Montana Trip

Here's a heapload of pictures from my Montana Trip. Some riding, some barn action, some canoeing, and a heapload of fun.

later!

See all you guys in a week. We're heading out to Big Sky country tonight. I'll see you after a week of riding and beer drinking and hanging out in the Bitteroot.

Tues Night Ride

It doesn't look anyone scheduled a Tuesday night ride so I will. If you're looking for a relaxing spin around Hall Ranch, come out and join us. Meet us at the bike shop at 6pm. So far I think there are only two of us.

Crested Butte Therapy Volume I

We typically get the Redstone posse together in March/April for an annual pilgramige to the desert. This year, I was unable to go due to the birth of our second daughter so the promise of a good summer trip was made early on. The last weekend of August was the time - time to pay homage to the legendary trail fairies of Crested Butte. I shut the bike shop down for the weekend so we could roll out early Friday and get 3 solid days of riding.

I snapped a couple of shots of the rooftop setup as we stopped for a pee break on our way up to Fremont Pass. It's a beautiful thing, these fine 3 clean bikes:

And Chris said I had to throw this one in as payment for driving...


The plan was to camp in the Cement Creek area and do all of our riding South of town. We had no plans to go into CB proper. We lucked out and got a great spot near the bottom of Cement Creek Road. Sights like this are all over in the mountains. Makes you wonder what life was like back when this baby was brand new.

Once we found our spot, it was time to lay claim to all the tent spots. Melis, always the innovator, used this broom to clear the area for his tent. That big truck with bikes on top? It's great for creating broomsticks...


The plan was to get in early afternoon Friday, set up camp, then ride. The ride did not dissapoint. We started off with a bang. Riding from camp, we explored the northern side of the Cement Creek drainage. A short jaunt up Walrod Gulch led us to the very steep but very fine 412. The bottom was a hike, but it turned into a fantastic leg burning climb. Here's Hippy Dave showing fine form, doing a good job of holding back the pain. Next is Melis rolling out of sight into the shrubbery.




We kept climbing on 412 until we got to an intersection with Double Top. We headed in a westerly direction on Double Top, to roll back and close the loop back in Cement Creek. Holy crap that route was fun. We did a little out -

and back -
to check out the views to the north. Then it was time to get serious about descending. If anyone asks, descending Double Top to 409 is certainly an ass behind the saddle affair, complete with rocks, surprises, and huge moto whoop sections. Fun indeed. We contemplated the goods before dropping in.


Instead of descending all the way directly to Cement Creek, we opted for the rolling, traversing descent back to the Walrod Gulch trail head. This last picture isn't that great if you blow it up, but you get this gist. Excellent sidehill action on some non run of the mill CB tourist trails.
From here, we rolled back to camp to saddle up on some dinner and contemplating about Saturday's epic to come. We had no idea of the epic proportions that would be unfolded the following day.

Summer is over.

Fall is here.

Lazy Sunday...

A perfect day on the Sheep and up Coulson....

Dan, Arn, Johnny Ray and myself headed up to Johnny Park and had great ride. 3 out of 4 drew blood so you know it was a good day.

Headin up 118


Johnny Ray



COMIN DOWN THE MOUNTAIN!!!!!


Dan climbin back up


This is why we live here

And with the smell of burnt up french fries...

Saw the crew heading south out of Boulder at 8:30 this morning, while I was heading to work on the bike. It's hard to miss a monster truck with a baby blue bike on top!

Can't wait to hear all about it!

public service announcements

couple of things. First, the bike shop will be closed the next 2 weekends. This weekend the crew is headed to the Taylor Park/Crested Butte universe for a little peace of mind and singletrack slaying. Labor Day weekend will be more of the same in the western reaches of Montana. Well, sort of the same but with more rocks.

