion of a "bike check" at the beginning of the season, which wold be a mandatory meeting of all the kids where they learn how to make sure their bikes don't have flat tires and aren't about to break into a million pieces (aka trail-ready).  We also heard about a flat-fixing competition, with the first person to swap a tube and pump the tire up to a predetermined PSI winning some kind of prize; I thought that was pretty ingenious, and I hope we can incorporate it into a team practice at some point.  We're lucky it's only April and we've got plenty of time for planning all the season's activities.

For pretty much the entire time we were sitting there, it had been raining continuously outside, and the prospect of a group ride once we had adjourned for the day looked bleak.  However, about an hour before we were scheduled to be done, the rain let up and the sun made a timid appearance.  It was decided that we should venture onto the trails around the Avimor Community Center (where the summit was being held) and turn around if we encountered high levels of mud.  Those of us that were itching for a ride hustled to get changed and saddle up before the weather turned nasty again, but we only made it about a mile when rain started falling.  We regrouped at a spot with a vantage point of a steep, tough-looking switchback climb that will be part of the course for the Idaho league State Championships in October, then the locals led the group up a pretty tight ravine where the trail was mostly flowy singletrack with some rocks thrown in here and there and a couple of creek crossings.  It was reassuring to be on lower ground when thunder started rumbling, and because the trail wasn't overly muddy, we only turned back when the ravine opened up onto more exposed ground. I had very wisely elected to wear a cotton flannel shirt on the ride, so the descent was a mite chilly.

Of course, it was still a good time, though it was a bit disappointing to discover the lack of a bike wash station (aka hose) to ameliorate our crunchy drivetrains.  The center did have very nice shower facilities, but, me being me, I had forgotten a towel.  I dried off as best I could with a T-shirt, then Troy and I made our way to the Winding Creek Grill in Eagle, where the organizers had reserved a table for the folks who hadn't had enough of hanging about with the same people all day.  It turned out to be a nice small group, and we talked bikes and kids and race schedules over good microbrew drafts.

The next day was almost entirely devoted to a skills/coaching clinic with Lee McCormack, but first we had a useful presentation on risk management and insurance.  I discovered that: A) I'm going to need a bigger pack for spare parts, emergency rations and a first aid kit, and B) coaches aren't supposed to transport kids in our personal vehicles, because car insurance companies are jerks. We're also supposed to limit physical contact with the kids for obvious reasons. Commence air high fives!

Lee took the floor shortly after, and went through some basics of coaching, as well as bike setup and body position fundamentals.  His mantra (or one of them, at least) is "heavy feet, light hands," and the cornerstone of his on-the-bike teaching is the "attack position." He gave us a visual of this concept by pulling two tables together, balancing his bike between them on the cranks, and straddling the bike with his feet holding the pedals in place.  Then he demonstrated how his weight stayed centered over the bottom bracket whether he pushed the bars forward as in a descent or pulled back for a steep climb. It was an excellent way of getting the idea across, and it came to him, he said, in a fever dream during a bout of influenza.  Hey, whatever works.

We broke for lunch, and because I am wildly inept at putting in my contact lenses, I went to wrestle them onto my eyeballs and put on riding gear before eating. When I returned, someone had found the streaming video of the World Cup downhill race in Lourdes and put it up on the projector.  I saw Emmeline Ragot smash Manon Carpenter's time and half of Rachel Atherton's run before we were summoned out into the sunshine for the practical part of the summit.

I had previously taken two clinics with Lee in Boulder, and I always waved hello when I saw him at Valmont Bike Park, so I was gratified when he stepped into the middle of the circle to address us as a group, stopped short, pointed at me and asked if I had done a clinic with him before.  But the downside of this was that he singled me out a couple times as an example.  And as anyone who knows me knows, I (sarcasm alert) just love being the center of attention.  Well, I guess it's true when there is tequila involved.

Lee took us over to a stretch of not-busy road and started demonstrating techniques of proper attack position, braking, and turning, then divided us into two groups: one performing, the other coaching.  I know the point of the whole exercise was to practice giving constructive guidance, but it felt so bizarre to coach other coaches.

Here is a not remotely interesting picture of Lee telling us we're doing it all wrong:

A quick, not at all catty observation of my fellow participants: the bike/outfit combination really ran the gamut from an enduro-ish vibe such as on myself and Dylan, and major Trail Freds on hardtail 29ers in their full matching spandex team kits. Most folks were somewhere in between, but the notable outliers were the dude on the commuter, complete with fenders and pannier rack, and the fatbike with funky handlebars like these:

Hey, people should ride whatever they like.  But I reserve the right to be amused by them. I'm sure that I look like a total doofus to some most people, and my therapist says I'm okay with that.

