Moab Mountain Bike Trip

Well, It has been a long time since I have posted so I figure it is way over due. So, I thought I would get around to posting some stuff about my Moab trip with Mike B. and Gary H. All-in-all it was a really good trip. We all arrived in SLC on Wednesday the 8th of October and put our bikes together. I had been working on building Ryan's bike up nicer than it had ever been and decided to take it to give a test ride and break in the wheels (yes, I had Ryan's permission). In the morning on Thursday Gary's brother Dave and his son Chris arrived with another friend and their Jeeps in tow to take us down to Moab. The trip went well and pretty quick. After arriving we tried to find a part for Gary's Fork that had broken but nobody carried it. We even tried going down the the manufacturer's tent at the 24 hors of Moab endurance race that was taking place but no luck. So we just headed out for the first ride of the trip. we went up to Porcupine Rim and had a good ride down. The winds were pretty high due to a storm that was supposed to be moving in but it was not too bad. I refused to do the big 5 ft drop though due to high wind, low experience, and a lot of nerves. I also developed some shifting problems in the latter part of the ride and by the end I could not shift at all. Turns out my shifter cable had slipped. That made the end of my ride not so fun. Gary helped me fix the shifting problem before we hit the jacuzzi. We grabbed a traditional Moab Melt at the Moab Diner and called it a night. The next morning we headed back out for Porcupine Rim. Mike and Gary do have an obsession with this route. This ride was once again pretty windy but with my shifting problems fixed and one run for experience I was swayed into doing the 5 foot drop. It went great and Mike got a nice picture of me in mid flight riding over Gary's head. The ride from this point continued well and I began to see why they are obsessed with it. After lunch we returned for another trip done Porcupine Rim. Yes at this point we had decided to make this trip and "all porcupine" trip. Once again this ride started out great. once we started to approach the big drop I started to experience some slight shifting issues and could not keep up. When I came to the jump I was unable to get sufficient speed for a good jump. I landed it okay though a bit too much front wheel first. Instantly on landing I felt something was wrong. Upon inspection it turned out I broke the rear Triangle on Ryan's frame and it pushed into the frame itself also. Needless to say my ride ended there. I had to begin a five mile hike down the mountain carrying the broken bike. Bike shoes are not meant for walking. by the time I made it down the mountain it was dark and my right knee and hip joints were killing me. Oh well! The frame was old and I am not a heavy rider so I guess it was just time for it to pass away. I ended up going down the next morning, while Mike and Gary made a final ride, to talk to the Ellsworth folks at the race about getting a replacement frame. Well that is pretty much the end of it from my perspective. I was not the only casualty along the way though. Dave broke the frame on his jeep twice and Gary ended up breaking his thumb on the last ride of the trip. We came close to a clean get away but once again some of us took some lumps.