Exploring new local terrain. Still!

Ahhh Mondays. The day that everyone hates because their weekend is over. But not me. Monday is my weekend. Today I fully intended to take every advantage of having a Monday to myself with the kids in school. DST is over and there's snow forecast. My deductive resources indicate that if I didn't enjoy the 70 degree weather today, my opportunities at 9000' may well be over until next Spring.

So I drove out of town and up, up into the hills to take advantage of the weather. Not knowing what I'd experience, I brought my duffel bag with a full complement of apparel. Starting at 8000'ish and knowing I'd spend the day between 8 and 9000' I decided on knickers, baggies and short sleeves. Short sleeves at altitude in November. Woot!

There was not a lot of snow up there. Actually, not any.

But there were some "no bikes" signs. Unfortunately, gotta respect the signs. It wasn't where I really wanted to end up anyway, so I didn't mind turning around.
The Aspens look different without the foliage. Beautiful, but different. More Blair Witch stick style beautiful.

A once relatively fun-ish jeep road now isn't.
Because the good ol' USFS doesn't mess around with typical road graders. If their roads are bumpy, they go straight for the pair o' dozers.

But the views didn't dissapoint. Neither did the new bike, a Transition Covert. So far this machine has been allllll good and zero bad. zero. I'm loving it.
There was technical climbing. (note to self do not come here when it's 90degrees in July)

And some equally technical and viewtastic descending.

And some creek crossings.

Oh damn. Did I mention the views? Money.
And even a little pavement. Even that was fun.
Best yet, this ride was legal, mapped, and marked on the ground by the USFS. Secret trails? Nah, don't need them. I've been explorin' these lands for the better part of 12 years and this one was still new to me. All I had to do was open the map, point, and there it was.

Do I need to point it out to you? Nope. Grab a map and explore. Go somewhere you've never been. You'll find something good :)