Secondly, it was recently revealed to me that the roads in Spring Gulch are actually not private at all. Some digging by our local fire dept (that was told it could't drive thru the forested neighborhood of Spring Gulch) turned up the fact that all of the roads in Spring Gulch are (Larimer) County roads but are maintained privately. Read into that what you will.

Lastly, I talked with local parks and rec cheif Dave Cosgrove tonight at the concert in the park. Timeline for plans for a Heil Ranch Trail head is 1 year. Sooo, expect we'll be riding it in a couple.

More as it comes, back to regularly scheduled programming!

Tuesday Hall Ranch

Glad I ran into you guys last night...here are a couple more photos.

Dave did the moonwalk for us during the break in those snazzy shoes.

tuesday ride

We ride here often enough, but it never gets old to me. Here's a not oft photographed spot.

iron city riding

I moved from Boulder to the steel city. And believe it or not they have some sweet singletrack right in the city, actually right next to where I live.

This section of whoop dee doos is in Frick Park. So far there are definitely some fun trails and dedicated riders out here.

Short uphills though! I think I need an on one singlespeed and to cut my bars down a bit, they are way to wide for these tight trails.

roll call for this weekend campin'

Who's in for going to the CB area this weekend? Just looking for a head count.

Leave super early (before 9 at the latest) on Friday, 8/25. Get there, set up camp, ride. Ride all day Sat. Ride all day-ish Sunday. Come back to reality Sunday eve.

We've got some pretty big rides planned for 2 of the 3 days. Friday is still up in the air. We'll be camping somewhere in the Cement Creek area, dispersed style.

Who's in?

Oh, and Tuesday at the bike shop at 6pm for the Tuesday ride.

Singletrack relief.

After a week in the big city this is just what the dr. ordered.

Lyons Folks Fest

This weekend is the Folk Festival down at Planet Bluegrass. These are the same guys that put on the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. They have a big ol spread right here in Lyons and they have some fests here, too. July is Rockygrass, a local hardcore bluegrass show that's 3 days long. Well, it's now August and time for the Folk Festival. This weekend is a super solid line up. Headline for Friday was Jeff Tweedy from Wilco and Saturday is the legendary Kris Kristofferson. Sunday is Ani DiFranco.

My 3 year old and I had a date tonight for the show. We walked down to the festival grounds and got there right before Tweedy went on stage. After a quick stop in the food vendor section to see Dale from Oskars (and to nab a can of Gordon's), we headed off to find a spot to sit. Jeff Tweedy was great tonight. He played a good mix of Woody Guthrie and Wilco tunes. He even broke out a Neil Young song, and finished up with the ever so good Tupelo song New Madrid. Here's some pics. The first shot is pretty blurry because I didn't want to be that one jackass up front that kept using his flash. I had the cam set on available light, so it was a long exposure and got blurred out. sorry.


We had the super duper wristbands, too. Not only did that get us backstage, it also got us, well, me, free beer from New Belgium. We hung around to say thanks to the man himself. Zoe couldn't hold on, though - she zonked out in the stroller. It was a great time all around, though.

oasis in the jungle

The concrete jungle isn't entirely. It has its saving graces. This is one of them.

Tuesday Night Ride 8/15

I had a request for Jamestown, so let's hit it. Meet at the Post Office in Jamestown at 6pm. We'll have to get going pretty quick, though, as we'll only have until 8:15 or so. No lights necessary but, we've been taking 2.5 hours when we go so expect to ride by Braille on the way out. We could always cut something out though. Let's roll!

We ran into some rain tonight. It started off as a little rain, but turned into a raging thunderstorm. Gotta get wet sometimes to get the good rides in, I guess.


I thought Gmoney was riding well enough before he stopped to tweak his bike a little.



He was even faster after pulling out a couple of links to save rotational weight.


So, in other news, still hammering out the details for the camping trip end o' August. As of now, it looks like we'll be driving to Taylor Park (just W of Cottonwood pass outside of Buena Vista) and setting up camp. After mapping out some rides, it looks like we'll be on the bike pretty much all day for a couple of days. Most of it will be near or at timberline with high mileage. Fri, Sat, Sun 8/25-27.

