Mountain Biking in Fruita, Part 2

On Sunday morning, we were sore. 15 miles in the saddle the day before was rough. But TJ was excited and we still had a full day to enjoy the fine trails around Fruita. So, we ate breakfast slowly, and then headed north to the 18 Road trails.

Photos from the day are up in the gallery.

These trails run up and down the bottom edge of one of the large, sandy mesas north of town. While they don’t climb to the top of any mountains, the long, gradual downhills and uphills in the area make for some fun and hard rides. Plus other trails run over the ridges of petrified sand dunes, with steep drops and roller-coaster like single track.

We started up the road, getting the kinks worked out of our legs and the feeling drained back out of our sore butts. Eventually, we met up with Western Zippity, a “green” trail, and rode the 1 mile until it connected with the Frontside trail, a more difficult route.

Along the Frontside trail, you can hook up with any number of expert, scary looking trails. We ended up riding past all of them, having fun on the rolling single track until we met up with the parking lot at the north end of 18 Road. From there, we all agreed to try Kessler’s Run back to the car. This was a great plan.

Kessler’s Run was the best trail of the whole weekend. We flew down this whoop-di-woop trail, riding up and down an arroyo on the long downhill from the edge of the book cliffs to the trailhead: 2 miles and 500 feet below. We rode sooo fast and had soooo much fun.

When we got back to the car, we ate snacks and drank gatorade, and decided to do it again. This time, we rode straight up 18 road and right back down Kessler’s. I was pretty tired after this 4 mile jaunt, but TJ and Mark decided to do it one more time. So I drove them up the road and met them with the car back at the trailhead, 2 miles down the hill.

It was a great day, and an incredibly fun, fun ride. We logged another 16 miles even with the sore legs. We headed back to town and dropped off TJ’s rental. Next up were showers for $5 at the Fruita Fitness center, and finally, we chowed down on more pizza. In the evening, we played Fluxx for hours, and messed around with long exposure pictures of the lights of town so far below our lovely campsite.