I slept for over ten hours, maybe to get over my cold once and for all? It was cloudy and raining so I wasn’t as enthusiastic to go riding as I had been the night before. As a result, I dawdled in bed, not really ever getting out while Dan hung out in the van. I didn’t even have the energy to blog. We just ended up chatting the morning away. When finally the sun came out around lunch time, I sprung into action with some encouragement from Dan. We both packed up camp and made to leave at the same time, Dan heading for town, me for the trails. I learnt later that Dan ended up back at camp for another hour or so when he discovered that Cleo had used the passenger seat for a bathroom, leaving it soaked and smelling of pee, much to his displeasure.

I’d seen so many people around Grand Junction with mountain bikes so I was keen to get rid of my FOMO by riding in the mountain biking capital of Coloado. I parked at Tabeguache trailhead and found it was pretty popular for a Tuesday afternoon. Trailforks suggested a 20km loop for me that I thought would be suitable considering 1) my time off the bike and 2) my sickness which still hadn’t gone away but I was done tending to it, deciding instead to ignore it completely. I started riding at 3pm. Clearly, I was making full use of the day!

The elevation made me feel sluggish as I climbed through the dry canyon. The colours which I’m sure look vibrant under a clear sunset were dull and washed out and the ground beneath me was dusty. The climbing up the blue trails were perfect for my current level of stamina and I enjoyed the canyon-like scenery. Gunny loop was a typical American-style network, with a lot of climbing at the start, followed by a long descent. Despite my time off the bike, I was riding ok, but my fitness was frustratingly nowhere. I focused on the scenery around me, finding a sweet looking lizard at a trail intersection that Cleo would have loved to chase, but I was lucky enough to snap a photo of.

I came across only a few riders along the way, most of them riding solo and by the time I had nearly completed the loop, my planned route was off the cards thanks to how buggered I was feeling. Just after taking a wrong turn thanks to some super-confusing signs, I discovered my dropper post cable was busted so that cemented my decision to cut my ride a little shorter and get back to the trailhead. My seat had jammed in the lowest position so I put it up manually before riding on.

The last trail down to the trailhead was sweet. It was in full view of the carpark so I put my guns out and made no mistakes, rolling fast back to my waiting van. It had been a good ride, but it didn’t really have any chance of overly impressing me since the last time I’d rolled wheels was on the Hangover trail in Sedona, a pretty tough act to follow. It was a good thing I finished when I did, I’d ridden for nearly three hours which meant it was well and truly time to get back to camp. I packed my shit away just as a lot of after-work riders were heading off into the trail network and drove back into town. I stopped at Walmart on the way through to stock up. I was in and out in a flash getting everything I needed.

When I got back to camp, Dan was already there, breaking up a couple of pallets he’d found on his trip to town. As soon as I pulled up, he downed his tools and led me over to the Lounge. He couldn’t wait to show me how the new gudgeon pin slid perfectly through the conrod. He explained that after a minute working on it with the dremmel, the extra material was ground away as if it had never been there. I was super impressed! Now there was nothing stopping us from putting it back together!

While Dan tended the fire, I made chicken pesto pasta for dinner (one of my specialties). Man doing a man’s job, woman doing a woman’s job, we were fast turning into a typical dirtbag couple!

We whiled away the evening the way we usually do, eating food, drinking beer and talking by the fire. I felt like my ride may have cured my cold and I got to have that familiar feeling of going to be tired from activity that I’d been missing for a while.