Crest "Super Loop"...twice

[SkiingBear]

No, this is not your average tale of riding the Crest to Mill D and then riding back up the road. Nor is it a tale of doing it twice, in one day or otherwise. This is a tale, albeit short, of something bigger.

Last Tuesday I went out for a ride with the Jans crew in Park City for a Light & Motion demo. The ride was supposed to be from 7:30-10pm. When we left the parking lot (8pm) I was told we were going to ride up Spiro, Powerline, and Shadow Lake to the Crest Trail. We would then ride down to the Canyons, followed by Holly's and back on the road...all in roughly 2 hours. Well, it was a little over 2 hours before I topped out on the top of Puke Hill. I managed to hang with 3 other riders, and early on we decided that trying to rally this whole ride was dumb, so we settled into enjoying it. The ride was super smooth, and riding at night was a whole different experience...the Spine has never seemed so easy. We continued to ride, and finally reached the bottom of the Canyons at midnight. With the ride back to the cars taking roughly 30 minutes, it turned out to be a four and a half hour ride.

Stats:
23.8 miles
3,500 ft of climbing
Time: 4 hr 30 min

So what's the twice part about?

I headed out this morning with phatfreeheeler, utsnowgirl, and a non-maggot Erik. Our mission, to ride the Crest from Guardsman into the Canyons, hook up with Mid-Mountain back towards Park City, climb Powerline and Shadow Lake, and return to the car down a short stretch of the approach to Puke Hill. Not really much to say about this. We took our time up Puke Hill, made sure everyone was eating and drinking enough, and just kept moving towards the goal. Saving the climb up Powerline & Shadow Lake sucked about as much as you could imagine, but we got through it (Erik, living in PC, decided that the last climb wasn't worth it and dropped down Spiro at this point...oh the luxury). Finally riding back up onto the Crest Trail was an enormous relief. I think I speak for the 3 of us that completed it when I say that that ride needs to go down again...whatafuckinblast!

Stats:
24.3 miles
3,000 ft of climbing
Time: 6 hrs

[altachic]

Ok, whoa. Nice job guys. That's a little crazy, but sounds fun at the same time.

If you do this again on a weekend, I would most likely join you, just let me know!

[Particle]

Nice! Solid effort for sure. I'd like to try out the loop on the Park City side one of these days. motionboy and I ran the super shuttle today (guardsman - pipeline), was great fun except for some angry bees and burping tires...

p.s. wildflowers are going OFF right now sorry I was too busy riding for pics tho.

[upallnight]

Sounds cool.

What's the distance covered during the (3k) climb?

How'd the lights work? I'm considering getting one for sme road rides to make sure cars see me.

[otter]

SkiingBear
you are the man! I don't know if I could have hung on that long. way to kill it.

[utsnowgirl]

Fun ride for sure....I'd definitely be up for it again.

From everything I had heard from others, I expected the climb from powerline/ shadow lake to puke hill area to be much harder than it actually was.

Overall, fun day. We need to get our order placed for some lights in the next few days, and we'll be up for some night rides soon.

[JoshP]

Nice work guys, I am jealous. Two broken pedals and a der cable that looked like it had about ten minutes left before it went boing had me doing my epic rides on the road bike over the weekend. Sounds like you definitely had more fun than me.
I would love to do a big PC Crest loop as soon as the new pedals come (hopefully tomorrow, fingers are crossed). I am rather proud of myself though, I managed to replace that der cable, and I didn't screw anything up. It even shifts right. I am feeling all empowered to do my own bike maintenance from now on. Next stop, learn how to bleed a set of Hayes brakes without melting the paint off my bike, and burning my hands with brake fluid.