Lee then led us to a parking area with a short, steep embankment and drilled us on staying loose on the bike to soak up bumps and ride smooth, then on getting out of the saddle and straightening arms for more efficient climbing.  At the end of our allotted Lee time, I accosted him for a selfie with me as Instagram proof of my being on a bike for Day 12 of 30 Days of Biking.

Then, after changing and thanking Austin and Dylan for putting on the summit, Troy and I hit the road.  We brainstormed ideas on skills clinics, team events and everything else, and arrived back in Pocatello ready to give our report to Coach Dan and get started on an awesome season.

So apparently it's summer already...let's ride bikes!

While the rest of the world was in Sedona (Shredona/Shredgina) last weekend, a small splinter cell of Colorowdies descended upon the house of Sienna and Trevor Martin in Grand Junction and used it as a base of operations for bike riding and beer drinking.  We took the spare key from under the extremely tasteful fountain that accents their front yard

and proceeded to stuff seven bikes into their front room and ourselves and three dogs into the rest of the house, failed to figure out how to work their TV remote, and threw out all the food in their fridge to make room for our assorted beverages.
Saturday morning, we blasted through two pots of coffee while Dave made us all excellent breakfast burritos, then packed into Matt's truck for a day of riding laps on the 18 Road trails in Fruita.

(Colorowdie ringmaster Tony B. was also in attendance at the Martins' house, but since he had not been cleared to ride mountain bikes yet after his super gnarly surgery, he put on a full spandex Fred "kit" and took his shiny carbon Fredmobile for a spin up Monument Road.)

Though our plan was to shuttle to the top of each run, we agreed to pedal up the first lap so that we could at least pretend we were hardcore.  We made our way to the top of PBR and took some quick photos of Matt in his amazing enduro getup

and caught Kelly playing with her phone instead duly admiring Matt's amazing enduro getup

and then we were off!
I'd forgotten how much fun PBR is.  It's just pure joy: nothing technical, just flow.  The weather was perfect, and so was the dirt.  At the bottom, we immediately went back to the parking lot to shuttle up for more.
Next up: Joe's Ridge to Mojo's.  I didn't recall what features were where on the trail, so I took it a little slow but still had a blast.
Lap three was Kessel Run; it's always more pedal-y than I remember, and I arrived at the bottom thoroughly out of breath from trying to pin it the whole way.
The short drive back to the top was hardly enough time to recover for the lung-buster of the day, Zippety Do Dah.  I stopped during one climb to catch my breath under the pretext of taking a photo of Matt, Kelly and Eric up ahead

and then of Taylor behind me, taking a photo of me taking a photo of the others.

There are a couple of steep, short, sweeping descents on Zippety, and as I swooped down them I took satisfaction in recalling how I was too intimidated to ride those sections on my first visit to Fruita many years ago, on a different bike and with different people.  I love the moments like this when my progress as a rider is tangible.

After that, we were pretty worked and the truck was running low on gas, so we drove back into town for a lunch break.

We parked ourselves at some tables in the sun outside Camilla's Kaffe on the main street, which precluded us from ordering beer since we were not within the patio area covered by their liquor license.  This was just as well, because the faintest whiff of alcohol would have had me, and likely the others, nodding off for a warm afternoon nap.  Once we were sated and sufficiently up to date on social media via our smartphones, we drove back to 18 Road for a few more laps.

The climbs hurt a great deal more after the break, as they tend to do, and on the final lap I made myself a nuisance for Kelly and Taylor by finding a few spots to set up and take "rad action photos".  This required a brief tutorial on using the mercurial camera's "sport continuous" setting which, due to my terrible skill at explaining things, resulted in some misfires and shoving bikes back up the trail for second attempts.

First, we set up at the double towards the top of PBR, which I hadn't managed to clear when we were in Fruita the previous year; I was feeling confident now and wanted another crack at it.
Success!  Here I am in midair:

And here is proof of my back tire landing on the transition, albeit just barely:

So that was nice.

There was another little feature just down the trail from the double, and I had Kelly take a series of Taylor chasing me on it:

Kelly also hit it, but I made a hash of the photo by not zooming in and getting my shadow in it:

And then, because I'm annoying and high-maintenance, I also wanted some cornering shots, so I stopped at a nice bermed corner with trees framing the mountains behind and got a few decent ones:

The camera is great for taking quick series photos, but clearly the resolution is kinda crap.

Action shots accomplished, we ripped down the rest of the way, reconvened at the truck with the boys, and went back into town for pizza and beer at the Hot Tomato.  Tony was already there, heroically holding down a table for 8 on his own.  We settled on three large pizzas to share amongst ourselves and claimed the beers that had eluded us at lunch.  As our leftovers were boxed up, Kelly went to the bar on orders to "ask for the stickers that they keep behind the counter," which turned out to be these:

I was mystified by most of them until Kelly explained that the owners of the Hot Tomato are a lesbian couple who ride bikes, which is awesome on several levels.

