Recently getting into downhill mountain biking and becoming friends with some of the shop crew over at Red Rock Bicycle, one of the local shops in town. I got in over my head with some downhill mountain bike riders that traveled for the best trails. Biking in Brian Head and the surrounding areas was a blast and some other downhill tracks around town were gnarly places too. Southern Utah is a mecca of trails, down here in St. George area, there are tons of places to ride for days on end.
Downhill Mountain Biking Near Zion National Park
I got a chance to go try a gnarly downhill mountain biking course in Grafton area just outside of Zion National Park and Rockville. It is a one way trail ending at the old Grafton cemetery. Drop your car off there and shuttle back up for a second round if you’re hardcore.
My buddies forewarned me a little bit ahead of time to let me know that it was going to be a pretty aggressive downhill course. I should have known what to expect, but the course generally started out casual with some pretty rugged tree-line trails and large rocks to get around. Being on top of the Mesa was not too bad, there were the occasional huge drops that would surprise you. A lot of technical trail turn, that if you got lost you would be completely lost. We had to turn around on the trail a few times, but in general it was incredible trail up top. Once we get closer to the edge of the Mesa it opened up into some more speedstyle tracks that you could get really going on. Once we got right to the edge of the track I had tired myself out quite a bit with a few good wipeouts already.
Small Dude On A Huge Bike
First a little bit of history on my bike. I bought it pretty cheap from a pawnshop, but was lucky enough to find a full suspension downhill bike. I was stoked and it sure was a beast, the thing was huge extra large frame. As you can imagine it didn’t work well with my abnormally small adult build. The size made biking with this more challengeing then it should have been. Super technical trails would kick my butt because if my tires were on high points and my feet were above low points it was game over. I’d be in big trouble if it got hairy, because either way I would have to bail off the bike which wasn’t very fun in sketchy situations.
At the edge of the bluff we were taking a little relaxer break right on the edge of a small cliff (view downtrail above). The cliff is not too big at that point but as you went downtrail a few feet it got a little bit bigger. We joked about the fact that we could fall off the cliff if we are that dumb and I kinda all laughed about that a little bit.
I never thought they would actually happen, lucky for me I’m the newby idiot and my bike is too big for me. in about 10 feet down the trail I got stuck on some high points and some rugged terrain and ended up having to bail on my bike on the downhill side towards the cliff. If I would build the other way I would’ve been just fine, but no I had to bail on the cliffside with about 3 feet to regain my footing on some sandy gravel and rocks before slidding off a cliff. So when I did fall I tried my best to regain my balance, but was sliding towards the edge and had accepted the fact that I was going to go over the edge. As I got closer I steadied myself and had a somewhat controlled fall onto some uneven rocks and slabs about 15 feet down. I majorly messed up my ankle, jammed it pretty hard and scared the crap out of my buddies. Of course they thought I was just joking because we had just laughed about how dumb someone would be if that happened.
The next little bit down the trail was probably one of the roughest areas and as I worked my way down the trail with my messed up ankle I really got too weak and upset that I had crashed so hard. I slowly got myself down the mountain and made it to the car and back to safety. Grafton was by far that was one of the most aggressive trails and worst wipe outs. Even though this is a crappy story, I would highly recommend to give it a try because that trail is an incredible feat for any avid mountain biker or downhill rider that’s confident on two wheels.
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