Kokopelli 2008

Hmmm... I'm still trying to fully process this experience, as it was quite a trip! Mentally and physically exhausting, but overall a great accomplishment. The Kokopelli is a trail that spans ~142 miles from Loma, CO (outside of Fruita) all the way to the biking mecca of Moab. Seems like most bikers approach it from this direction, although many have done this in reverse starting in Moab. My buddies and I joined Bikerpelli Sports, as they provide a fully supported trip over a 3 days.

Day 1 (technical day) - I felt right at home at the beginning of this ride, as I've ridden Mary's Loop several times, along with Lion's Loop. This is some fun and technical single track that puts your skills to the test. Only a couple hours into the ride, we're having a great time, blasting through all sorts of technical sections and the rain decides come in. Normally this isn't a big deal, as we're always prepared to get wet. The only problem is that lovely soil in Fruita turns into concrete when it gets wet. Within 5-10 minutes, we have heavy, sticky mud caked on every inch of our bikes. It's so thick, both the front and rear wheels are completely locked up. Try riding with both brakes on... it's not easy. ;-) We had no choice but to throw our bikes on our back and proceed to hike for a mile or two, straight up hill. Our once 30lbs bike now weigh 50+lbs, along with the insane amount of mud caked everywhere. This sucked pretty bad. Once the rain let up, it was time to pick off as much mud (drying quickly) as possible. Our front and rear derailleurs were so caked, they were pretty much worthless. Not to mention our chains were a long string of mud. Insane I tell ya! When we finally made it to lunch, we were pretty spent although we only had approx 13 miles to camp, all on fairly flat double track. Not bad, although we ran into a nasty head wind which forced our group to take 3-4 min shifts in a draft. We did this for a solid 90 min without stopping. Needless to say, we were pretty wiped by the time we hit camp. Total time biking with rests = 6:42:02.


Day 2 (endurance day) - Beat up from the day before, we hit the trails again mostly on double track. Seems like an easy one, although we hit sand pit after sand pit for almost 33 miles. Some of these pits were so tough to ride through, most people walked. This jaunt was pretty tasking on the patience part, as it just never seemed to end. This particular kind of riding is right up my buddy's alley; just mash on those pedals over and over. I held his back tire as much as possible, even though my heart rate was at the high end of zone 3 the whole time. This about killed me. I can climb/spin for 20 straight miles, navigate and clean obstacles that makes my wife ill, and descend like a mountain lion. The straight mashing is NOT my gig. My buddy could probably do a hundred miles of this crap, so it was in my best interest to use him to get me to lunch. Completely wiped, we finally made it to where the trail hits pavement. This was pretty much down hill to lunch, so we were very much looking forward to this. Only catch was, we had a 20mph+ head wind. We had to pedal our way down hill. This half of the morning sucked equally as bad as the entire Day 1. We took our time refueling at lunch until we hit it again. The next section was a series of nasty climbs with a couple short descents here and there. I was definitely back in the game. The climbs were pretty long and boring though. We actually hopped off the bikes for a while and walked, not only to let the heart rates come down, but mainly because we were downright bored. We did this for about 4 straight hours. So brutal, that the last half of the day started to suck just as bad as the morning. So basically, Day 2 sucked exactly twice as bad as the first. When we got to camp, we were thoroughly wiped! Let the healing process begin for Day 3. Total time biking with rests = 8:30:21.

Day 3 (climbing day) - Almost immediately out of camp, we started climbing. There was a very fun (but short) 5 mile descent in there before the big nasty climb. The climb was 17 miles long and by this point in the ride, it was tough to do anything but throw it all the way down in the granny gear. Fairly consistent grade all the way and surprisingly enough we road the whole thing. There were many false summits on this one, but once we reached the pavement at the top it was down hill to lunch. This pavement section was pretty sweet, as it was by far the steepest grade I have ever ridden. We easily reached speeds of 55mph. My wife will sure to be mad when she reads this. ;-) Anyway, we got down fast! The nice thing is lunch was our goal for the day, as we hop a shuttle from there that takes us to the top of UPS (Upper Porcupine Rim single track). This is our heaven. Porcupine Rim was what we were looking forward to the whole trip. From the spot we were dumped off, it was basically 30 miles of the sweetest down hill/single track that money can buy. I especially loved this shot at Porc Rim, as I cleaned everything but 2 obstacles. Being there are endless "oh shit" moments on this descent, the task not wrecking is a major win. Total time biking with rests = 8:45:10.

Overall, I would label this trip as tough, but also quite an accomplishment. I'm not sure (as of now), that I would do it again. It's like stuffing yourself silly at your favorite buffet and someone asking you if you'd like to go out for pizza afterwards. I'm still quite full at the moment. To pull off a ride like this, you must be in excellent shape and train your butt off. Great technical skills will come in handy if you don't want to sport a bunch of scrapes and bruises each night... plenty of riders did.

My bike is currently undergoing intense surgery right now, as mud and gunk worked it's way into every square millimeter. I'm tearing it down to the smallest nut and bolt to clean and repair it. I'll be back on it soon... Possibly training for the Fire Cracker 50!