We then headed back to Casa de Martin for showers, beer, Cards Against Humanity, and bed.

On Day 2 we rode Lunch Loops, and since the shuttle to the top of Free Lunch is particularly inconvenient we agreed to pedal our butts up there.  This was somewhat rough due to the extremely large and delicious breakfast we had just consumed at Dream Cafe in town that morning, complete with mimosas for most of us.
What felt like several hours and fifty miles later, we arrived at Free Lunch, where Matt immediately struck another Enduro Jerks pose:

And I attempted to be "artsy" with the camera again:

but mostly just managed to cut the top of Matt's head out of the photo.

After that I gave up taking photos and just rode my damn bike! At the end of Free Lunch, we took Holy Cross back down towards the parking lot, which was just as fun and challenging as I remembered it to be, and I especially enjoy that a sign at the beginning of the trail reminds users that it's supposed to be difficult, and to please not alter the features to make them easier.  More trails could use signs like that, I think.

Once back at the cars, we stuffed leftover pizza in our faces and drank some more beer:

The Front Rangers left shortly afterward to sit in the I-70 Sunday afternoon traffic, and Kelly and I mustered enough energy to do a couple laps of the pump track.  There were several children out there as well, absolutely crushing the dirt jumps and soaring effortlessly through the air like smug little seagulls, and it gave me yet another opportunity to curse my parents for not putting me on a BMX bike the moment that I developed the motor skills to hold on to handlebars.  I could have been a contender!

Altogether it was a pretty perfect weekend, except for the part where Huck blew his anal glands on Taylor's lap in the truck, which caused such acute nasal discomfort for the rest of us that she had to buy and change into a new pair of shorts while we were having lunch in Fruita.  Yeah, that happened...

And on that note, thanks for reading and have a shredtastic day!

I'm Going (Going) Back (Back) to Colorado (Colorado)

At least for a few days, because the trail conditions are terrible in Pocatello, and I miss my Rowdies!

It was my first time out on a two-wheeled conveyance other than the intrepid cruiser Stella Seahawk since riding Hall Ranch in December.  I had visited Erin in Salt Lake City for a day of skiing, and since I was already almost halfway to Grand Junction anyway, I decided to join up with a few other friends going there for the weekend.

The sun was getting fairly low as I rolled toward Fruita, so I turned off at Loma for a quick pedal on the Kokopelli trail system before dark.  There weren't many people around and I had no idea which trails went where, so I just started climbing up the first one I got to (later I described it to Trevor, and he said it was Moore Fun).  It was a little on the technical side, with handlebar-height rock outcroppings that tried to knock me over and a few tricky uphill sections, and I rode like total crap because I had apparently forgotten how to ride bikes in the past month, and I didn't check my suspension before starting (rookie move).  But at least I was back on an awesome bike with bright yellow wheels, on dry happy trails in a beautiful place; it could be much worse!  Of course, since I wasn't Strava-ing, the ride never actually happened...

I would be staying at Sienna and Trevor's house in Grand Junction for the weekend, but since Sienna wouldn't be home from work until 8pm, I stopped by the locally famous Hot Tomato Cafe in Fruita for a pint of New Belgium White IPA, and then again at Qdoba for some nachos. (Pro tip: to really get your money's worth for the nachos, have them put on ALL OF THE SALSAS. Trust me.)  One last stop for a six pack of Baba Black Lager to share, and I arrived at the Martins' and was immediately accosted by Remmy the Enduro Dog and Cayman the Caymanator.

Kelly and Sienna arrived shortly after that and we made plans for riding the rest of the weekend.  Both of them had only recently been cleared to start riding bikes again after their knee surgeries to repair torn ACLs, so Kelly wanted to keep it relatively moderate.  Sienna had to work again on Saturday, so she went to bed fairly early, and Kelly and I stayed up until sunrise, drinking whiskey and breaking things.  No we didn't, we're over 30 and too old for that crap.  Remmy sat on Kelly for a while and then we retired.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't see you there."

The next day, we had a leisurely morning and made our way over to Kokopelli around 11:00 when it was acceptably warm.  I hadn't been there in at least two years, but I remembered a few features like the sketchy drop-in to Horsethief Bench and a section of Mary's Loop that goes right along a rocky ledge over a 15-foot drop-off.  It's not actually all that bad, but someone felt it was scary enough to create a barrier with some large boulders.  I can't decide if that qualifies as sanitizing the trail, because it didn't change the trail itself, it just made the move less mentally intimidating.  A huge part of mountain biking is getting out of your own head and looking at where you want to go, not at the drop-offs (whether real or metaphorical).  I suppose if it gave new riders the courage to try the section instead of walking it, it's probably a good change.

