Chafing

Short Version:
A fantastic and quite long ride. Strange midgets.

Long Version:
Invermeremortal Lori had told us that the Western Rim Trail was her all-time favorite. High praise indeed, coming from someone who's ridden so extensively. We'd stolen Travis' map of the area, but were mildly baffled by the convoluted squiggly line we were supposed to be following once we got past the free-and-easy run down the navigational-difficulty-free Kokopelli and Parallel #2 access trails. We ended up taking what turned out to be the correct trail despite my best efforts to get us to go the other way; Nene was unkeen on the flying 1000ft soft-sand descent and took us right instead, on a trail that led us around the rim of a convoluted, squiggly canyon made of variously yellowish and whitish sandstone.

The views were phenomenal. Stunning vistas opened out around almost every corner; out over May Flats with its dense stands of bright orange- and yellow-leaved cottonwood trees to the Colorado River, running sluggish and red in the near distance. More mountains loomed on the far side of the plain. Closer to us there were stone entities on every side; standalone pillars; castle-like structures of all shapes and sizes; and everywhere we looked the Rim we were following, turning back on itself like some Escherish construct; overhangs left, right, and centre; beautiful, organic curves every place we looked. It seemed like we'd not been riding it long when it ended, dumping us down a sketchy, steep hillface to the outer trailhead, and back onto the Kokopelli for another ten miles or so of dirt road before we reached our next turnoff: the Zion Curtain.

Never let it be said that mountain-bike trail-builders are not at least as witty as the people who name suburban hair salons. The Zion Curtain follows the Utah side of the fence that delineates the Utah-Colorado border in this particular part of the desert. It hauls riders up an angled plateau, weaving to and fro across the hillside but always returning to the fence. Where the plateau meets the sky, we found ourselves standing high above the Castle Rocks Campground, which we'd passed twenty-or-so minutes into our ride that morning, thirty-or-so kilometres ago. As the crow flies, we were no more than 500m from the more bulbous of the stone features for which the campground is named, but being not crows we had a somewhat different journey ahead of us.

First there was the screaming descent from the high plateau. Literally screaming, in my case, a couple of times. It was mostly a lot of fun, with a few seriously hairy moments thrown in, just for laughs. Then a section of rolling dirt track with mounds in all the right places to render pedalling largely unnecessary. It meant standing up for quite a while, but we'd been riding for several hours by then, and my nether regions were rather pleased to be off the seat. Unfortunately for them, we soon(ish) reached the Kokopelli Trail again, and pedalling ensued. Funny how long fifteen miles can feel when your arse is killing you and you need to poop.

Still, we made it to Castle Rocks without major incident, apart from Nene face-planting in a mud puddle at high speed, and then we made our way slowly up the evil rock hill section back to camp. We'd been out for just under seven hours, of which almost all was spent riding. The campground was full of short, weird people, but we had eyes only for three things:
- Beer. Rogue Chocolate Stout. Oh-so delicious fermented chocolatey goodness. Nom nom nom nom nom*.
- Foods. The corn chips were half-gone by the time the tin of Western Family brand Mexican-Style Diced Tomatoes with Lime Juice and Cilantro was open, but the taste sensation after hours of dust-parched mouth was near-indescribably good. Nom nom nom nom nom*.
- Nappy-Rash Cream. Why buy expensive special cycling anti-chafing cream when generic supermarket-brand nappy-rash stuff does the job just as well, and for a fraction of the price?

The twisted dwarves finished their photo-shoot** and left, and we went to bed. We'd've drunk more beer if we had any, but we were all out, which was a wee bit sad, but not sad enough to keep us awake for long.







* = In the "Ingesting something delicious" sense, not the stupid French people "Without" meaning

** = Yes, seriously.