SE Utah ride (and Moab) 4/15-22/16

Heading to Moab the 10th on my new FE350

3 of us ( Husky 630, KTM 350 and my FE350 ) heading up to Moab from Phoenix. We will be riding for 3 days ( April 11-13). This is our first rodeo up there and if you have any suggestions for rides or trails for moderately adventurous 60 year olds that would be great. There is suppose to be a trail there that is actually monitored with a certain amount of bikes per hour/day ( White Rim I think) Other than that looking for I guess "B" rides trying to tie in scenery and interesting places to see along with riding.

Gorgeous, and about every photo makes me go NOPE

Thanks for the details and photo's

Thats some incredible terrain but most of that is way above my "pay grade". I would like to ride some "slick rock" but was hoping for some softer surfaces as well. There was some pic's on ADV rider and they were at "top of the world" trail and Kokopelli trail and that looked like some nice in the scrub trees and lose wider terrain. That one shot of being on the knife edge with huge drop offs on both sides.... not good for the vertigo.

My problem is my bike is FE350 brand new.. I will have very little seat time prior to getting there and I had better order some new plastic soon.

Moab ride cut short..KTM failure. Not sure I would come back

450 miles of boring highway, 3 bikes on a trailer up to Moab from North Phoenix. Long drive. Made it a bunch of times on my way to Montana. Not sure I would do it again to ride Moab. My new 2014 FE 350 Husaberg was along for the ride.(Great bike BTW.)

We booked a nice VRBO condo 5 miles south of town for 4 nights. Thought it would be 3 days of great riding. Not so much.

1st... there are so many trails, roads, slick rock trails etc etc you need a Sherpa to figure it all out. We had detailed maps and one guy who knew his way around " base camp" Zumo land and it was not that helpful. We thought we would try a warm up ride on the "practice loop" at Slick Rock. Right. As we quickly found out ..unless you want a technical slow ride up and over severely off cambered boulders this is not the ride for you. The map guide rated it as a "double black diamond not for in-experianced riders. The practice loop is no easier than the main loop.. just shorter". That's nice. After 10 minutes of that we bailed and went 20 miles up the knobby eating 191 highway to Gemini trail. That was a good ride. 15 miles or so of uphill, some slick rock, stair-steps, sand. All good there. Then we did part of Kane Creek ( poorly marked) Prichett, Hurrah and up that way. Not bad. We found the trail which inspite of maps and GPS was not easy. The hole Moab area needs to mark the trails better and or what they are intended.

Day two was out again 20 miles north to Willow Springs and into the western edge of Arches. The trail guide rates this trail as a "green" easy road. It was for the most part and we all enjoyed it until my buddies KTM 350 EXC started leaking radiator fluid. Not good. Turn around a go back to the local shop that looks like they could fix anything but were of no help. Trip over. Too bad because were were enjoying the combination of technical slick rock and sand. Good route. Too bad the maps are not indicating any of that. And it is not a "Green" ride. If you had a new rider on that 'trail" they would be toast in 5 minutes. They need to get some signs in the whole area. They have no problem putting up no camping signs so how about a trail marker every 3 miles of so. Just saying.

My thoughts are this as far as Moab goes. It is mostly great for mountain bikers and Jeeps and Razers. We saw very little 2 wheelers with motors. Not sure why as this is suppose to me "Mecca" for us. The rides/routes are at best complicated to find and map out, and at worst I thought the riding was average. I could have found it in Sedona or most of Arizona without the drive. Yes the scenery is great and different, but the whole "slick rock thing" was not our thing. We were wondering why we drove all that way to ride complicated overly difficult trails that took too long to ride to... or find. I get it if one wants to go to Hell's Revenge and Mind Bender and Fins and Things slick rock trails where you are riding very slow very technical routes on pure slick rock. ( and tear your bike up) Then it would be nirvana. I would say most of the trails and rides there are not "A" or even "B" loops. Maybe thats just where we ended up.

I guess White Rim trail is the "Holy Grail" there but we were not able to do it do to the KTM bike breaking. It is a stunning area. I thought the riding was difficult. Hard to find trails heads and their version of "easy" is my version of " Oh crap.. there is a hard up hill. hard scrabble , rock road with a 400 fit drop off the left.

Maybe I will try it again..

Sounds like a good time! If you are looking to see the sand dunes while you are in central/southern Utah I'll be there with my Bergs this saturday.

Berg570FE said:

Montanaman,

I had feared that Moab proper would not be too exciting for you. It is too crowded with jeeps and mountain bikers and is basically beat to hech.

This is why I tried to suggest the other areas an hour or two out of Moab proper.

I have ridden all of Washington, Idaho, most of Oregon, some of California and Arizona and a considerable amount of Utah.

These outskirt areas such as Cainville and Ruby Ranch (10 Mile Wash) are the neatest places I have ever ridden.

Really sorry to hear that your trip was a bust.

Ugh, you rode Pritchett Canyon and Kane Creek?!!

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Caineville is on my bucket list. My favorite park is Capitol Reef so I would like to camp in the park and explore the trail rides outside the park.