Time for another deathmarch

So, word on the street is that the big ride over Memorial Day wasn't a deathmarch enough for some folks. Well, truth be told, it really wasn't. Now, however, is the time.

We'll caravan from the shop. No funky shuttles, just park and ride. And ride. And ride. This will be a superb ride for folks that like to spend all day on technical rocky singletrack. All day as in all day. If I'm closing down the bike shop on a Sunday, you can bet we'll be doing some riding. If you can't make it all day, or if the ride seems too big, don't worry. There will be several bail out points. If we are able to complete the entire route I've got in mind, it will take 6-8 hours and be 25-30 miles. That's riding at a decent pace, too. Did I mention that it's rocky?

Dinner's on me at the end of the ride, too. It would be a shame to let the summer go without one more big cookout!

Anyone needing more details, please comment and your questions will be answered. Otherwise, we'll see you in 10 days ready to march!

End of Summer of Ride

I vote for Saturday!!!!!! I'm guessing a bigger turnout for Sat. I don't think I can make it on Friday and really would like to ride along.

Any chance???

How about noon to 4pm and make it a SS ride because thats all I got right now.

Peace out, J to the R - O - N, know what I'm sayin?

doggy bag

Tuesday Night Ride

The James Creek drainage was shining
Like a silver Chris King hub
I am following the river
Past the highway
To the top of the Gold Ridge
I’m going to Jamestown
Jamestown

In mid Boulder County
I’m going to Jamestown
Poorboys and pilgrims with mountain bikes
And we are going to Jamestown
My traveling companion has two knobby tires
It is scorned by the Sierra Club
But I’ve reason to believe
We both will be received
In Jamestown

Im going to Jamestown
Mid Boulder County
Im going to Jamestown
Poorboys and pilgrims with mountain bikes
And we are going to Jamestown

And my traveling companions
Are bikes and tired bodies
Im looking at bikes and bodies
But Ive reason to believe
We all will be received
In Jamestown

In Jamestown, in Jamestown
I’m going to Jamestown
For reasons I cannot explain
Theres some part of me wants to ride
Jamestown
And I may be obliged to go ride
Every trail, every jeep road
Or maybe theres no “No Tresspassing” signs
Maybe Ive a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Jamestown

Lyrics by DMD

Charge your lights, we will need them. Meetin’ at the Post office at 6, probably leave the shop around 5:30

yep, it's good

There's only one way to get over that 70's funk that seemed destined to linger in my head...ride that baby away. We had another good one.

A blowout party

Someone turned 30.

Stay safe out there.

The world's a strange and dangerous place.

29 & 5

We ran into a buddy with a Lenz Sport Behemoth 29er today. That baby has got me chomping at the bit for the release of Intense's 5.5 29. Hopefully we'll get to throw a leg over one before the end of the year. I Still have some reservations about the fork choice, hopefully '08 will create a few more options. Homeboy was also running a 29er Kenda Nevagal 2.2 which looks like a pretty nice tire within that limited market. Regardless of what sized wheels we ran we all walked away with smiles.

Wild Turkey Opens, Another Trail Day 10/6/07

Hello All, I recieved this fantastic email today. Thanks to all who played a role in getting this trail created & open. Take a look at the June 3rd entry called National Trails Day on the Redstone Underground or at the Oskar Blues Brews & Bikes Blog for one of our days of trail work. Don't forget about the upcoming trail work day on October 6th - see you out there, cm

> Subject: Wild Turkey Trail will open to all on September 14
> Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 11:29:20 -0600
> From:
> To:
>
> Hello dedicated trail builders,
>
> Good news, the Wild Turley Trail will be open to all hikers, bikers, runners, and equestrians on Friday September 14th. Come enjoy the dramatic views, dense woods, and open meadows along this new trail.
>
> Over the past year, 283 volunteers have donated a total of 4,811 hours raking tread, moving rocks, and spreading duff to help open this new multi-use trail. On behalf of Boulder County Parks and Open Space, I would like to thank you for your continued dedication and hard work.
>
> More opportunities! Be a part of the first trail building project that will connect Heil Valley Ranch to the Town of Lyons on October 6th, from 8:30-1:00. Parks and Open Space will again partner with Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance for this project. For more information and to register, please look at the BMA HOMEPAGE>
> Happy trails,
> Matt Bruce
>
> Volunteer Work Project Coordinator
> Boulder County Parks and Open Space

