Moab meets RTL, Thursday March 27

[tholub]

Our RTL team (Totally Doable) needs to get together for a training ride; one of our team members foolishly moved to Phoenix. We realized that we'd all be at Moab in the end of March, so it is only natural that we do our ride there. And it struck me that there are probably other RTL teams in the same situation, and many of those riders will be coming to Moab, too. So, let's call it an event!

On Thursday, March 27, the day before Moab MUniFest starts, we'll be doing a Ride The Lobster ride at Moab in race conditions (with support cars and relaying and everything). We'll be looking at getting on the road at 9:00 AM and doing 80-90 miles (140-150km). We did this from San Francisco to Santa Cruz in December, and it was a lot of fun, much more dynamic than a typical big wheel ride. Anyone who wants to join us is welcome!

This is neither an official Moab MUniFest event nor an official Ride The Lobster event; it is for fun only. And it will be fun! We'll hope to see you there.

[johnfoss]

I'd love to join you. But how are you getting your Cokers down there? Or will you use 29ers or something?

[tholub]

I'm going to be on a 29er Schlumpf if all goes well. Chris will be driving a Coker up from Phoenix. Mike has a fair amount of experience taking Cokers on planes. We'll be renting some sort of vehicle in SLC; probably at least an SUV type of thing, possibly a van if there are enough folks coming in at the same time.

[siafirede]

Hmmm, if I make it out to Moab I may join you all on this ride...but do the entire distance since my team is going to be in the UK. I would probably be on a schlumpd 29 as well.

I haven't really been looking into Moab because I didn't know it was approaching so soon!

[tholub]

Originally Posted by siafirede

Hmmm, if I make it out to Moab I may join you all on this ride...but do the entire distance since my team is going to be in the UK. I would probably be on a schlumpd 29 as well.

I haven't really been looking into Moab because I didn't know it was approaching so soon!

It's possible there will be other single big wheel riders out there who could join up for an ersatz team. The hardest part would be finding a driver, but even that may be feasible, given how many non-riders we had at Moab last year. (180 riders, at least 100 non-riders).

[siafirede]

Are there going to be a lot of people driving from Grand Junction to Moab...or is there a shuttle service from the airport there or something? I remember when I was driving across the country last year Grand Junction to Moab was an hour and a half-hour and 45 min drive away.

Blah, I need to start looking into this haha. When I was there I stayed at the Lazy Lizard hostel for something cheap like 7 bucks a night, but I missed the munifest by about 2 weeks.

[tholub]

Originally Posted by siafirede

Are there going to be a lot of people driving from Grand Junction to Moab...or is there a shuttle service from the airport there or something? I remember when I was driving across the country last year Grand Junction to Moab was an hour and a half-hour and 45 min drive away.

Blah, I need to start looking into this haha. When I was there I stayed at the Lazy Lizard hostel for something cheap like 7 bucks a night, but I missed the munifest by about 2 weeks.

It's better to fly into Grand Junction if your flight to Grand Junction would be similar to your flight to Salt Lake City; Grand Junction is 90 minutes away, Salt Lake is 4 hours away. But generally the flights to Salt Lake City are better and thus more people drive from there. (To fly to Grand Junction from here we'd have to take a 3-hour layover in Denver; SLC is a direct flight).

[tholub]

We've now got a plan for the Ride The Lobster stage simulation at Moab. We'll start the ride inside Arches National Park at 9:00 AM on Thursday, March 27. The proposed route is a little over 80 miles, about 50 within Arches, then a loop in Castle Valley (the valley that Porcupine Rim overlooks), and back to Moab, ending at the Moab Brewery.

The idea is to do the ride in RTL conditions; teams will need a car and driver, and should have at least two and preferably three riders. Teams can switch riders as often as they wish to. There is no limitation on unicycle equipment.

You do not need to be a registered RTL team to participate in this ride; pick-up teams are welcome. You also don't need to be officially qualified for RTL, but you should be prepared to ride 30 road miles at a quick pace.

There will be options for shorter routes if you don't want to do the whole thing; in particular, you can cut out 25 miles or so by skipping Castle Valley.

Proposed route: Arches, Colorado River, Castle Valley, Moab

I know of one team that will be missing a rider, and would probably welcome a substitute, if the substitute is of a casual disposition. (That particular team is not going to be breaking any speed records). If you don't have a team and you're interested in doing the ride, post here and we can put some ad-hoc teams together.

See you in Moab!

[tholub]

I know of two teams that are planning to do this ride; if anyone else is showing up early and interested, let me know so we can arrange to meet up.

See you soon!