Day 2 - Tabeguache MTB trails (Grand Junction) (Drive Denver -> GJ)

I woke up after a good nights sleep in my huge King size bed, to a lovely clear sunny day, and had breakfast at the Hampton Inn which had a pretty good spread of food. I then setup my GPS with the route to Grand Junction and packed all my stuff up in the SUV, and set off on my journey.

The drive was quite straight forward , I just headed along the I70 to Grand Junction. The drive was very scenic, as I drove along I could see people skiing in the mountains.

The drive from Denver to Grand Junction took 3.5 hrs and about 260 miles. I arrived at the Grand Junction La Quinta Inn at 12:30, but when I tried to check in they had no rooms free, so I used their rest room to get changed into my cycling gear and headed over to the Lunch loops in Grand Junction.

I parked up at the Tabeguache trail head off Monument road. The temperature was 80f but there was quite a strong wind blowing which kept things cool. I then rode up the wash road, to the turn off for the Holy Cross ride.

The Holy Cross trail was superb, great fun to ride. There where a couple of drop off's and technical sections.

Eventually the trail met up with the Gunny Loop trail which I went left on and rode back to the wash road. I then decided to go up Widow maker to ride the ribbon Trail.

I pushed the bike up the first section of widow maker, and then rode up to the Eagle wing trail which I road up and then eventually cut back down to Andy's Cutoff trail. Andy's trails is a great very steep downhill section of trail, which eventually dumps you in a wash.

I then rode up the Ribbon trail, most of it was ride able apart from a couple of places where you had to carry your bike. It was pretty tough riding up it as my Lungs were not used to the thin air. I got as far as the Bowl before my water ran out. So at this point I decided to turn back. Going back down the trail was good fun, apart from the long sections of slick rock, which you had to break quite a lot on and my brakes were making awful squeaking noises.

I arrived back at the wash and then headed up the Portage to carry on riding Andy's Loop. Quite a nasty section of portage when you are dog tired but well worth it for the great flowing downhill single track on the other side.

I then headed up through a neat section of trail with bits of volcanic rock littered on the trail, which made great clinking noises as your rode over them and rode Eagles trail back to the SUV.

Not Sure what my riding mileage for this ride was as my computer stopped working in the first 10 minutes, but I'm guessing it was around 20miles.

I then headed back to the Hotel stopping off at Safeway for Gas and food, I got back to the Hotel and had a Swim and Hot Tub, which I had to my self as no one else wanted to brave the very strong cold wind which was blowing from the south.

I was too tired to go out for something to eat so I munched some chips, power bars and an apple and then hit the sack.

DAY 3