Last weekend, I got to experience the beauty of The Whole Enchilada (TWE) trail. TWE is an iconic mountain bike trail just outside Moab, Utah. The entire 27 mile (43 km) long trail is actually made up of several shorter trails that begin at an elevation of 11,177 ft (3,400 m) at Burro Pass in the La Sal mountain range. You ride down, through, and over mountains, alpine forest, and red sandstone / slickrock, dropping about 7,700 ft (2,350 m) all the way down to the Colorado River. It’s an amazing trail that offers gorgeous views at almost every turn. My jaw dropped every time I rounded a corner! It was really hard not to take pictures ALL THE TIME.

The only unfortunate part about our ride is that Burro Pass was closed to the shuttle vans due to snow, which meant that our TWE ride would be a few miles shorter. We’d also miss out on the first climb (a couple of my friends were happy to hear that!). When our shuttle dropped us off at the Hazzard County trailhead (9,350 ft elevation / 2,850 m) at about 8:30am, we were greeted by snow, crisp mountain air, and near freezing temperature. The initial short climb helped to warm me up and the scenery (and altitude!) made me breathless.

The next section was the Kokopelli trail, which is a wide, rocky / chunky dirt road. It was very easy to go very fast. Kokopelli melded into the UPS (Upper Porcupine Singletrack), which was immediately followed by the LPS (Lower Porcupine Singletrack) trail. Both UPS and LPS are fun trails with lots of overlooks from which to enjoy the sweeping views. About halfway down LPS is the super technical section called the “Snotch” (no idea where that name comes from). The Snotch is super steep, narrow, and hard to walk down! My SAT (self-appointed trainer) was able to ride down the first half of the Snotch….even he said it is difficult, haha.

The last and longest portion of TWE is Porcupine Rim, which many say is the most difficult section. I agree, for several reasons: you’re somewhat tired by that point, the trail is technical (i.e., chunky, steep in spots, high consequence in other spots) and fatigue makes it harder to navigate features, and depending on the weather, you could be riding during the hottest part of the day. However, when we started the Porcupine Rim section, the temperature was still really pleasant and we were excited that we were heading into the home stretch. This last part was challenging, but my group emerged unscathed and pretty full from our “enchilada” experience!

It was really a perfect day. My group did not have any mechanical issues, other than a slow leak in one tire early in the ride, which was easily fixed. We also did not have any crashes or incur any injuries, which is a huge win. Would I do anything different? Yes: I need to remember to eat regularly. I started feeling weak and very low energy about a couple hours into the ride, which made me walk some technical features I normally would ride. However, after eating a couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I felt MUCH better and my riding reflected that. Overall, I had a fun time with my crew, felt like I rode well, and am making plans to ride TWE again, possibly next year!

Lessons learned

• Eat food regularly. As I said earlier, I was feeling pretty weak a couple hours into the ride (before hitting the Snotch). I should have set up hourly alarms to remind myself to eat, similar to what I did during my Rim to Rim hike.
• Wear and bring layers. It’s cold at the start of the ride!
• Make sure the bike is tuned up before the ride. In my case, I just bought a new bike (Pivot Shadowcat!! I’ll officially introduce my “Sassy Cat” in my next post!), so everything was already in tip-top shape. (Side note: riding TWE on my new bike made the experience even more epic!)
• Doing some regular upper body strength training is a good idea to develop the strength you’ll need to ride downhill for several hours at a time.
• Consider bringing a bike light next time, just in case.
• Have a bigger backpack for next time. My 3L Camelback was not quite big enough. I was lucky this time because my SAT (self-appointed trainer, a.k.a., my husband) had a big backpack and could carry a few things for me.

Gear

Bike stuff:

• Helmet
• Spare tube, “bacon strips,” manual pump
• Multitool
• Master link
• Sealant
• Elbow and knee pads
• Gloves
• Sunglasses
• Baggie with gauze, tweezers, bandaids.
• Duct tape

Clothing:

• Buff
• Vest
• Smartwool base layer
• 3/4 sleeve jersey
• Long riding shorts
• Knee socks
• Shoes

Food:

• I used a small top tube bag to carry a ziplock baggie of Skratchlab chews (about 5 packs). I also had a couple of gels and fig bars.
• In my Camelback, I had 3L of water, 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and a few more fig bars and Larabars.
• I also had a little baggie of electrolyte/salt pills and Ibuprofin (i.e., “Vitamin I”).

Other:

• I recorded my ride on my Apple watch. Next time, I will use my Garmin to conserve my watch’s battery power.
• Took my phone with the Trailforks app. I downloaded the route onto my phone, just in case.