The San Juan Hut Trip

If you follow my blog regularly you might have noticed an absence of cycling, training, or racing posts this summer. The reason is because my cycling program this year has been fraught disaster. Early season tendonitis lead to a PRP injection which I have been slow to recover from. Then in the parking lot after a team photo shoot the Superfly got run over by a Dodge Ram. The last nail in the coffin was a powerful cold that took me down for the first week of the month. I’m still fighting lingering weakness from it. The result of all this has been missed races, team and group rides, and the Triple Bypass. The San Juan Hut Trip from Durango to Moab is the next "event" on the cycling schedule and even though I have ridden twice for a total of 60 miles this month, I don't intend to miss it.

Back to the bike... My lapse of situational awareness allowed me to go from the "those who will" to the "those who have had their bike run over in the parking lot" club. All that's left is driving into the garage without taking the bike off the rack - knock on wood! It was as much my fault as the "runner overer" (who I'll leave respectfully anonymous). He felt horrible about it and made it right, and was a class act. Luckily, Joey and the rest of the guys at the Trek Store in Boulder were already working with me to warranty a seat tube issue I was having. I owe them big. My new frame (an 09 XL) was ready weeks ago, but the fork coming from Fox is still in transit. It’s amazing how things work out though. Last week when I was dropping Mark's hang glider off I met Dean, another front range hang glider pilot and winner Duo Pro in the 24 Hours of Moab last year. He offered to lend me a Fox F29RLC fork for the trip after only knowing me for 20 minutes. What a guy! After Jo lent me her front wheel and the bike was complete. I picked it up Friday. The Superfly is back! You might be asking how Jo is going to ride the trip without a front wheel. Last week Doug and I built up her Titus Racer X frame that's been hiding out in the basement.

The Superfly 2.0 Ready for the Hut Trip







The Durango to Moab route in the San Juan Hut System is a 215 mile trip over 7 days with 26,000 feet of climbing. I’ve ridden longer than that in a solo 24 hour race, but at present I am horribly unprepared for this trip. I’m literally doing it off the couch. I can suffer through anything, but my knee is not happy and will probably need quite a bit of rehab afterwards. On the plus side we have a good group consisting of Andrew, Doug, Joni, Jean-Paul, John, Jo and me. You can read everything you’d ever want to know about the trip here. Here’s a Google earth picture of the route.

The Route





I’ve spent all afternoon preparing for the trip with Andrew and Jo. It has been truly crazy and unmanageable, even by my standards. Andrew is leaving from Paradox on the fifth day requiring a vehicle to be left there for him. We have to leave for the 9 hour drive in 2 hours, so I’m going to sign off and nab what sleep I can. It’s going to be an epic, stay tuned...