With the spill the previous day, Jeremy proved to us that he is in fact mortal by having a rather tedious, I imagine, strained elbow & having to opt out of the day’s ride. We were intending to go & ride Captain Ahab, on Jeremy’s exhortation; his ailment meant that we would save it for another day & instead go out & do a family ride at Dead Horse Point State Park (so-called because the point well above the Colorado used to be used to corral horses & once they got left there without any water, the rest is rather obvious) and then Alex & I would ride the top part of Magnificent Seven – this being my favourite ride on my last trip to Moab (I think mostly because I had a riding buddy).

Good views as I expected down to the Colorado River, the trail was rather flat – but as I was still on a high from yesterday’s ride I had to keep reigning myself in so as to not get too far ahead of others. I remember there being enough on the trail to keep me interested provided I rode fast enough. A few breaks/catch-ups were provided by numerous viewpoints.

Feeling smaller than usual

We desperately tried to time jump-shots with the self-timer; we met with resounding failure, but at least entertained Finn (& ourselves for that matter)

After that pleasant little ride, we lunched at the point & admired the views a little more – managing not to lose Finn over the edge.

Serendipitously, the Magnificent Seven theme song was playing on the radio as we pulled into the parking lot at the top of Gemini Bridges Rd – reminding me of Dad, as it’s one of his favourite westerns. Megan had managed to blow the seal in her forks and had next to no brake pads left (always handy to discover in the middle of Porcupine Rim), so after dropping Alex & me off she headed to the bike shop for repairs. We trundled down the gravel road, me all too aware that last time the trailhead was very difficult to find. Not any more – there was a parking lot, map boards & signs and everything. An opportune time to say that all the trails around Moab we were on are extremely well signposted & marked – I was most impressed.

I think I enjoyed the ride more the previous time, at least that’s the impression my last ride report gives me; so I’m not going to spend too much more time on the ride details. Suffice to say, it was still a great ride out (& probably better than most I’ve done over England way recently); maybe a bit of Moab complacency was setting in already – at least the views were still worthy.  Bull Run is probably my favourite part of that which we did; I think there were still plenty of nice technical step-ups, as well as nice downhill parts & enough cliff-side exposure to keep us on our toes.

More canyonside riding

We weren’t ambushed by marauding Boy Scouts

Gemini Bridges

The gap between the two bridges above

Alex on a typical piece of trail

The ride out on the bottom of Gemini Bridges Rd to the Highway 191

The 191 leading south in to Moab, the La Sals hiding in the cloud in the background