Moab Century

[BikeDutchess]

Just got back from the Moab Century, which was yesterday. There were 4 options this year, a rolling 42, rolling 70, climbing 70, and climbing 104. The latter basically combined the 2 spurs of the 70 mile route options. The climb was supposed to be really tough.

DH and I didn't feel up to a tough climb and had decided to do the rolling 70. Unfortunately the weather gods were not kind to us. It rained from the 8 am start to about 11:30 or noon. Not hard driving rain (luckily) but pretty much constant rain nonetheless. Believe it or not, despite the rain we had a great time. It's the first time we had ridden the route, and it was beautiful. As promised in the ride description, the scenery did indeed look totally different after we turned around (it was an out & back ride). It's a good thing we stopped at REI Thursday night to get some raingear and full-fingered gloves. Without that we would have been pretty miserable. The only thing we would have done differently is to have DH wear his rain pants (we really believed the organizers when they predicted the rain would stop by 9 am).

As we rode back we saw an ambulance drive up and thought "oh oh, that doesn't look promising." Later on we heard the horror stories of the climb. As the elevation went from 4000 to 8600 feet, the weather turned into blizzard conditions up there. People who managed to climb up could not safely descend -- fingers froze to brake levers & shifters, hypothermia, etc. They pulled scores of riders off the mountain in busses, sheriff's SUV's, and even (apparently) ambulances. Not sure if any TE'rs got caught in that mess?

Anyway, on our way back as we passed the intersection to the climb, people called out to us "good choice!" and not until we heard the stories did we understand what they meant. I'm very glad we chose the rolling 70 route!

I forgot my camera, so we broke down and purchased the only "action photo" that captured us. From left to right, mystery woman "1018", me, and DH. DH claims that's the only time he was leading (not true of course).

And of course today the weather was gorgeous...

[Running Mommy]

WOW! I did see that Utah was getting some "weather" this weekend. I didn't realize it was moab century weekend. YIPES!
So was the climbing route the La Sal loop road?? OY VEY! I don't think I could take that route on a warm day, much less in blizzard conditions!
Any road that has a climb with names of TDF riders scrawled on the pavement is too much for this kid! lol

[Kathi]

Wow! We had planned on doing that ride this year but changed our minds. Glad we cancelled.

[Kathi]

One of the reasons we changed our minds was because of construction that would keep us from doing the La Sal loop. We did it in 04, the climb was great, but I had not ever ridden a mtn pass and I freaked out on the downhill. I walked most of it. I really want to go back and face that downhill.

[mojogrind]

What webiste did you find your action shot on ?
I rode 90 miles of that cold wet nasty century.
Drove my car up to the summit on Sunday,was nice to see what it looked like up there.

[BikeDutchess]

We actually stopped by the Action Shots store that afternoon and waded through quite a few thumbnails before we found ours. They will also post the pics on their website www.moabactionshots.com under the "Special Events" section. But I don't think they have finished cataloging all the shots yet.

You did 90 miles of it, wow! You must have been so cold up there! What a difference a day makes, it was such beautiful weather on Sunday. We did a short hike in Arches on Sunday before heading back to Salt Lake.