Labor Day Candy II

I had originally planned to ride super early on Labor Day. Somehow, the AM ride turned into a PM ride and I found myself heading into the rain with Melis. He had a rough night the eve prior, so I promised him that we wouldn't go hard, we'd just do a little exploring. Spirits were good enough that the rain did not dampen. Thankfully, though, the rain let up just as we arrived at our destination. We pedaled off and quickly settled in on the days largest climb (the initial one, of course). Thankfully the skies were clouded and temps were cool. It proved to be perfect conditions for this grinder of a climb.
I think this was one of the smoothest sections of the climb, if not the entire day. After arriving at the top of the escalator, we headed into relatively know territory to chase down a couple of leads we had seen in times past. They panned out in a good way. Think of delicious rocky, rooty, trenched out, line picking single track. Yep, it's all there. Steep grinder singletrack thru rocks and roots? Yep. Hiking? Yep. We weren't even 1/2 way into our exploring and the getting was already good.

After looking at some maps and doing a little guesswork, I had charted out a route in my head before the ride. I'm not sure if it was dumb luck or experience, but the route panned out 100%. I guess it didn't hurt to have a pointer here and there, though...Again, more delicious singletrack. This one was different, though. It pitched us into an ass behind the saddle steep, loose and rocky jeep road that just kept going and going and going.
The rocky steeps eventually yielded fast meadows.
With amazing vistas.
Chad had to stop on one last ridge to enjoy the splendor. And to wait for me.
We'll be back...

Labor Day Candy

Local Legend Death March Dave was able to drag my corpse out of Lyons for a ride on Labor Day. I was feeling a bit rough after a week of moving, weekend of racing @ Keystone & then the final encore was a fantastic WILCO show in Denver. Details of Keystone will be on the Oskar Blues Brews & Bikes blog soon but I wanted to post some views from Dave's newest creation. A great ride with good weather & veiws, nothing cures better than a new epic route - cheers!

Tuesday Ride

Hall Ranch @ 6pm starting from the shopyap.

Word around the campfire is that next week will be night ride in Jamestown thanks to some recon by Big D and Melis.

J to the R O N know what I'm sayin????

The statistics:
Cross bikes
3000+ feet of dirt road climbing
3000+ feet of paved descending
elevations between 9000 and 12000 feet
30 miles
3 hrs 45 minutes

The Reality:

We set out on bikes in Rocky Mountain National Park tonight. Chris brought up this ride a few weeks ago on our drive to Steamboat. "You know, there's a ride we do here every couple of years that's pretty fun. We start at the bottom of Fall River Road. Climb Fall River Road to the Visitor's Center, climb a little on Trail Ridge Road, then descend on Trail Ridge all the way back to the car. We should really do it next time there's a full Moon."

We initially had this ride scheduled for last Tuesday, the full moon, but we got shut out due to weather. Chris made plans, though, to do the ride Saturday 9/1. Alas, we found ourselves in RMNP on 9/1 pedaling by 7:30pm. We started late enough in the day that there was not much daylight left. In fact, the sunset left quite an impact as it blazed on in faraway skies.

The climb started immediately. Also immediate was the grade that we would be climbing for the next 11 miles. It mandated an easy gear from the get go. I settled into a good groove (in my easiest gear) and pedaled on.

