Weeks worth of riding.

Last week's Tuesday Ride took us up to Little Raven and South St Vrain. Shuttle, if you will. It was a great ride. There was carnage. It was good.

On Sunday late, Dirtydoug and I went bushwhacking again.
If you can call a ride with 3 major hike a bikes a success, it was a major success.
And today? Today I rode up Coney Creek Rd and down Buchanan Pass. Some parts were smooth.
And some parts were not.
But it was still great :) We'll see you on Tuesday. Jamestown.

backcountry monday

I got together today with a couple of friends to ride a backcountry route that I've been eyeballing for several years. The plan was to ride/hike/crawl from 7000' up to a 10,200' pass, 2000' down the other side, loop back around, then back down our original route. I've been up to the top of the pass several times, but never down the back side. There's a 4 way junction at the top, but I always ran out of time. Today did not dissapoint. 9+ hours in the back country was all good. Hard to say if it was xc or all mountain or what. The climbing was heinous and the descending was ass behind the saddle steep and technical. Good stuff. I had a Tracer VP, ssperl had a Spider 29er and bstiff was on his Voodoo hardtail. The ride did not dissapoint.


The climb started off nice and sweet. It sucked us in with beautiful trail and great views before the hiking started.


The view back down the drainage from which we climbed.

3 hours to the top! Finally, and we made our self imposed noon cutoff time. That meant it was time for lunch.

Lunch was up and it was time to descend. None of us knew what we were in for. I miss exploring. Kids and bike shop leave little time these days for all day getting lost affairs. The initial descent was great. Super loose, tech, and steep. Of course, pics don't do it justice.

more descending

Finally at the bottom (40 minute descent, nice) and no idea where exactly we were. Thank god, we found some elaborate trail signage to show exactly where we were. About 5 hours in at this point.


It was time again for more climbing. This was a grunt from 8000' or so up to 10,500'. It was a nice road.

Lots of hiking was involved. We were on hour 6? I was tired and starting to lose track of time. At least it hadn't rained on us yet.


My legs were cramping up something fierce by this time. More descending then. That seemed to do the trick for legs that were tired from turning over the granny gear slowly.


and finally more descending
9 hours and 10 minutes later we were back at the car. That's what I call a ride. It ended up being 5,600' of climbing in 28 miles. Most of it (up and down) was rocky, loose, technical and tough. Glad I got that one crossed off the list. It's going to take me another year or so to forget about the pain. Then, I will return.

Thanks for coming Jesper and Brian, the ride was fantastic!

Tuesday Night Solstice-ish Ride

Man, what a great ride! We had daylight, we had night. We had bikes with broken parts, slow leakers, lights that didn't work, and we even managed to get off trail and freestyle it a bit. Oh, and rain, too. Wet rocks on technical trails. In a sense, just a great ride. The only thing that was a bummer was that Oskars was closed when we got there. So we had after hours at the shop with Dale's in a can and a bag of chips. Here's some shots from the the ride:

Giving Thanks

Congrats to Sam on his not 1 but 3 State Champ jerseys from the Mountain States Cup. Woohoo, great job, Sam.

Today was Thanksgiving. I was happy that I was able to get out this morning. Even the ride to the trail is good - I was thankful for the connector trail. It was chilly and overcast today so I was hoping to see very few people. It was busy today, though.

This is one of my favorite parts of Picture Rock. The bench cut is artwork. I am thankful for bench cuts.

And there was some relatively elaborate rockwork done. I am thankful for the rocks.

And some smoove, swoopy sections. I am thankful for smoove, swoopy trails.


I rode today. I gave thanks. Thanks.

mother of god I found me a gnarly trail

If you've been following this blog, or if you've ridden with any of the Redstone crew, you'd know that I like difficult trails. I'm not talking about the double black diamond wooden structure "freeride" stuff you find at the resorts, I'm talking about anything you'd normally find in the USFS backcountry. Heck, no problem if you can't ride them - no shame in hiking up or down. Tough trails are generally more fun. I generally don't discriminate against steep trails. Steep trails are fun.
With that knowledge, I went to one of my semi regular riding spots to check out some new riding I've been hearing about. I didn't know what I'd find, but I knew that on the map, those contour lines were pretty darn close to each other on the descent as well as the climb out. To add to that, they were past the "top" and down the other side. It could (and probably would) mean a long hike out with no other bailout options.

Climbing up, I pretty much always stop for this view.