How about that Tuesday Ride? Chad says Jay will be here so we have to go somewhere good. Might be a good idea to bring a light. Any ideas?

We rode Hall Ranch on last Tuesday's ride. I was happily surprised to see the erosion in the rock garden from the last couple of weeks thunderstorms. The lines have definitely changed, and some embedded rocks have grown in stature. Unfortunately, not everyone shares my opinion on the even more technical nature of the trail. Several cheater lines have developed literally overnight from folks that would rather ride around than dismount. I had so much fun Tuesday that I snuck out for about 45 minutes today for a quick up and over. I didn't think I was that early, but the park was relatively empty. I only saw 3 people - not too bad for a Saturday.

Here's a shot of the biggest braid of all, and it just sprouted in the last week. See the line in the dirt by the front tire of the On-One?
well, it's not a line, or at least it had not existed prior to a few days ago. The line is that shadowy crevice to the left.

Today's was a dandy ride. Back on Old South is always good.

rfx time

Wade finished up his Turner RFX and brought it back for some photos.

another good word on the Heil connector

The Olson property arrangement with Lyons and Boulder County had yet to go thru county process at the county's POSAC (Parks Open Space Advisory Committee). Upon hearing of the pending sale deal, POSAC set an emergency meeting in Boulder Thurs 8/10 to discuss the details (since Boulder County is the party ultimately paying for the land).

Great news tonight! POSAC rubber stamped the deal. No big fuss and no more waiting for a trail connector. We're going to see this happen. There is no more legal wiggle room for Vic Olson - woohoo! The sale will close on 9/8.

Oh, and get this. Not only is Lyons Mayor Angelo chestbeating the deal locally by proclaiming that we now can put in a rec center on that chunk of land (great idea but where will the $ come from), but he is also telling folks that we have room for a Velodrome now, too. Perhaps someone will tell Doug Emerson. heh heh. Politician anyone?

Off the map in Montana

Whew!

In five and a half days I've spent 24+ hours in the car, racing across Wyoming and Montana. Why? To visit some good buddies up at the Red Barn. They treated me to a hell of a great time. And now, with only two days to recouperate at home, I'll be headed to NYC for a week of work on my feet.




I'll be digging up some more pics and stories if anyone's interested.

Tuesday Ride

Hall Ranch. Meet at 6pm at the Redstone Cyclery, NE corner of 4th and Broadway.

revised Eldorado TSA out today

The Eldorado Trail Study Area has been revised and just released today. This is the network of trails west of SH93 - Doudy Draw, Community Ditch, etc. At the meetings a few months ago, we lobbied hard for multi use access to everything, and more trail opportunities.

City of Boulder came back with a very middle of the road approach. Luckily, we've been off the back so far as a user group, we stand to make huge gains even with the middle of the road! There are a couple of straight up/straight down non sustainable routes that were taken off the bike table, but the rest looks very promising. Think of several miles of new singletrack. City of Boulder, too, so it'll be legal to night ride.

I need to read thru the entire verbage but I'll get more info up soon. Hopefully, Debaser will chime in. Heck, that's pretty darn far south, but imagine this...

Lyons - Hall - Heil - Beech OS (next on the TSA agenda)- Foothills trail - bikepath thru boulder - Marshall Mesa - Doudy Draw - new trails - Rattlesnake Gulch. yeahhhhh!

Tuesday Ride - 6pm at the shop for Hall

Good ride tonight. We had a pretty big crew. Lots of different types of bikes and riding styles. The skies opened up, though, and just started absolutely dumping on us on the loop. The ride back down was a wet one. The thunder and lightning had subsided a little so we rolled back down the front side.



Sorry Ryan, didn't get any pics of the step. Check this link out, though. You might see what you're looking for. I'll try to snap a shot next time I'm out.