Late Sunday Bushwackin

Several years ago, I set off on an exploration that almost had me thinking I'd be spending the night in the woods. I was looking for a trail that connected 2 drainages over a 10400' ridge. Well, I looked and looked and never found, but ended up hiking over the ridge and down anyway. It was a not so great experience at the time but in the long run ended up being a real character builder.

10 years have passed and after several exploratory missions, I've finally found the trail from the drainage opposite of the one I originally explored. The beauty of it? The one map I have that shows the trail is an official USFS publication. More beauty? Once you locate the trail, it's blazed with blue dots and arrow the entire way. What could be sweeter? It could be cleaned of deadfall for one thing :)

Lee and Dirtydoug and I set off late on a Sunday to poke this thing thru the entire way. We wanted to see just what it would take to make it a little more rideable.

First thing out of the gate and what do we see? Monster Truck. Rawrrrr!

The initial climb is rocky, really rocky. This is one of the most rideable sections but it gets a lot steaper and rockier.


Towards the top of the initial climb, the trail gets really, really faint.


And then it gets really faint.


But you eventually poke around enough to find the blazes and it's well marked from there. Eerily well marked. This strange set of marking shined on us like a beacon.


There were some scary steep rock sections (that I didn't have time to snap pics of - we were riding). Then there were some glimpses of absolute brilliant singletrack.


We had one small handsaw so we stopped periodically to clean up the trail. A few sections weren't saw-able so we made rideovers.


Then it was on to more steep, tech, and overgrown descending.



And even some more. Most parts of this trail were suprisingly rideable.


The rest of the trail was a traverse with a little climbing. A lot of thicker deadfall and some really really really rocky spots ensued. Even rocky for me. We may need to pop a few rocks to make it a little more rideable. And bigger saws. Success though found us, as we finally made it to the jeep road in the other drainage on the other side of the ridge.


It was down and out on the road from there. Great descending in big mountains.

Followed by great views.

All in all the ride was approximately 17 miles and just shy of 3000' of climbing. The figures really belie the magnitude of the ride. With our route finding and trail mods, we were out for about 4 hours. I think we can make this into a 2.5-3 hour loop if we get to work. See you out there!

Tuesday ride time

Haven't been to Jamestown in a while.  Bring lights (real bike lights).  Opening climb will be about 1.5 hours so be prepared :)  Redstone at 5:30!

Bmxin

See you at the dirt jumps!

Solstice Ride

Thanks everyone for coming out on our annual Sourdough Solstice ride! What a great turnout, too. We found some narrow techy stuff.


And we found some dark.
South St Vrain trail at night is a force to be reckoned with. Great stuff, though.

Tuesday ride and other stuff

So, what does everyone think of the recent trailwork on Picture Rock?
I think it turned out pretty good. All told, we donated approximately 50 labor hours! Thanks everyone that came out. We'll have another Tuesday nighter trailwork in July and probably one in August, too.

This Tuesday, 6/22 will be our annual Summer Solstice Tuesday Ride. Bring lights that are charged and ready to ride for a couple hours, food and beer. It's not likely that we'll make OB in time. Tell the wife and kids you'll see them in the AM - it's going to be a late one. We'll be driving up to Camp Dick and doing 3 to 4 hours up there. Get ready - we're going to hit some tech. SSV at night?

Lyons Outdoor Games is this weekend!

Come on out this weekend for the 2010 Lyons Outdoor Games. Kayak events start Friday at 4pm and last all weekend. Bike events will be on Saturday, starting with an XC short track race at 2pm. The Yellow Designs stunt team will be on hand all weekend doing demos and clinics as well. Stick around for the main events Saturday pm, too - a pumptrack contest followed up by the Dirt Jump contest. Fun gauranteed!

And don't forget the party at Oskar's on Saturday night, too! See you there. :)

Time to check out Sourdough and SSV

Monday Monday. Good day. Morning spent hanging out and running errands with the kiddos followed by a 3 hour romp in the forest is the recipe for a good Monday.

I'd heard from a few folks that Sourdough was pretty good as long as you weren't near Brainard Lake Road. Same sources also mentioned how absolutely perfectly good lower South St Vrain was. I had to check it out

The bike shop is closed on Mondays which means that's the only day that I can get out for a quality, substantial ride. Another Monday down the drain and today did not dissapoint.

I haven't been on the Sourdough trail since last fall. Like a friend that you may not see often, but is your best bud once you do.


Even though the climbing hurt right out of the gate.

More climbing. I used to call this the burn zone, but I think now I'll call it the new Aspen grove. 10 years ago the area was recovering from a fire and the aspen were only a foot or so tall.



A little descending, a little more climbing, then the view. You know, THE view.


Followed by more climbing. Like a baby's butt, it is.



more baby butt smoove singletrack

The only snow I saw today.


Then it was on to the South St Vrain trail for some quality descending. The SSV creek was freaking raging. Most water I've ever seen in there. It was so deafening it was scary.

Don't be fooled. Not all SSV is like this. But some parts are :)


It's more like this

and this

and this


but it is ALL great. Due to where I parked, I had to follow up all of that nice descending with a 20 minute grunt up a looooong and dusty dirt road. blah.

>And being a Monday, I had the whole place to myself. Saw 2 people the whole day.

Dirty and tired, great way to spend another Monday. Mondays. Excellent.

Tuesday Ride 6/8

Bike shop at 5:30. We'll find something to challenge us :) How about a looooooong techy descent with a long and painful climb out? I'm in!

Here's the June Schedule for Tuesdays:

6/15 - trailwork on Picture Rock. We'll pedal from the bike shop at 5pm to the worksite. No problem if you can't make 5 - just come out whenever you can. You will run into us.

6/22 - day after solstice ride. Bring charged lights, we're going big and staying out late. Peaceful Valley region.

6/29 - Haven't made a Jtown trip in a while...