big news on Picture Rock!

I just got word of some very big news. National Trails day is 6/7 and BMA is sponsoring a trail work day on the Picture Rock trail, the trail that will head north from Wild Turkey to Lyons to connect town to Heil Ranch. For past trail work days, it's been a hassle for the county when we have tons of volunteers. Even though they'll get 100 people to work, it takes approximately 2 hours just to shuttle people back and forth from the trailhead to the working area. Here comes the big news.

This National Trails Day project will be headquartered out of LYONS!!!!! Everyone will meet up on or near the Olson property and will hike in to begin work on the lower/further north section of trail known to the county as "Phase II" Oskars will have a tent with bbq set up and Redstone will be hosting a ride afterwards from the shop.

It just keeps getting better!

Tuesday Ride Action Shots

Here's a few shots from last nights ride. It was a good one, thanks for coming out all!

singlespeed time

Tuesday ride starts in about 3 hours. 6pm at the bike shop and we'll head on over to Hall Ranch. Come on out.

That said, is anyone up for a little single speeding? Redline's Flight Monocog 29ers are in the house and regular Monocog 29ers are on the way. Check out the sweet new Schwinn Madison's, too.

Last year the Madison's sold out pretty quickly, so quickly that I couldn't even get my hands on 'em. I've had these 2 babys on backorder since October and they finally showed up. They're sold out at Schwinn again, so what I have is what I have. Talk about a throwback. They look even better in person.

Formula track hubs

They even have good detail like this fork crown. Pretty amazing for a sub $600 bike, too.

Did I mention the fixie/free flip flop hub?

To take it further on the fixie thing, the Madison's do not even have rear brake cable routing. The rear brake housing is zip tied on for a super clean look if a front brake only fixie is your steed of choice.

Singlespeeds, sweet...

date night

what time are we meeting wed night?

Here's a better photo of Brian's bike. He was pretty pumped about this sweet new Intense Spider 29. I received an email from him after the virgin ride. Looks like we've got another happy Intense member of the family. :)
I got out for a little ride today, too. Strangely enough, I couldn't decide on whether to ride the roadie or the mountain bike so I decided to mix it up. I spun down the road to get to the trail on my own Spider 29. What is it with unfriendly road cyclists? I say hi to everyone I see. Man, for all of the non friendly responses you get on your road bike, just imagine how many you get when you're pushing a big gear on a fat tired full squish 29er down the highway. Oh what fun. I feel at home the instant I'm back off of the pavement.

And back in the forest. I love the desert and I love Hall Ranch, but at the end of the day, rides in the forest are absolutly my favorite. Ah, trees...
X Marks the spot.
Good views abounded.
As did more buttery smooth singletrack. Don't worry, there were definitely rocks, but some almost unheard of buttery singletrack was thrown into the mix as well. I don't see this type of riding very often, it was good stuff!
Got about 3.5 hours on the bike today and felt pretty whooped. I love the Spring, and I love that I'm lucky enough to do this caliber of ride from home.

Speaking of riding from home, the Tuesday ride this week is once again at the bike shop at 6. We will ride Hall Ranch from the shop.

Intense was at Sea Otter this year, showing off cool new bikes as usual. This bike does not yet have a name or a production date yet, but is likely to replace the 5.5.

Think monocoque top tube and 1.5" head tube like the 6.6.

Also has a travel adjust shock mount ala Tracer.

All new for this year is a retrofittable grease port for the lower linkage. Good stuff!

I'll follow all of this up with quick image of a production Intense. Here's a sneak peak at Brian's new Spider. Another 29er in the house!

Climbing Hall

Tuesday Rides / Upcoming Schedule

Howdy all. It was super duper extra nice out this weekend, eh? I sure hope everyone got in some pedaling time. I lucked out. I got a nice bonus round Hall Ranch getaway on Friday afternoon and it was perfect. Late in the day Friday the air was cool, the animals were out, and there was hardly anyone at the park. It was a great time for ripping around. I was able to get out for a good leg burner today, too. LOTS of steep climbing in not a long amount of time. Maybe I'm not ready for summer after all...

Anyway, I had enough foresight to post an upcoming April/May schedule. We've got lots of riding coming up and plenty to be excited about. Check it:

4/22 Tuesday Ride - Let's celebrate Earth Day by riding it. Hall Ranch. Meet at the bike shop at 6pm.

4/29 Tuesday Ride - One last early Spring ride at Hall Ranch before we rotate out.

4/30 Movie Night! The movie starts at 7:30 at the Boulder Theatre. Let's meet up around 5:30 at Jill's for pre-movie night happy 2 hours.

5/5 Cinco De Mayo Ride. Meet at the shop at 5:30pm for a Hall Ranch Mexican Independence ride. We'll finish up with Margs and greasy tacos at La Mariposa. We'll also be celebrating that this is the first Monday in 7 years that I haven't had to drive to work in Broomfield!

