18 Road Trails - Prime Cut -> Front Side -> the Edge -> Randy Superfly -> Vegetarian (epic mountain bike ride)

Got up and had breakfast and had a telephone call from Bill a chap I had met out on the Kokopella trails system the day before. He said that he was going to ride the Edge trail with his buddy Andy, and wanted to know if I would like to join them.

As the Edge ride was listed as an epic must do ride I said yes, and arranged to meet them at the Edge cycles shop in Fruita. We then drove up to the 18th street car parking lot

It was a great day there was a light wind blowing and the temperature was about 75f. We headed out from the car park down to Prime Cut, which we then rode up. Trail was great fun narrow winding singletrack with ups and downs gradually heading up to the cliffs.

When we came to the end of Primecut we connected onto the Front side trail heading west. The front side trail was brilliant excellent smooth singletrack shooting up and down the lower slopes of the cliffs, with steep ups and downs, off camber descents etc.

After finishing riding the fantastic front side trail we connected onto the coal Gulch road for a steady grind up the road, the road was pretty easy to ride up nice and smooth, and there were great views all he time as we rode up it. But I was glad that I had good company to chat with as we rode, as it was a long ride up hill.

The road eventually turned into double track still heading uphill, with some downhill sections, and several false summits.

Eventually we came to the section of the trail known as the wall which, I managed to ride up, but my mates didn't. We then stopped to take in the views at this high point of the ride.

We lowered our seat posts and started down the trail, the down hill section was very steep, and was an exciting ride down.

Although the trail was double track there was only one good line heading down it, and it was covered in loose rock , just to make things more interesting.

Eventually we split off the double track and started down some great singletrack. We we hurtled down zipping between the juniper trees

Eventually the singletrack dumped us in a wash which we started to ride down, in places the wash still had water where it had rained the previous day, and we had to squeeze through over hanging vegetation. Until we came to the waterfall.

Just before we got to the water fall 3 riders with body armour and identical Moot bikes had gone past us, and then had obviously cheated the trail by taking the wuss bypass. But we decided we had to go down it. Getting down the fall was a great fun, But I wouldn't have liked to have done it on my own. As there was still water climbing down the fall, and the walls and rope were slippery.

At the bottom we stopped and eat some food, and let our gloves dry out. Then we carried on down the wash.

As you rode down the wash you had to keep an eye open for a singletrack which weaved in out of the wash, the singletrack was great fun. As we rode it we could see that other bikers had missed it and had just ridden down the sandy wash, not seeing the great singletrack. Eventually we started to climb out of the wash heading west.

We finally reach the end of the edge trail, and I decided to head off on the Randy Superfly trail, whilst Bill & Andy decided to head off south. Unfortunately for me I managed to have a bad crash, going down into a wash and went over the bars and did a face plant. Luckily for me i face planted in sand so only got a minor scrape on my nose and chin, I hate to think what would have happened if i had met a rock instead of sand ! I also managed to get scrapes on all limbs, a big cut on my leg and a big bruise on my shoulder, and sprained my right hand.

I decided against riding up to chutes and ladders, as my hand was really starting to hurt and cut back towards the vegetarian loop, and met up with Bill And Andy again, where we compared our wounds from the ride. We rode a total of 29 miles on the ride.

We then drove into Fruita and I went to the city market to buy peroxide to clean my wounds then we met at the pizza place across from Edge bikes for some great Pizza. I ordered a 14" Flight of the Icarus Pizza and managed to eat all of it bar 2 slices.

Bill & Andy then had to head back to Denver, so we swapped numbers and I'll be sure to look them up when i come back to Colorado as they were great riding companions.

Once i got back to my Hotel my hand really started to hurt and get very stiff so i choked back 2 Advil and tried to get to sleep, which took a while. I was quite worried at this point that my hand might have something very wrong with it.

DAY 5