MG Data

March 31st….. did my first ride in Grand Junction today. Rode from my house over to the Tabeguache trail system, also known as the lunch loops.

I rode the streets over there as if I was driving. On my way over, evidently a main road 4th st was closed and looked to have been closed for some time. I ended up going downtown and winding around downtown in every wrong direction there was. At one point I was nearly getting on the freeway, or at least it looked that way. Somehow after a few miles in circles I ended up at the right place, Broadway. From there it’s just maybe a mile up Monument Rd to the parking area.

I started off up the Tabeguache trail. I ran into a group of women, asked them what to ride…. they told me good trails all over, take this one…… I rode that trail, made a wrong turn and ended up right back on Tabeguache trail and ran into the group again. I kept riding up Tabeguache trail. Got to a flat area, the trail gets steep here, I found out this section is called the widowmaker. I rode about 1/3 way up and got stopped at this ledge. Walked up the rest. I stayed on Tabeguache for a few more miles until it seemed to end at a pile of rocks on top of the ridge above a canyon far below. I took a singletrack to the left and it seemd to be headed down to the road so I cut back on another trail and ended up back on Tabeguache. I rode back down Tabeguache trail. I ran into the women again and they told me go to the bottom of the widowmaker and there’s a good trail from there. I got there, made a left onto a bouldery trail and rode back uphill to a rock outcrop, hike a bike over the rocks and kept riding up the trail which eventually tops out at the same pile of rocks I was at earlier. I turned around and rode back on that trail and took a trail to the left at the base of the rock outcrop. This section was good and took me to Eagles Wing trail, which I rode to the left I believe over some interesting colored rocks and soil. Eagles wing dumped back to a flat area a bit below the widowmaker where I ran into the women again. They told me go take Holy Cross trail. I went up and found that at the base of the widowmaker. This trail is marked most difficult and sections of it are more like a trials course than xc. I ended up walking most of the rock sections, nearly endoed coming off this boulder which dropped off before I saw it. It was a good ride, but slow. Holy Cross dumped me onto the intersection of Gunny loop, I went down to the right and I think I missed a turn cause I think I ended up on private property which dumped out onto Redlands Rd. I rode that down and back to Monument, rode back up to the parking area and kept on riding, chasing a rodie up toward the monument…. realizing I was kindof tired for this effort, I turned back maybe a mile or 2 past the parking and rode home.

Riding home, I found the Colorado river trail, which took me most of the way home and much better than the crazy downtown mess of getting out to the trails.

Fun day, just over 30 miles and about 3 hours. The last time I’d been on a bike before this was March 16th, after which I had one of the worst flus I’d ever had.