5/6 Tuesday Ride - Meet at Heil Ranch parking lot at 6pm. We'll hit everything there, including the new Wild Turkey trail that many of us helped to construct. It's good.

Tuesdays in May I haven't figured them all out yet, but the days will be getting longer. Stay tuned to the blog for 6pm meetup locations.

5/23-24 Lyons Fat Tire Vest VIII. I can't even believe that we've been doing this for 8 years. This is the Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day. We'll be meeting at the shop to ride on both days and will drive/carpool from there. Friday at 2:00pm, expect to be back around late dinner time. Saturday, we'll meet at 8:30am and will depart on the weekend's deathmarch. I don't have the route details finalized, but I feel like I let folks down this year. I'll do everything I can to make it hurt more this year, I promise :)

One picture from Rabbit Valley/Fruita

I'm behind on sharing the Rabbit Valey/Fruita pictures. I can come up with a few excuses, but noone wants to hear them, so I'll get to the one magic shot of the weekend. First day out, time to descend into the sand trap trails. I snap a few photos of the crew heading into the Sarlacc Bowl, and captured this:



Great view to start the trip, eh? Here's the closeup:



Caught the first wipe out of the trip for all to see.

movie night

Seasons - the new film by the Collective. You remember the Collective. They made 2 of the best mountain bike movies out there - "Collective" and "Roam." Their newest film should not dissapoint, especially on the big screen. Proceeds benefit all kinds of goodness. Movie night. Be there.

Run to the Border pt Dos

Saturday we awoke to a very much not picture perfect desert day. It was overcast, grey, and a bit chilly. We busted out the radios to get a fix on the weather. No rain in the forecast meant we were good to go.

12 of us departed from camp and road onward into the grey skies.

There was absolutely no wondering where the state line was, either.

Welcome to the Utah desert. Land of opportunity.

The views were good to the east. See that domed rock in the middle of the photo? That's camp.

Saw lots of this. Shortly after this photo was taken, 4 of the 12 opted to shorten the ride. That left them with a solid 6 hours by the time they made it back to camp.

The rest of us forged ahead. Lots of this, too.


And drop offs. Lots of drop offs. Matty uses those big wheels to his advantage.

And so does Sean. By the time we had 8 left, I think 6 of the 8 were on 29ers, too.

Here was the real money shot of the day. By this time, though, no one was really that talkative and no one wanted to stop. I stopped for the shot. This was also the windiest point of the ride. I wasn't too bummed about not stopping.

Actually, it wasn't that long after the money shot view that we had to stop. We needed nutrients.

even bikes need to rest sometimes.


Soldiering on again. Here, MW shows fine form. Rigid? Single? Hour 7.5 and I'm not tired. Must be the power of wool.

We were heading back to camp by this point. It seemed like that, for all of these little descents, there were equal parts steep that we had to hike up.

but the rim was worth waiting for. B u t t e r y smooooooth and fast. To bad none of us were feeling fresh enough to roll it as fast as it deserved.

That rim is a helluva cliff, too. It's a long ways down there.

Finally, as the sun was starting to set, we made it to the road back to camp. Only a couple more miles, boys!
So, Saturday ended up being a long day in the saddle. We got back to camp 9 hours after we started. That, my friends, is a good ride. The only bummer, though, is that no one had really started cursing at me yet. Well, there was one incident involving a remark about that "extra hour and a half," but no one was seriously injured. :)

Tuesday Ride

Yes, we will be riding this Tuesday! Meet up at the new shop (138 Main in Lyons Village Central) and be ready to roll by 6pm. We'll head up to Hall Ranch for a few good laps. I was out tonight on the roadie and felt ok on the streets until 7:55ish so we can get a good ride in. No light required but we will probably do a little riding by Braille. :)

Redstone V2, the eastern annex

new shop is open, come on by. 138 Main, in Lyons Village Central, next to the laundramat.

Desert Escape Day One

Last Friday we made a run for the border. Colorado/Utah border, that is. We made it into camp just in time to enjoy a beautiful afternoon.


The campground was great. We enjoyed all of the necessary amenities. You know, like trees, sand, rocks, and beautiful blue skies.

I couldn't help but smile as we were getting ready to depart. We had about every type of bike imaginable with us.

Mitch brought his new Intense Spider 29er, too.

We started the ride on relatively mellow double track.

It didn't take long, though, before we were pushing. It's not mountain biking unless you're hiking. This would prove to be a common theme for the weekend.

Buttery sweet singletrack was also a theme for the weekend. As Mitch demonstrates, sand and slickrock happened, too.


Showen and Daverill show us how it's done. SS in the snaking sandy track.



Wills pilots the pink Soulcraft. Single and steadfast.

Matty was having a good time, too. I think.

When all was said and done, we put day one in the books with about 20 miles of sweet desert singletrack under our belts. We enjoyed the peaceful desert dusk as we fueled up on food, Dale's Pale Ale, Old Chubb, and Ten Fiddy. We needed all the help we could get, for Saturday would be a big day.