Moab Skinny Tire Festival — Day one
Wow, I can tell I still have my touring legs. I was fine going at a pace comfortable for me, but when the pace edged up, I got uncomfortable in a big hurry.
I was riding today with my friend and fellow cyclist, Paul Stempniak. We made the mistake of starting at the back of the four hundred or so cyclists that did the ride today. We casually advanced past riders as we headed out of town. By the time we crossed the Colorado River, we were basically at the front of all the riders. Well, all of them except for a group of thirty or forty that we could see about a half a mile ahead.
It’s much better (easier and more fun too) to ride in a large group of cyclists, so we quickly decided that we needed to bridge that gap. After three or four rotations where each of us was in the lead position for a short while, we had barely made a dent in that gap and that was even with the help of a slightly downhill stretch. We gave up on trying to catch the lead group. Three years ago when Paul and I did this same event, we had a similar gap to bridge. That time, however, we successfully caught the lead group and enjoyed the company of twenty or so other cyclists for the rest of the ride to the turnaound point. I pointed this out to Paul, who didn’t seem to upset about it because we had already found another reasonable group of six or seven other cyclists to ride with. Much smaller than the lead group, but it still helped a lot.
As we rounded a gradual turn in the road, we found a group of cyclists standing around the center line. Actually, they were all standing around a cyclist lying in the road — an obvious victim of some kind of crash. We had to assume the crash happened in the lead group because open road, single cyclist crashes on well-maintained pavement like this are extremely rare. Suddenly, I was glad we didn’t bridge that gap to the lead group.
We continued on in our group of eight cyclists for the remaining twelve miles or so to the turnaround point. The pace was 22 to 24 miles per hour on flat roads. This would have been a comfortable pace for me a couple years ago, but I spent most of 2006 riding at a touring pace of 15 to 20 miles per hour, so I was feeling quite UNcomfortable today. I took a couple pulls at the front, but most of the time, I was hanging to for dear life at the end of the peloton. I’m certainly not proud of that, but that’s the way it was.
The return was slower but equally uncomfortable because we didn’t have a large group of cyclists to ride with and the wind was picking up. Towards the end, I had to back off the pace a little more — I had three more days of riding to think about. Paul was kind enough to not leave me even though he was obviously stronger. In fact, later that afternoon, Paul climbed back on his bicycle and participated in a time trial. It’s a five mile hill climb on Sand Flats Road which goes past the Slick Rock Trail parking lot. I had signed up for the time trial, but I decided it really wasn’t a good idea. Instead I went and took some photos of the cyclists as they rode past the Slick Rock Trail entrace. Below are some photos from the time trial:
| Total distance: | 47.84 miles |
|---|---|
| Time: | 3:32:19 |
| Average speed: | 13.5 mph |
| Maximum speed: | 32.1 mph |
| Total calories: | 3688 |
| Average heart rate: | 140 bpm |
| Maximum heart rate: | 174 bpm |
| Total ascent: | 906 feet |
| Total descent: | 906 feet |
| Ride profile: |  |
| Ride comments: This data is from the ride that Paul and I did in the morning. It started in Moab and headed out the Potash road to just past the potash plant and then it returned to Moab on the same route. |
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