Moab guidebook MOAB REVEALED!! Written by Dreamride owner, Lee Bridgers, MOUNTAIN BIKING MOAB is free to Elite-level vacation guests!

"This is a different type of guide book. This little gem has attitude. It's also packed with useful information for anyone planning a mountain bike trip to Moab, Utah. It is 300 pages filled with detailed descriptions of over 40 top Moab trails." ~ Mountain Bike Action

"Bridgers praises Moab, and he's set down some great dope on more than 40 major trails." ~ Outside Magazine.

"There are trail guides; and then there's the real deal." ~ Bike Magazine

"This guide is setting a new standard for guidebooks. Lee Bridgers' first-hand accounts give the reader a sense that they have some behind-the-scenes information about Moab." ~ Brian Fiske, Senior Editor of Mountain Bike Magazine

"Moab . . . the good, the bad and the hilarious." ~ reader review on Amazon.com



THE AUTHOR REVEALED!! Written by Dreamride owner, Lee Bridgers, THE SPY FROM WEIRDSBORO is available as a Kindle book!

The Spy from Weirdsboro memoir If you liked the stories in the guidebooks, you're gonna love this memoir by Lee Bridgers documenting his life as a musician and artist in the Sixties and early 1970's.

Nothing is stranger than the truth. THE SPY FROM WEIRDSBORO is on the surface an outrageous acid romp, a fun and twisted road trip through the subculture underworld of the late Sixties and early 1970's, but underneath it is a true romance. Threading together stories based in North Carolina, California, Texas, Arizona and Amsterdam, our hero--ranting from the Walt Whitman "I"--is a wanderlust, a freewheeling, fearless risk-taker, a draft-dodging, anti-war guitar player busted in an FBI sting of the SDS in 1968, out on bail from a pot bust.

This book has a soundtrack. Sometimes Dink can't get what he wants. Sometimes he can't get what he needs. Sometimes Dink gets a gun to his head, sometimes a knife at his throat. On the road seemingly fishing for disaster, he joins an all black carnival blues strip show in the middle of KKK country. He hooks a junkie pool shark in Tempe and she circles around and strikes. He's snares a couple of hot French tourists in the Grand Canyon and within a year he's in Amsterdam playing slide guitar for a Satanist country western band, his paintings sponsored by the modern art museum while he worked for the African mafia as a lure to snare greedy dope smuggling Americans.

Lee (Dink) Bridgers is a retired fine art teacher and film school director. He says, "Before I nested with criminals, whores and junkies in academia, I had several lives among real people. Now I live in the desert with diigis bilagáana, caring for and entertaining tourists on a bicycle.



Origins: "Mountain Bike America: Moab"

Mountain Bike Moab Guidebook "Imagine a mountain bike guidebook written by Edward Abbey."

The cover pictured is of the first edition of the guidebook. This edition is available used from Amazon by clicking on the cover. Falcon Press prints the second edition, called MOUNTAIN BIKING MOAB. The Falcon edition is pretty much the original book with a couple of new stories, but edited to remove the punchline, the review of local tourist services--the part of the book that caused death threats that put Lee on the front page of the Salt Lake City Tribune. For the 2nd edition, international sales were sacrificed for local sales, which was not the original purpose of the book. Anyone who comes to Moab and buys a guidebook off of the grocery store rack, comes here unprepared. The book was written to prepare you for Moab, an education for anyone looking to understand the place before they get here. Reviews of the second edition of the book that you may find on the internet are compromised by haters with no sense of humor. And remember, those who "used" to live in Moab, never really did. The ones who are still here still rant and threaten, but I can count them. Terry Tempest Williams once told me not to quote her when she said that my book "captures the spirit of Moab better than any other." Her books are about what surrounds Moab. Lee Bridgers' guidebook is about the characters and the mountain biking environmental disaster that continues to happen around Moab. Below are a couple of unsolicited letters about the book.




