Slickrock

Moab: The name means so much to Mountain Bikers across the world. Beyond the oft referenced Islamic connotations, it has other religious inferences.

Slickrock is Moab, but only to a small degree. Slickrock is just about anything but slick. It's grippy and tacky and if you slide on it you're doing something very wrong.

The jagged La Sal mountains, frosted with snow, were a powerful contrast to the flowing sea of rock that I was climbing and surfing.

Inclines that remind me of walls are possible to climb provided you are in the right gear and far enough forward over the bar to keep the front end from coming unglued from the rock.

There were very few people out when I was riding. On the one hand, it was nice because I could take pictures without getting riders. It was also nice to not have to wait for groups of people to ascend or desend. I ran into one group of about 8 people who were going very slowly. They said that they'd been out for 2.5 hours when I had been out for 1.75 hours, and they had more than half the loop left to do.

It was perfect weather for a ride. The sun was shining, but the air was crisp, even in the middle of the day. The average temperature according to my bike computer was 23° C.

Even though there wasn't a whole lot of climbing, with the exception of the hill in the picture, the ride was a constant up and down, and consistantly, steep in both directions.

There were a lot of places there I sabotaged myself by looking at something and thinking I wouldn't be able to do it. Although, on a several climbs I just powered it out and made it without any problem.

I have to thank Joe Lawwill for all the knowledge he imparted when I did the BikeSkills class. Without what he taught me in that class, I would have had a very difficult time riding both here at Slickrock as well as at Little Creek. It's amazing what a manual can do