View My First Epic in a larger map

Summer 1995. I’d been riding my Candy Blue GT Karakoram since April. Tearing up the Wasatch as best I knew how. For some strange reason I felt the need to go on a long ride…so I packed a PB&J in my fanny pack (yes, I said fanny pack. It was the mid 90s after all) and a couple of water bottles in my cages and set out on an epic loop through the Wasatch.

I’d been up Rock Canyon before. In 1989 and again in 1990. This time I was going to ride all the way past the campground to the squaw peak road and instead of heading north I was going to head south to Hobble creek. It would be a long hauls on a jeep road, but I figured it would be fun, after all I’d been on the road before, in a 4×4, it was totally rideable.

After almost 15 years I can’t remember much about the trail. I have the faintest memory of changing a flat tire somewhere up there, and I can still picture myself thinking, when is this freaking rocky road ever going to end??? I pushed the Mag 21 to its full 80 mm limit, and got knocked around on the hardtail. I wasn’t even thinking of rear suspension back then, who was?

At the bottom of the road where it meets Hobble Creek I ran into my riding buddy Mark. He just finished a round of golf and offered me a lift home. Being the zealot I was, and determined to complete the epic loop unassisted I turned him down. By the time I was at the bottom of the road, my head was pounding, my mouth was bone dry, and I was on my last ounce of energy. I still had about 10 miles of road ahead of me so I busted out the smashed PB&J from the fanny pack, sat off the side of the road and wished I’d taken that ride…