Dear Mr. Bridgers,

I'm writing to comment on your book, Mountain BIke America: Moab. I picked it up at Borders Books here in Santa Monica, CA. I have all the other guides of Moab and Utah, But I like to have as much info on an area before I ride it. And since Moab is one of my and my friends favorite places to ride and recreate, I had to buy your book.

I was surprised by its dissimilarity to any other book on Moab: It is not only a guidebook, but a great collection of stories, humor, and maybe even folklore. You've got a great gift for the written word, and your passsion is evident on every page. I applaud you for your insights and not only on the trail, but in the town ("where not to eat/stay in Moab"), and of the equipment, but primarily for the layers of experience that comes out in the telling of the many stories in the book. That is what makes it so unique, and it motivates the reader to not only want to experience Moab for him/herself, but to cherish and handle it with respect once they arrive.

Case in point: A couple of years ago when I was resting at Gemini Bridges a caravan of 15 jeeps from a club or outfit called "Hog's" pulled up. One of the jeeps drove up near the edge of the cliff and started unreeling his winch. Another guy proceeded to don a climbing harness and attached it to the hook of the winch cable. They threw the cable over the edge of the sandstone cliff and lowered him into the hole/canyon. But the cable was cutting into the soft sandstone and soon a groove several inches deep was created. It cut so deep it got stuck and they had to move the cable over to continue their foolhardy adventure. All their friends were egging them on, and before you knew it, there were three or four deep grooves cut into the rock. Even to access this area, the caravan had to disregard a sign which said this was an environmental recovery zone and not to dive upon it. I went up to the morons and told them they were in a few selfish minutes destroyiing a monument that took thousands of years to create. They threatened me with bodily violence and said, "everybody makes mistakes, you better hope we don't catch you making one." At that, my pacifist friends urged me to depart with them back to the trailhead. I did, however, furnish the BLM with my written statement and documenting photos of the incident. They said they would follow up.

At last point: I was particularly moved by you "Dalton Wells Fourth of July Celebration." Your courage to expose the disease of hatred and injustice impresses me. Many people will read your book. They will be touched by this one story. They will possibly make a change in their attitude. This world will become a better place. Thank you again for your courage.

Sincerely,

Ken Seino, Venice Beach, California
March 27, 2001


Dear Lee,

Just a quick note to let you know how incredibly good your new Moab guide book is! We were in Moab last week for our annual fix and as usual it lived up to expectations: great book, great weather (but we did get snowed on in the La Sals for a few minutes) and very quiet. Sorry we didn't hire you this time! the flights and hire car seemed to have hiked in price and with the exchange rate about 30% worse (for us) than last time things were pretty tight to make the trip at all.

Anyway, the next bext thing to a Dreamride day out is a day out with your new book: The descriptions are spot on, the landmarks used to identify the route are obviously chosen by someone who knows what a biker would look for. Amongst other things we did Eagle's Perch (great route but no-one we spoke to had heard of it, hope it stays that way) and Gold Bar Rim via the Portal. The description for the latter was excellent, we only briefly lost the singletrack a couple of times and the whole ride felt a lot more demanding than the mileage suggests, a great day out. As for other stuff, well the Singletrack at the end of Moab Rim was just as you described and the descriptions for the La Sal sections were spot on: we did a trip round the 'back' via La Sal Pass/ Sheepherder's Loop/Geyser Pass/Trans-La Sal Singletrack which was a 'full' day out if a little chilly!

The GPS references in some route descriptions are a great idea, perhaps a few more at key intersections on complicated routes would be good for a next edition. I got one of these from my girlfriend this year so was keen to check some waypoints on the rides.

Many people we spoke to were also heading out to Fruita: is it really that good, I can't imagine it's better than Moab but maybe worth a visit on our next trip out.

Anyway, congratulations on a great book, hope it sells well and that you've had a succesful season.

cheers,

Adam Bannister
11/16/01



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