Riding Alone and Breaking Rules - Skinny Ridge
- Jun 26, 2015
- 5 min read
I am a "helmet on" rider both on and off the street. I believe in safety and more importantly I believe we should never ride, hike, bike, etc...alone. For this reason I had never ridden the trails surrounding Grand Junction, Colorado even though we spent a great deal of time there visiting Lisa's family. No one in her family was into riding and I didn't know anyone in GJ. Their house was in Monument Valley so we could pedal to some incredible mountain biking trails and I was content with that through many visits.
We all rode the trail from one side of Skinny to the other over the top of the ridge. It was unsettling and we crossed like 3 kids hurrying across a scary bridge but it was awesome!
On one particular visit family interaction reached a level that a pretty little suburban trail wasn't going to cut it for me. There was usually enough people around the house to create nice buffers for those who didn't interact well with each other but this visit was requiring one on one time with someone who frankly, I could not stand. I chose my own buffer zone that day and I went big.
I loaded up my bike and headed for the nearest bike shop. Riding alone was against my better judgment but so was spending the day with a man who was lying to his family... but that's a whole other story. I knew Skinny Ridge was nearby. It's a popular enough spot, there's a good chance others will be there. The first shop I came to knew exactly where it was and the clerks gave me great directions. One clerk commented that it was a beautiful weekday, shouldn't be crowded at all. I was relieved to see that there were a few trucks in the staging/parking area (which is just off I-70 on the east edge of town), I wouldn't be totally alone. I called Lisa to let her know exactly where I was and began to unload.
The scenery is incredible in all directions.
This is where my next problem arose. The actual ridge is not right on the highway. I had assumed that the ridge was near the highway staging area... it's not. From I-70 you can see many mesas and buttes with awesome trails. But the actual "Skinny Ridge" is quite a ways in there... and I did not know how far. It's actually a large and incredibly fun trail system with many ridges. I was riding a Tom Morgan Racing KX 327. Hands down the best dirt bike I ever owned. I loved everything about it except for one thing. It was a high compression race motor that ran on race fuel only and consumed it like a V8. It was a track bike. Even with an oversize tank it would only go 35 miles with the MX tank that was on it at the time... maybe 25 miles. The prior New Year's Eve the very same bike ran out of gas in 11 mile wash north of Phoenix, AZ. I rang in that New Year pushing a bike through a dark, sandy wash in the rain.
There had been 2 fellas riding in only the parking lot while I readied my gear, they had not headed off into the trails so I flagged them over to see if they knew how far it was... They had never been there either. We chuckled as they mentioned they were actually waiting for me and were going to follow. They figured anyone taking on the ridge alone knew where he was going.
It's funny how small this world can be sometimes. Turns out they were two construction workers who had broken off from a failing contractor to start their own gig, it worked out for them as one was enjoying his first ride with his new bike and both were riding on a week day for their first time "since being a grown up" as one put it. It also turns out the contractor they quit and the family member I was avoiding were one and the same... we got along great!
They were equipped to carry extra fuel and after we stowed away some race gas we headed off toward skinny ridge with absolutely no clue where it was. I didn't care one bit, I was no longer breaking any rules. I was not riding alone and I had fuel to get back. I was no longer unprepared.
The riding area is full of bowls with tons of hits to air out your bike. A rider could spend all day here just working new hits.
We had a blast, we stopped at every little thrashing area we found. We rode ridges, blasted up hills, dove through streams. We felt like superstars, we even stopped and took pics of each other with our phones.. then we found "The Ridge".
Talk about humbled, that superstar rush we were all feeling quickly turned into "Hope I don't have to go first" and "I don't know about that." We parked, chatted, smoked, refreshed, refueled my bike, rode wheelies, etc. We did everything but ride near that ridge, or should I say... cliff.
This is where another rule pops up and this one I broke. I believe in immersion. If I'm standing on a beach I get in the water. If we are there to ride it... lets ride it. It's kind of how I think, I think we should try. None of us did.
Skinny Ridge is impressive, It's around 300' - 350' tall but the last 80' or so is almost vertical and the rest of the slope isn't much better.
The park sits at 5300' above sea level elevation so a rider does not have the altitude breathing difficulties of other Colorado one tracks. But Skinny is scary, plain and simple. We resigned ourselves to just riding down it. Once in motion over the top we didn't stop at all. Not for a picture, not to look around. All three of us wanted to reach the other side... quickly. We were kind of like crossing a scary bridge, all a bit nervous, it's a very narrow trail. You can see the hits where more talented and daring riders take flight as they crest the ridge and jump down "F*#k that!".
Riding over the ridge was enough for us to check skinny ridge off our bucket list. Out of the 3 rules I could have broken that day I am glad riding alone or riding unprepared were not ones I broke. I can honestly say I would not have ridden over that ridge had the other 2 riders not been there. I never did ride a respectable distance up the face so I did not immerse myself in this adventure. But I'm ok with that. Skinny Ridge has claimed lives and humbled the best of riders. This was one of those days where a lot could have gone wrong, but it turned out perfect... the way riding should be.
I kept hitting every stream and puddle. Even went out of my way to get into a couple of them. One of my new friends stopped to get a pic of me getting wet and looked at me like I was nuts. I explained that I lived in Arizona and rode in the desert... water is kind of a novelty for me.
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