Fat Tire Fest 11 this Saturday!

Wow, 10 years have already gone by and we're ready for another. What started as our housewarming party with friends and bike rides has turned into an annual event. An event that I really look forward to every year, an event that, to me, really signifies the start of the Spring/Summer season. Lyons Fat Tire Fest 11 is upon us.

I also look forward to the recon missions every year. That's when I get to ride a lot of the route at my pace, by myself. This year, though, I had my trusty companion, Bella, along for the ride. She says you're going to love it.

Fortunately, on our big Saturday ride, you'll get to avoid this road.
And you'll miss this view.

But you'll get this. You'll come up thru it. This gate is about 1/2 way on a 45 minute long hike a bike. You heard that correctly. 45 minute rock scramble. It's not mountain biking unless you're hiking, right?

Same route as last year, too. That means we'll have at least one more mandatory hike a bike. I'm still tossing around ideas to make it harder, too. Because of this:

The USFS has graded the shit out of the road. It used to be a relatively modest novice+ jeep road, but it's been graded enough for a logging truck to pass. That's ok, though, it'll be a good long rest section.

Oh, and don't forget, we're going to throw in quite a bit of singletrack, too. Stuff that most folks don't know about or haven't ridden. Not because it's super secret or anything, it's just out there. Way out there.

Couple of last disclaimers:
We'll be doing a lot of hiking.
Probably hiking thru some snow.
We'll probably get rained on.
The absolute steepest and most technical riding is at the very end. When you're tired.
Pretty much everyone blew sky high last year 90% into the ride.
If at least a couple people aren't using my name in vain by the end of the ride, the ride wasn't hard enough.

We'll have a B ride option for those of you wise enough not to partake in an all day sufferfest. Both rides meet at the shop at 8:30am on Saturday. The B ride option will be a point to point, so it'd help quite a bit if a few folks could bring vehicles that'll make shuttling easier. thanks!

Yep, that about covers it.

Multimodal in Denver with Bcycle

I've been hearing a lot about the Bcycle program that's in Denver and Boulder. Enough that I wanted to try it out but since I try to avoid Denver and Boulder I figured it might be a while. I got my opportunity on Saturday night, though. The goal? U2 in Denver with as little of a driving headache as possible. And believe me, I've been a mountain man long enough that I despise driving in downtown Denver and super heavy I25 traffic. Mostly because I don't know where the hell I'm going so I tend to just blunder around.

I cruised to D town in the Jeep and got off I25 not far from downtown, pretty much exited the interstate as soon as traffic got too heavy. Within minutes, I had parked at the Pepsi Center and was ready to roll. I know, I know, Pepsi Center is a close walk to Mile High, but I had to go to LoDo first. Perfect for Bcycle. The Bcycle program works perfectly. It's $6 to buy in for a 24 hour bike share. Put your credit card in and you're charged $6 to take the bike. The $6 will get you as many 30 minute or less trips around town that you can fit in a day. Take the bike for more than 30 minutes and you pay extra. That's not sharing, Bcycle says. Bcycle has several stations located all over though, that you can ride from Point A to Point B, ditch the bike at another station, run errands by foot, then pick up another Bcycle at another station. Pretty slick.


Here's a shot of my pimpin' ride for the next 29 minutes. Trek makes the bikes for Bcycle. They are overbuilt and stout, and they have plastic or metal covering up all of the barrel adjusters and other things. Fortunately, riders cannot make adjustments to the bike.







They all come equipped with 3 speed drum brake Shimano hubs. Drum brake fronts as well. I guess you could really bang up a wheel then, eh?

I trolled around for 20 minutes or so enjoying the ride. I successfully checked into my next stop. Check in was easy, just park the bike in the stand til it clicks and give you a blinky green light. You are good to go.

After walking to LoDo from the bike stop, we walked to the light rail station where we took the train to Mile High stadium. Walking from the train was the most congested and difficult time of my multimodal experience. Way too many people and not enough room.

The payoff was good, though.

After all that, back on the trail, back to the car, and back on I25. All in all a big success. I avoided my phobia of heavily trafficked downtown streets, got to ride a bike, AND got to ride the train. Good stuff and highly recommended!

Intense Tracer 2 in the house!

Finally got our new Intense Tracer 2 in the house.

Had to stick with Formulas "The One" brakes. My favorite brake ever. Note also the replaceable dropouts. I'll eventually be rebuilding the wheel with a hub that can take a 142x12 thru axle :)

And I've been lusting after the Chromag Lynx saddle as well. Done.

There's extra beef on this years Tracer 2. Great tire clearance as well. And holy cow how 'bout those beautiful handmade in the USA welds.

Adjustable 5.5 or 6" of travel. I decided to try out this whole 2x10 thing as well.

Yep, pretty good. Ride report soon!

Lyons Fat Tire Fest 11!

This year is going to be pretty low key. Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. 8:30 at the bike shop. We'll be doing the same 2 rides we did last year. Big ol ride and a not so big ol ride.

Last year, our big ride was a giant loop, about 35-40 miles and around 7000' of climbing. Lots of hike a bike and lots of technical descending. The shorter ride gets almost all of the good descending and is mostly hike free. It's a point to point that'll be around 3-4 hours.

Here's more info and a signup on Facebook. Hope to see you out!
http://www.facebook.com/redstonecyclery#!/event.php?eid=211159215584707

Turner Demo Time!

Howdy Folks. We've got some Turner demo bikes that will be here til Friday. The Demo Trailer will be picking these bikes back up on Friday and heading to the next demo day in Eagle. Don't know what time on Friday they will disappear, so first come first serve. Here's what we've got:

Flux, medium
Sultan - L, XL, XXL
Spot SM, XL

If you want to check out a size that we don't have, the rest of the fleet is currently living at Pedal Pushers down in Golden. Give them a shout, they're a good crew and will be happy to take care of you.

18 Hours of Fruita Done Gone

18 Hours of Fruita. I will definitely attend this race again. Getting ready to head out from the Oskar Blues Brewery in Longmont.

Not long on the road and we've got to take a break, OB style. Park the RV on the side of the road and play catch in the ditch.

Arrived at Highline State Park and getting all fired up to race. Racing starts at 12 midnight and goes thru 6pm on Saturday.
The course had 2 major "climbs." This is one of them. I still was able to push a 32x16 all around the course without having to walk.
The Scenery wasn't too bad. Highline St. Park is a true oasis in the desert.

In an 18 hour race, rehydration and recovery are important. Old Chub makes good trail food.
Camp was great

Chef Rog at the top. Last climb, last lap. Time for a beer.
Cycling IS dope.

A thing of beauty. LOTS of 29er singlespeeds. Sweet.


Oh, and happy birthday Chad. How about a light up spinning plastic flower?

Post race was time for 18 road. We wanted something fun, easy, and SS friendly.

Mmmm, good.


What a wonderful day. My, oh, my.




Chad on Zippety. My favorite shot of the weekend.

We weren't the only ones out having fun. The family that rides together stays together.

Over and out. Time for a luxurious ride home in the DPARV.