Finally at the top, I see that a trail/road that's been around a while has been recently signed. Good. This would be my way out. I had the feeling that I was descending into a hole and climbing back out.

After some more climbing, I found my turn off. It was marked well. Very well.

The views were amazing from the get go. I lowered my saddle and was off. The pic doesn't do it justice, but it was, in places, frighteningly steep.

With more than a few precipitous sections. Super slack angled dh bikes rejoice.

Other parts of the descent were narrow and fun.

Even found grippy dirt in a couple of spots. Unfortunately, the sweet spots were very shortly lived. Too shortly lived. After the fun and swoop, another churned up super ass steep switchback awaited.

As it turns out, I did have to hike out. Pretty much 95% was a hike. About 900' vertical. Here's a shot looking back at the switchback I just climbed out of. One section was so steep hiking out that I had to use my knee for traction up. sheesh.

I finally made it out and back tot he top just as it was time to click on my light. Whew. I don't think I wanted to go poking around exploration style on a badass hike a bike in the dark.

Night riding is good, isn't it?

Just to give perspective, here's the Google Earth shot of that crazy descent. Did I mention that it was also on the top/side of a cliff. Yep, pretty steep. I ended up walking a whole bunch of it. It was super hard, super steep, and I value my life.

It's the type of trail that I normally would still ride if it was worth getting to the bottom of, but it just wasn't. Get to the bottom turn around and hike 900' back out. No thanks. Now here's the part that really gets me.

The Forest Service gets their panties in a bunch if they find an illegal/social trail, despite how well made the trail is. They could come across a beautifully built chunk of singletrack and immediately want to close it strictly because it wasn't their idea. I understand due process and all and I'm not disagree-ing. There is, however, a reason for that due process. It's so that the public can have input on the trail, hopefully insuring that it will be a well built trail that will see a lot of use. 836 and 837, on the other hand, are completely the opposite. We sat in on several USFS meetings regarding this particular area and we lobbied for the expansion of new and sustainable singletrack. After the public process was done, the USFS agreed to build 1 new trail in an area that didn't make sense. After all of that public process, we get these 2 new trails. A) they weren't on the original agenda (not that big of a deal) and B) they have to be the crappiest built trails I've been on in a long time. How about ripping a moto straight down and back up the fall line? Sure, hyuck, hyuck. I've got a throttle, make that shit steep. See the sign? The one that says if motos can't stay on the trail, it'll get closed? Guess what? It's so steep and piss poorly built, that it's only been around less than a year and it's already starting to get really braided in spots. It's not irresponsible users, it's that no mind was paid when it was laid out. I'll be surprised if it doesn't get closed to motos sooner than later. I'm all about sharing the trails, but we've got to use our brains here. Moto folk, that means you, too. At the very least, when it gets closed to motos, we can show Ed how to reroute the trail to make it sustainable and we can take it over then.

All in all, it wouldn't be a bad DH bike trail, but hiking out with a 29lb bikewas bad enough. I can only imagine how painful hiking out with a 40lb bike would be. I probably won't hit it again. Well, er, not the same direction anyway. I'm a slow learner, and as such, I'll have to ride it backwards to make sure it still sucks. I'm already thinking about that ride. And, no, I won't be featuring this one on a Tuesday nighter.

Tuesday nigher, hey, that's tomorrow! See everyone at 6...

Moab 24

I last competed in the 24 Hours of Moab in 2000. I raced on a Coed Pro team, Schwinn/Jamba Juice. We went in with the intention of winning, trained our butts off, and raced for the entire 24 hours. Strategy, full on hard efforts, racing, it was all there. Also there was the fights with teammates, legs on fire, chafed ass on fire, and mental anguish (head on fire) associated with racing for 24 hours. We made money but I vowed to not ever again "race" in 24 Hours of Moab.

The last several years have afforded me the option to participate in a number of teams, but I declined all options. The memories of 24 hour torture haunted me and I had no inkling to want to suffer like that again. Until this year. I can't remember exactly who did the cajolling, but in the end, myself and fellow Redstoners Art, Jason, and Chris were packed up and headed to Moab for the 14th edition. We were all under the very strict understanding that we were there for fun. All competitive drives would be washed away by beer. Fun only.

The fun came to a screaching halt as soon as we rolled into the venue. The desert winds seemed to be blowing 500 miles per hour as we tried to set up camp. Setting up took about twice as long as it should have. It took 3 of us to set up Art's dome tent that we would use for hq. Thanks again for bringing the 2x4 firewood, too, Chris. It was perfect. In years past, we camped closer to the scoring tent and staging area. This year, though, we opted for the wind protection of the trees further up the hill.

