Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Hurricane, Utah
June 7, 2008

On day three of our road trip in Hurricane, Utah, UncleMTB seemed to have eaten something that did not agree with him, so I rode the Goulds Rim, JEM and Hurricane Rim trails solo, which totaled 21.5 miles, in a counterclockwise direction. I had ridden these trails on June 3, 2005, but I was doing a video with a new helmet cam system, and working so hard to keep up that I remembered very little of it. It was a beautiful day, the trails were great, and it was nice to be able to take my time and enjoy the ride. My desire to do this ride the first time was inspired by a great video MTBBill had made a few months earlier. 

The ride starts with a two mile fireroad climb, which wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. But about 6-7 miles into the ride on a long series of big ups and downs, I began to tire a bit. It occurred to me that I had never ridden three consecutive days before, and I started to question my sanity. However, since I knew there was a fantastic long downhill in the middle of the ride, I continued on, and it revived me a bit. The first part of the Hurricane Rim Trail was great and very scenic. However, either I have a very poor memory, or I am in worse shape than I thought, because the last 4-5 miles were torture! The trail was a bit rocky and narrow, with steep drop-offs in some spots, and seemingly a dozen times it went down into a steep canyon, only to climb back out again. I was getting pretty tired and every time I thought I had reached that last climb, I could see the trail in the distance going down into and out of another canyon. I had to do a good bit of pushing the bike toward the end. But I felt fairly fresh at the finish, and then drove nine hours home. Thanks UncleMTB for a great trip! Below are some photos, more will be posted on my site.

Click here if you want to see a selection of photos without opening each separately as below, as well as comments from the mountain biking community.

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