Steve-Z.com

OK well, the Bender Zion Huckfest didn’t happen. His suspension was blown on his Dare, and I’m not allowed to take pictures of him riding any other bike since he is a sponsored rider. So I decided not to drive all the way across the state to not take pictures of trails that I wouldn’t be able to ride. But that is OK because about the same time I got the Bender news I found out about the weekendlong

Ho Down Halloween party festivities being put on by the Chili Pepper Bike Shop in Moab. I had been threatening to skip Halloween altogether this year, but I am a costume party diving rod after all. So the scenery shots took a break for most of the weekend, other than the first shot that I took at sunrise up near the Slickrock trail. I really like the alternating layers. Saturday evening brought the big costume party at the Elks club. I went to the thrift store and put togther a goofy Jester costume. Now you are probably ready to see pictures of said costume and party. Well, I don’t have any. I didn’t bring my mini-cam and I wasn’t about to hawl around my expensive camera. Maybe someone out there can send me pictures? There were organized bike rides in the day from the shop, but I was too busy working on my photos on the computer in the shop to attend. Oh well, I did get this shot of some guys riding a DH trail that drops from Sand Flats down to the shop. Pretty sweet, if I lived in Moab I would have a big DH bike, that’s for sure.

Well it is Sunday night, and I’m about ready to head out of town tomorrow. I’m not sure exactly where I’m going yet, but I’m ready to do some more shooting.

I’m back at Mondo in Moab after a couple days in the isolation of Indian Creek and Canyonlands. I noticed while downloading my pictures this afternoon that I shot my 10,000th picture this morning using my Canon 20D. Fitting that it happened here, since I shot picture number one here exactly a year ago. I’ve taken over 2000 shots in the last week, ensuring that I if I get bored this winter I will at least have plenty of photos to edit.

After getting out of here Monday afternoon, I drove down to Indian Creek and met up with Jose and Mick. I shot the top picture of Mick climbing with the Bridger Jacks and North and South Six Shooters in the background. On Tues I successfully climbed my first roped ascent, a crack climb named Rochambeau. It wasn’t pretty, I felt like a cyclist pedalling with my knees out and bobbing my head, but I got up it!

I spent Weds shooting and exploring the Needles district of Canyonlands. Weds afternoon as I prepared to ride my mountain bike out to the confluence of the Colorado and Green rivers, I met this little kangaroo rat begging for food in the parking lot. He likes corn chips a lot, and wasn’t afraid to eat right out of my hand. Yeah, yeah, I know it is bad form, but I figure he is already ruined. At the confluence, I got this really nice shot. See that storm in the background? I spent the next hour racing it back to the car with my huge photo backpack on my back. It won by about 10 minutes then went on to drop 2 feet of snow in Colorado later that night.

This morning I caught the sun rising over North Six Shooter, then headed back on up here to Moab to catch up with emails and and a bit of bike engineering. Next on tap? Looks like I’m going to be heading down to Zion to ride and shoot the dirt jump boys getting agro in Bender’s neighborhood. Stay tuned!

PS: Jose remembered the tequila ;>)

Hey howdy, it is Monday morning and I’m writing from Mondo Cafe in Moab. A quicky trip update so far and a couple teaser pics for ya here. It has been nonstop action so far this trip. I rolled out of Boulder Weds morning bright and early to try to catch my first powder day at Abasin. Well, they groomed all 2 trails, and there were big lift lines so I caught 6 laps or so then took off to Goblin Valley, UT. Over the next 48 hrs I spent about 30 hiking and climbing wth a 40 lb pack and shot about a 1000 pix. This place is just too amazing to truly describe, or to explain in a couple web sized images. The place is a shooters paradise. I wandered around and got pretty excited formulating some plans for what I’m going to do with these shots.Next on tap was the annual Ellsworth Owners Retreat in Moab. Mostly the usual gig, except I roomed with the infamous Josh Bender. We hung out and talked trash about hucking, I’m supposed to go to his hood in Virgin, UT and shoot him going huge. Maybe later this week? Oh, the other big news is I rode Amasa Back, Rock Stacker, and Jackson’s Trail on the brand new not out yet Ellsworth Evolve. This is Ellsworth’s 29er full suspension 4 inch travel bike. Very cool. Look for a report on that coming up in the future. Shown is a picture of me taken by Kurt, engaging in activity that will most definitely void your warrenty, don’t try this at home. I pulled this jump out . . . barely. Saturday night’s dinner was held at Johnny from Moab Cyclery’s house. Bender, Travis, and crew were launching the jumps and ramps in the backyard, thus the air shot. I wisely kept my wheels on the ground and my finger on the trigger for this session, although Tony E. was threatening to go big until he was reminded that he was setting a bad example for the young’uns.

Now I am on my way down to Indian Creek to meet up with Jose and the Boulder climber crowd to check out some big cracks. I’m looking forward to getting back out under the stars and to catch up with my sleep. I’ve been shooting sunrise’s and sunsets, and trying to edit in between which hasn’t left nearly enough time for sleeping. I’m going to have to find a campsite with midday shade so I can sleep. I hope Jose left the tequila at home . . . yeah right. Steve out.

The first Boulder Racing cyclocross race of the season was held last Saturday at the CU research park. I really wanted to do this one, since this course has proven to be my best in the past. Unfortunately I didn’t get back home from Vegas until 1am the night before. I’m getting soft in my old age, and after 3 days on my feet I decided not to set the alarm and see if I woke up in time to enter the 11:30 Masters race. Yeah right, rolled out of bed at 11:15. Fortunately I still had plenty of time to get my act together to get down there and shoot some pix of the Mens Open race. Wow, it was a hot, sunny dustbowl! Not exactly cross weather yet, and my lungs were thanking me for not subjecting them to the pain. Alan Obye pretty much ran away from everyone and made it look easy. You can check out results here, if you want to play pin the name on the rider.