It was time to preride the course. Chris and I had done many, many laps in the past, but it was a new experience for Jason and Art. I put on new shoes for the occasion. These Pearl Izumi X Alp Enduros were my last set of prototype freebies. Good fitting and shiny, they lacked the black finish and good looks of the production versions.
This was also the last trip for the 5 Spot. I made sure to enjoy every last minute.
Chris leads us out on the course. Desert and mountains, pretty stuff. Them thar LaSal Mountains are tall, too. Couple of the big ones are over 12k.
The course nears the "Behind the Rocks" WSA. There's lots of freaky looking things in the Moab desert.

There's also a fiersome sandy hike on course, too. Guess that meant we were mountain biking after all :)
And slickrock. Slickrock happens in Moab. This is at the far point on the course. The big cliff/rock you see is Prostitute Butte.
Friday ended up being a great day. The sunset was beautiful. The race starts at noon on Sat, the next day. Time to party!
The moon was bright. The course would be naturally well lit the following night.
The course isn't the only thing well lit. Art wasn't the only one either.

We climbed up the cliff behind camp. It was like we were looking down on Lyons from the L. This was tent city. The brightest light was the jumbotron near the scoring tent.
Ah, no mountain bike trip is complete without a visit from our nomad friend, Whiskey Dave. Or Fixie Dave. Or Fixed Whiskey Dave. This is his bike as he has it outfitted for randomly touring the western US. Fixed gear rigid fork 29er. Dave couldn't find a handlebar bag to his liking so he mounted a kitty litter box. Dave says it can handle anything he can throw at it. Dave left after several samples of Stranahan's finest. Whiskey of course. It was time for bed now.
The riders meeting the next day was kind of brutal. The wind was howling by now, the strongest it'd been all weekend. It wasn't cold, but everyone had their winter coats on to protect from the wind. Lucky me, I got to go first.
My lap was good. I had the running lap. The race starts with a LeMan's style start, meaning you have to run to your bike. You run 200 yards down the desert, around a 12' tall bush, and back to your bikes. My running fitness ensured that I would get out onto the starting road at about 200 of 360 racers. Did I mention that I suck at running?

I ended up with my first lap being 1hr, 18 min. Chris was next. He clicked off a fast one, too, before rolling in to hand the baton to Jason.
We were all pretty fresh at this point, seeing how it was all of our first lap. Jason had a smile as he left to go out on course.

I didn't get a pic of Art as he left to ride but I got a pic of the aftermath. Art was realizing after lap 1 that this would not be an entirely easy affair.
That's about all the race recap I've got on film. Basically, if you see our time, you'll notice a 4 hour or so delay around 4am. That's when we all opted for sleep over competition. The next morning, we all go up about the same time, ate breakfast together (beef and pepper fajitas with eggs, heck yeah) and sent Jason out on course. After Jason's lap, Art went out for his last one. Art came in at 11:26am so we still had plenty of time to take in another lap. We decided that 3 laps each was good, though, and we refocused on having fun.

I had to take this pic for perspective. Art was easily the tallest of us and he chose to sleep in his girls play tent. Way to go, family man. Jason poses here with the kiddy tent.
Did I mention that we lost focus easily? Race was over, it was time to relax.
I've been around a while and have seen a lot of bikes. This one caught my eye in the staging area. I've never seen a KTM bicycle before. I suspected that the motorcycle giant had something manufactured for them by a factory like KHS, Fuji, or Hodaka, but the head badge read "Made in Austria." Good on you KTM. Got to keep those moto guys happy even when they're pedaling.

Tinker was steadfast as usual. 2nd place solo behind the mighty fast Josh Tostado. Chris Eatough finished a dissapointing 32nd in the men's solo. Anybody know what happened to him?

We asked, but she was referring to someone else.
We hotelled it on Sunday night, which was a good call. No one was in any shape to drive across the state. We were all pretty tired. We wrapped it up with beers and margaritas at a local mexican place.

Monday was good. Anytime you get out on Mary's Loop in Fruita is good. We only had time for a quickie, though.
Just over an hour on Mary's and Rustlers. Good times indeed. I always seem to forget how the trails are smoove like butter there. Yum.
Duck! Chris finally learned how to throw the boomerang that he's had for years.

That's it. Moab 24. Be warned, though. We're doing a few teams next year ;)