After an hour or so of climbing, we stopped for our first snack break. The recently leftover 6" sammich from Subway particularly hit the spot. It was getting dark, but the crags and spires rising in the distance were feeling closer by the minute.Does anyone have any Ibuprofin?
We continuted on for another hour of climbing. The grade was never too bad, but towards the top, we did encounter genuinely tough grades in the road. They weren't much, but seemed harder at the end of a long, long climb. Total climbing time was just over 2 hrs and included a snack break or two. We topped out at the visitor's center. It looks much, much different under cover of darkness with no cars at the top. We forged onward, now on Trail Ridge Rd. We probably climbed another 500' or so, but it didn't feel like too much. It was also starting to get chilly, so we stopped at a pull off in the Rock Cut to put the layers on. I added booties, warm gloves, knee warmers and a waterproof/windproof jacket. Well, the gloves would have been warm, but for some reason, one of them was wet. Not good, but it proved to be bearable. Chris took it to another level. He was bundled up! The descent was amazing. The top part had crappy pavement and construction, but we finally rolled into some excellent freshly paved road. The road was smooth and black, and the stripes were bright and reflective. It was nice to be able to take up an entirey lane and not have to worry about cars. We stoped about 1/2 way down from the top to soak up the views of the Estes Park city lights. Pretty good! What gear were you guys usingAfter that stop, it was pretty much a blur. The descent continued to kick much ass. There was 1 hill in there, though, one that noone told me aout :) You probably could have heard the explosion down in Lyons.

Great ride fellas. I'd do it again in a second!

I was fortunate enough to be invited on a hike with Boulder County Open Space tonight. Our mission was to check out 1/2 of the proposed trail corridor that will take us from Heil Ranch to Lyons. We drove in to the northernmost part of the blue dashed line on the map. From there, we hiked up to the trail's junction with the Wild Turkey trail.

There were wide open meadows with beautiful views.

We encountered several old rock quarries (this is the biggest one, but they are everywhere in Heil. Most of the CU Campus was quarried in Heil).

There were some nice flowy lines and some switchbacks. I like this shot - it looks like they are doing a good job with the contour.

I had been wondering what the county was going to do with the marshy areas on the Wild Turkey Trail. Also, Wild Turkey will open either on Friday 9/14 or Sat 9/15! Of 2007!!!!!

We will walk the northern 1/2 of the connector in a few weeks. I will do my best to keep everone informed. The southern 1/2 looks great. There were a few minor things here and there, but we gave the thumbs up at the end of the day. Boulder County agreed and is ready to proceed. They start work on it as soon as Wild Turkey opens. The trail crew and administrators would like us to be riding from Heil to Lyons on the connector by Fall of 2008, but a lot of that depends on how severe our upcoming winter is. I can't wait to see it complete!

Tribe Gathering

This past weekend we were invited to join Yeti's tribe gathering in Crested Butte. With a whole lotta beer & food we headed out in the OB RV & DPA van. There's very little in Crested Butte that's not breathtaking, we found the weekend to be on par. It was good to see Rockin' Ron hanging amongst his Yeti brethren. Saturday we hit the 401 trail from town, nice little climb up & then super smooth & flowing descents. From there Dave Weins took us on a quick loop of Snodgrass before we headed back down to the campsite. Dave was super cool, talking about Leadville, hanging & rippin' singletrack. He came over to the RV a bit later to have an Old Chub with the boys, good stuff. Sunday we shuttled over to Cement Creek for the Reno/Flag/Bear/Rosebud(optional)/Deadman loop. WOW, it didn't disappoint. I left Crested Butte with that same old feelin' as always, tired & ready to come back. A few more pictures & details are here on the Oskar Blues Brews & Bikes blog.

February's Mud

Well, erm, it seems that it's been a while since I was on the cross bike. Today I washed off some of February's mud. I spend a ton of time on the cross bike in the fall and winter, but I hardly touch it after the dirt thaws out. It's about time to get it ready! I've got some Redline's on the way, too, if anyone else is itching.

Marley says, "looks like you rode 'er hard and put 'er away wet!"

Much better!

Tuesday Ride, 8/28

Still planning on the big road/cross ride, but we need perfect skies to pull it off. If it looks like we'll get rained on, we'll head out on mtb. Lights a good idea either way.

6pm, as usual!

Oh, the shop will open a little late tomorrow - I've got to run some errands.

it was a good ride tonight

I closed up around 4:30 and took off for a ride. I saw no one, only beautiful skies and tacky dirt. Oh, pretty good.