It felt really good to be back on my bike, and Kelly was very pleased with how good her knee felt while riding.  She tore her ACL last summer, during the last stage of the Durango Big Mountain Enduro race (and still came in 5th!).  In fact, several friends sustained injuries during the last riding season, and we missed them sorely during their recuperation.  Fortunately they are all back to shredding in one way or another!

Crushing it!

Afterwards we decamped to the Hot Tomato for beers and an ENORMOUS pizza, of which we could only eat two pieces and then wrapped up the rest for leftovers.  

Om nom nom.

Then it was back to Sienna's for naptime until dinner.  Liz returned from her training ride and Sienna arrived home from work, and we went to Bin707, arguably the best restaurant in Grand Junction, with trendy cocktails of locally sourced spirits and hipster-friendly small plates. It was quite good, and I recommend checking it out if you are in the vicinity.

Next morning, Kelly made us all an excellent veggie frittata, of which Remmy stole the remains from the kitchen counter when no one was looking. He didn't seem the least bit ashamed of it, either. But that is probably because he is a cartoon, not a real dog.

We piled in the cars and headed east toward Palisade, a small town known in the rest of Colorado for its excellent peaches.  To me and most folks from the Front Range, it also signaled increasing proximity to Moab and regaining 4G and wireless signal as we left the river canyon.  However, there are a few hidden gems of trails at the mouth of the canyon, and Trevor and Sienna first led Liz, Kelly and me on the Palisade Rim trail on the south side of I-70.  It's mostly moderate, switchbacky singletrack up to a couple of lollipops, and had some nice interesting technical features on the climb.  Being on the north side of the cliffs and out of the sun, it must be an excellent ride in the summer, but in this case it meant that there were several patches of ice on the trail, deceptively hidden under a thin cover of dirt. It was somewhat disconcerting to try and put down some power to get over a ledgy rock and end up sliding sideways instead, but we eventually made it to the top of the first climb without incident.
Near the top, there was a small drop with a very smooth transition, and Trevor set up to take photos if we wanted to try it.  Liz hit it like the pro she is, and I rolled up to the edge to see which line I should take.  It was about the easiest drop you could ask for, but as I backtracked along the trail to give myself some room to get up speed, I still felt nervous, because I have the most uncanny ability to make a complete hash out of almost anything.  But I started pedaling, and committed, and went for it, and it worked out just fine:

Oops, sorry, that's actually Rachel Atherton being the total badass she is.  Here's me:

The socks are key.

Thanks Trevor for playing photog!

Of course, even that little bit got my adrenaline up, but it felt good to get the season off to a successful start.

A little ways up the trail, there were some rock paintings of unknown age and provenance.  Here's Liz taking an action packed shot of them!

Enduro rock photography!

Here we see the aftermath of Trevor suggesting that Sienna's helmet might clash with her Shredly shorts:

"How dare you!" *slap*

This was quite upsetting for Cody, who needed a quick snuggle before we could start the descent:

Luckily, the ice we encountered on the climb was much less of an issue on the downhill (just don't brake on it).

Back in the parking lot, we met up with Shannon and Adam, who had come out for the next ride we had planned that day.  Sadly Kelly decided that she didn't want to risk aggravating her knee with more riding, and she set off for home.
The rest of us made our way toward the relatively well-hidden start of the Stagecoach trail on the north side of I-70 which DEFINITELY DID NOT involve hopping a fence onto private property and crossing the railroad under the highway.  There was a good amount of steep hike-a-bike up from the road, but holy cow was it worth it!  Excellent winding singletrack with incredible views and minimal snow.  We kept up such a good pace that I only had time to take this photo of Liz and Shannon:

Once we got back to where we started, Sienna talked us all into riding another 4 miles up to the American flag that adorns the cliff overlooking Palisade. I was painfully slow on the climb due to my chronic wimpiness, and this last hike-a-bike up icy snow-covered rocks just about killed me:

Then upon reaching the flagpole, Liz and Sienna decreed that we should make Trevor and Adam's day by taking a "free the boobies" picture:

'Murica!

Lucky for us, it was sunny and unseasonably warm at that point in the day.
The flagpole sort of lies off the beaten path, so we picked our way back down to where the main trail should be, which involved lots of fun bunny-hopping off of ledgy rocks and swerving around patches of cactus.
The day ended with a round of beers at the Palisade Brewing Company, and then a round of spirits at the Peach Tree Distillery (it was right next door to the brewery, how could we not?).  Afterwards I packed up the Tahoe and made my way back to the sloppy mudfest that is Pocatello with great regret that it is not closer to Grand Junction.  Hopefully I will have a reason to go back soon! President's day weekend, anyone?

Thanks for reading, and remember: safety third!