Less Is More

yao-zuh (the thing on the left is billy's new ride!)! just got back from moab with the homee trinity (get it? it sounds like holy but i don't want to be sacrilegious here...): kev, billy, and me. the ride out was treacherous because a major snowfall occurred on the way out and vail pass-again-was nas-tee! i just caught glimpses of it because i was in and out of consciousness from the night before. my honey and i just saw/heard kathleen edwards in boulder friday night. 6 out of 5 stars (yes, i said six out of five) was her performance. she's talented and she rocks! anyhoo i would wake and stare out of the window and be in disbelief witnessing all the snow and ice accumulating on i-70. nutty. but once we got to fruita, billy had one singular thought: get my new ride! billy purchased an ibis mojo, spec'd with xt with the mavic cross-action, straight pull, bladed, wheelset. beautiful. we decided to break it in at a 4,100 foot climb up a trail called top of the world. by this time the sol (which, incidentally is located in the orion arm of our spiral galaxy, classified as a main sequence star according to an h-r diagram will evolve into a red giant whose diameter will engulf earth's solar orbit and all life will simply evaporate in about six minutes in about 6 billion years-so y'all better get your christmas shopping done early and purchase some 4,000,000,000,000,000,000 spf sunscreen while you're at it!) was gloriously fusion reacting hydrogen molecules producing helium atoms resulting in obligatory radiant heat for earth-bound carbon-based life which, in turn, synthesized vitamin-d for said carbon based life ultimately producing copraphagic smiles from ear-to-ear (specifically on the faces of aforementioned homee trinity). oh shnap i was on a science teacher bender! okay for your quiz today, find out the fuel cores of the the white dwarf (trick question), black dwarf, and red supergiants. thank you...
we started at the colorado river-site of the burned-out dewey bridge because some simpleton parent couldn't control their seven-year old pyromaniacal son-and to get to the top (of the world) we had to climb, climb, climb. we all remembered the climb not being this brutal but man the rocks were sharp, nasty, and frequent. one thing different this time as compared to last? no snow, more fitness. it was almost spiritual, climbing since we were the only ones on the trail and it was eerily quiet. once we started climbing we didn't talk and we hunkered down for a state of steady aerobicity while constantly scanning uphill for the sweet lines. like i said it was quiet and our bikes were quiet, quiet, quiet. the recent storms made all the flora high-contrast green against the red sandstone and funky moon rock on the ground. here's billy taking the sweet line on a particularly difficult, off-cambered piece of slab...

here's me trying (to english) the same obstacle with a slightly different line. it was so hot i had to unzip my jersey (thank god for full-zip jerseys!).

the scenery was like looking through a polarizing-effect lens with the layering of high-contrast greens, browns, and reds. billy set a pretty high pace amped up on his placebo affect and the technology accompanying his new steed (okay, he's pretty fit too). once at the top, this is what we saw:

on the way down billy's new ride awakened a dormant skillset in his brain-the downhill skill. he was flying and kev was too. in fact, they were going at such a warp speed i crashed trying to keep up with them. i might have to reconsider my hardtail-only stance. if it weren't for my cat iii road handling skills (this is a not funny long running joke i have with my friends grant and kenny) i'da been a dead man. the crash hurt. i banged up my knee and my elbow-the entire left side. i currently walk with a wee-slight limp/gimp.

we wanted to do a second ride but the 4,100 foot climb coupled with the heat kinda cooked us so we bagged that idea. moab was a'buzz with pedestrian life this time of year. all manner of people were out and about. there were a lot of foreign visitors too. i don't blame 'em i'd be here too with a powerful euro. there was also an inordinate amount of cute members of the opposite sex. it made spectating rather entertaining. we stayed at the archway inn with visions of slickrock and the sovereign trail dancing in our mellons right before mr. sandman paid us a visit. note to selves: we're not doing top o'the world anymore for 2008! we wake up and since we were on a time limit and our quads spanked from the previous day's effort we decided to do sovereign instead of slickrock. we roll and billy is possessed by the spirit of mr. clean. holee shmokes he cleaned all manner of gnarly technical stuff on the way up. it was like "ite kids, school's in session!" kev and i were dangling off the back a wee bit. once we got onto some flat stuff i took the lead and we played cross country follow-the-leader. it was a hoot blasting through berms in the singletrack, bunnyhopping over babyheads on the sweet line, and cleaning some super angular abutments of rock scattered every so often. sovereign is rare in moab because it's a true singletrack. we didn't get to our destination because we had to turn around to make it home on time. here's kev cleaning one of those angular rock abutments. on the return trip kevin had the lead and he opened up the throttle.

big chainring time! we were flying through the singletrack and i was barely staying on my line since i was getting bounced something fierce on my jittery hardtail. good lord, what a great conclusion in such a short amount of time. on the way back we ate at billy's fave sandwich shop where my carnivorous brothers ate sirloin and i ingested a portobello-provolone creation in glenwood springs.
note-worthy observation: on the way out some dudes asked us why we're taking off so early from such a glorious day/ride, and billy said, "because we're honoring our wives today."-it's mother's day today. the guy got kinda smug but his friends non-verbally communicated i wish we had someone to come home to (they immediately got very quiet).
monday's gonna hurt y'all...