Fat Tire Fest 08 "A" recap

Jesper starteed the day off with a new bike. A magic bike. Pretty much as soon as our feet hit the pedals, we started climbing. 6 miles on the road followed up with as many more on jeep road climb. Some steep and technical, and other parts looong and gradual.

Everyone was feeling pretty good and riding well at this point, roughly 1.5 hours in. Still climbing.

The road rolled up and down before spitting us out to the western reaches.

Where we found some more climbing.

The day started wearing down on us, breaking us. It's not a mountainbike ride unless your hiking.


We did manage to find a beauty of a spot for lunch. Georgeous meadow, fantastic views, and full sun. The snowflakes had quit blowing around mysteriously by this point.

Ah, snacktime. Gotta celebrate Lyons proper, now :)

After lunch, there was some descending, and a bit more descending. Loooong steep and fast sections of rock, rut, and root covered double track descent. Snow and water crossings, too. Too fun to stop for pictures. And then there was a flat. First one of the day, too. Not too shabby.

At least it was a good place to stop, take in the scenery, and snap a pic or two.

Then there was more climbing. It's not mountain biking unless you're hiking.



Finally, the singletrack. An all too brief descent followed up with some more climbing.

Hot damn, that last singletrack climb was followed up with one of the most well rounded, fantastic descents on the northern front range. Again, too fun to stop for pics except at the bottom. Not the foundation. This was our first homestead stop on the tour.

We had a few bail out at this point. One with a destroyed bicycle (it really was a fun descent), one with fuel reserves almost tapped, and one wanting to have enough energy to really enjoy the final descent. We took a brief tour of a few more homesteads. It was then that I heard my first and only disparaging comment. "More climbing? sheesh." Or something like that. It was worth it for the final descent, a trail that makes men of men and can bring other riders and bikes to crumble.

Rocks

and steeps

and water crossing
But we all made it out alive. Another 2.5 miles back down the paved road and we were back at the car. Stats were something to the effect of 6,000 feet of climbing in just shy of 32 miles. Good stuff! Smiles were seen all the way around as folks loaded back up to head back down the hill towards Lyons. After all, the day wasn't over. We had grills to stoke and a keg of Dale's Pale Ale to look forward.

Thanks all for coming out the 8th Annual. We'll do it again next year. Stay tuned :)