The Utah desert is a fickle temptress. She lures you in with her brilliant red rocks splashed against a bluebird sky with endless trails to explore. Then she turns on you with sharp, desolate terrain that can send you spinning in a matter of seconds. Abrupt cliffs bleed into the vast canyons beyond, and your sense of time and space alter at entry. But this warm, treacherous, dynamic terrain is what makes this area so unique. With one downpour or a series of windy nights, the land transforms, offering up a new experience on old trails. In what turned out to be a wildly unpredictable, stressful, and strange year, the old friendly call of the Utah desert came a little later this fall. Answering that call, Dani and I set out to ride the 100-mile White Rim mountain bike route on a crisp, quiet November day. 17. Degrees. Fahrenheit. That's what the thermometer read as we got up on our chosen White Rim morning. It had been a cold week in the desert, colder than at home in Colorado. But the days warm up so nicely, and so we piled on our layers, drank an extra cup of coffee, and procrastinated juuuuust enough to keep our fingers from falling off as we set out on what we dubbed "The big dumb ride." Dumb, because neither of us was anywhere close to feeling prepared physically for this monster. Late fall is usually cyclocross season, but since that's not happening, it's meant an earlier and longer off-season from training. But when you can't resist the desert's call, you suck it up, pack a lot of snacks, and prepare for a long but brilliant day out on the bike. The White Rim trail runs through Canyonlands National Park just outside of Moab, Utah. It's a 100-mile route that skirts along canyon rims and riverbanks and is made up of mostly double-track jeep roads and wide open slabs of rock. The terrain is rocky, bumpy, dusting, and technically challenging at given times. Our Firefly Hardtail mountain bikes were undoubtedly up to the task of this route, even when our legs weren't. I ran some bigger tires (2.6 and a 2.4) for a little extra flotation on the sand and more suspension over the chunky stuff. We flew along the flatter sections, throwing down the power and chasing each other up the climbs. Then dropping our seats, we bombed down the sketchy, washed-out descents. OK, Dani bombed and skidded down these; I squealed and panic-braked. We pedaled and pedaled and pedaled some more and then stopped to eat lunch on the edge of a cliff and contemplated trying to race this monstrous route one day. There's been a whole lot of hullaballoo about the White Rim FKT this season. The women's record has been set and reset and smashed again and again so many times in the span of a month. It's been the most exciting sporting event to watch this year! With the women's record sitting at just under seven hours, it's hard to imagine racing through this landscape so quickly. As first-timers on the White Rim, we probably spent more time stopping for oohing and awing than we did pedaling. After a long, scenic day on the bike, we wrapped up our ride feeling full of happiness - something that is inevitable when you spend your day riding through a Georgia O'Keefe painting. As night quickly fell, so did the temperature and the desert reminded us once again of her menacing demeanor. Through shivering spasms, we sipped hot chocolate to thaw our numb fingers and toes and laughed at our "brilliant idea" of starting the day late to avoid the morning cold. Despite the long hours in the saddle, the chunky terrain, the freezing temperatures, and the aching bodies, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ll be back to the White Rim soon. Just as our tire tracks will be wiped clean with the next storm that thunders through the vast landscape, our memories of this place are washed clean with time, brightened up so we forget about the climbs, the rocks, the cold. And just like that, all we see is the desert smiling down on us, temping us back into her brilliant arms. And yes. We will go.
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