Day One
Whoa what day, started out ok with a leisurely ride to Canyonland Park in beautiful weather, today was going to be picture taking and rider training at Ellens request.
The plan was to ride Moabs famous White Rim Trail which is used by 4 wheelers, MTBrs and Adv bikers.
To be fair it is not very hard but you have to keep your mind on the job so you don’t ride off a cliff literally! ... and they are big heights in some cases 100’s of metres.
Ellen fell at various points along the way in the sandpits and technical sections, the worst we broke her windscreen extension.
At one point she fell 4 times in 30 meter or 100 feet, it was very hot, patience were wearing a little thin and words were said.
Only 3 miles from what was to be our camp site at half way Ellen binned her bike very badly on a steepish short ascent, somehow she turned the bike 90 degrees to the tracked and gased it ending up hanging of the edge of a small drop luckily not going any further.
First assessment was that Ellen was OK, second was to check Chiwis health, at first glance the right hand case was smashed open and crooked, the tool tube had taken a hell of a hiding and was in bad shape and the highway peg set was bet, the Barkbuster saved the day again and it took a kingpin hit on hard rock.
The next mission was to try and right Chiwi and get her back on the track WITHOUT dropping her over the edge, if that had happened we would have had to set camp and just wait for help, no cellphone coverage etc and we were nearly at the midpoint of the 110 mile circuit.
We tried our rope but could not budge her, we emptied her of the top box, removed the food bag and left case, eventually with much grunting and pulling we managed to get the front wheel back on terafirma then back onto the track, we managed to get her started and take her up to the more level section to execute at least temporary repairs so we could get to camp.
On inspection of the right case it had been split open at the front, the full length hinge on the Kincrome case saved the day by not letting go completely and my kiwimade timber crash bars paid their way again but not enough to save the case.
The tool tube took an absolute beating and the hit S shaped the aluminium cover on the right hand side, the hinge was bent and the ABS plastic was ground back pretty badly, the aluminium swiping itself off on the bedrock on the way passed.
We levered the case back into shape, luckily with the heat of the day this helped with getting it sorted.
The tool tube lid I removed and beat back out flat on some flat rocks with another rock ... who needs a hammer?!!!
The tool tube will never shut properly now or keep water out as it has lost a lot of the plastic and aluminium to mum natures abrasive Moab rock.
The camp was a welcome site and we set too with Krazy glue and RTV, hopefully this will hold at least until we can get some plastic welding done, we straightened everything out as best as we could and made things function.
The camp area was very cool allowing us to take advantage of being in a beautiful place for the evening
Some really groovy trees
Beautiful sunset
The night time provided with some stars to play with photography ... not too bad for a wee camera.
A couple of us after doing repairs and settling down for the evening
Day Two
Ellen at sunrise ready to race (or jump off the cliff)
An early start was on the cards having not even made it half way due to Ellens cliffhanger episode, a quick breakfast, no coffee as we did not have enough for coffee and to fill our packs, filling our pack was way more important so that won.
Only two minutes out of camp Ellen lost the bike to a sandpit, one of many that were to come, all the good work with glue etc was undone in an instant and added to the damage quite badly due to the weakened case.
The trip to be fair was turning into torment for me as I spent half the trip going back and forth and picking her bike up and slowly watching it get wrecked.
Ellen took a pretty good binning on the left hand side as well, this time smashing the front out of the left box, again there was more binnings which saw the case get damaged further.
There were really neat rocks and formations as well as spectacular backdrops
We ended up having a break and scoffing chocolate coated coffee beans for energy as picking the bike up again and again in 38 degree heat knocks it out of you pretty quickly.
We eventually made it out totally shattered and luckily we only ran out of water just as wee hit the road back to Moab, on returning to the camp we had hot showers, and BIG guzzle on Coke to take in the damage.
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