another beautiful day in paradise

Doug M and I got out for a good ride on Monday. We both had clearance to be gone from before when school starts to after bedtime. Had to make full advantage of that.

After 45 minutes of bushwhacking from the get go, we were able to hook up with some old forest roads that seem to see very little use. It was a good warm up to the day.
We hooked up with the Peaks Trail first. It was good.

we did.

looks like it'll be a loooong day. Our destination wasn't even mentioned.

I saw this blaze quite a bit whilst on the Colorado Trail. Anyone know what the "i" is?
It wasn't long before we started climbing in earnest.
The scenery was good.

Then came the snow. We had to get over the top of that. At this point, we said, "Well, we'll go to the top to see what it looks like. If it's crappy and snowy, we can call it a day and ride back from whence we came. At least it'll make a good descent."

A little closer now. Snow. Hiking.
A look back at Doug negotiating our first snow field. It's not mountain biking unless you're hiking.

Ah, the top! Well sort of. At least there wasn't any quantifiable amount of snow immediately ahead. We decided to press on. After lunch anyway. I had the secret ingredients in my bag. Sugar and burritos go a long way on a big ride. The next section was mostly climbing, but the trail was thoroughly enjoyable. We didn't have to hike until the very top (ish).


Onwards and more climbing util we were really at the "top." The real top. This is the view to the West. We couldn't have asked for clearer skies or a more beautiful day.

The view from the same spot. This time looking West. That's I70 and Copper Mountain down there.
The first big descent was a blast. 1500' goes pretty quick when it's straight down and above timberline.
We ducked into the trees for just a tad. The trail was spectacular.
Until we turned to go back up again. After 1/2 hour more of hiking/climbing, we could see the top. The saddle in the pic seems a lot farther away when you're 6 hours in on a ride and pushing a bike uphill.


Finally, the top. Wheeler Pass, 12460 feet.

Here's looking back at Wheeler Pass. See those zig zagging game trails? We had to take them. I didn't ride the switchbacks. If you screwed up, it was a long fall downhill.
The trail as it lay ahead. The snow was, on average, about 8" deep. What really made it suck was the combination of a couple of other factors. A)Dangerous side slope. B) crusty enough that we had to posthole. Bikes didn't push very well with that kind of snow. C) Cold. Not too much snow see's that bowl. Once we were in the shade, it got instantly colder. Guess that's what you get when the sun is waning and you're over 12,000' in the snow.
We finally made it across our snowy traverse to a jeep road on the other side. We came across this vehicle on the road. "Dude, if you go up the road a little bit, you can snowboad, brah." "We call it the 4th of July Bowl." Gnar dudes, right on. Don't tip over your truck on the way down. :)
We descended on rocky jeep roads to the top of the resort, and their most popular restaraount. We didn't eat - it was closed. We were plenty hungry, though. We had been out all day long.

The original plan was to hit town, then roll back to our car via singletrack. We didn't hit town until 6:30 or so, though. By our calculations, we wouldn't have enought time to ride the singletrack back and still make it out on time. We instead decided to hit the paved bike path. It wasn't the worlds most beautiful ride, but we were tired by that time. Wasted.

Good ride, though. It's not often that you embark on a ride at 10am and run out of daylight by the time the ride is over. It ended up being 9hrs and 15min. Talk about a big day. Not exactly an everyday thing, but you got to do it at least once per year. Gotta do it.

weekend update and Tuesday Ride

I got out for a short one on Sunday. The shop had been busy and I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to get my drive on. I had originally intended to get out on the crosser for a couple of hours easy, but the 5 Spot had just come back from a weeklong demo and I had to make sure it was good. Oh well, ride the mountain bike. Twist my arm. :) I rode from the bike shop. I was up for something easy, so I piloted the Spot thru town and up Antelope, did a lap in each direction, then headed back down the rock garden. I took my time, rode pretty mellow and all was good.




Then I had a thought. Since I'll be out of town next weekend, this is the last Sunday for me that Hall Ranch will be my only mtb option from town. woohoo. I decided to see what was going on off of Red Gulch Rd.



I do want to make clear, though, that there is no official Heil-Hall Connector trail. There is a trail that connects Heil to Lyons, and you can then ride to Hall Ranch. I can think of worse ways than Old South St Vrain Road, though. It's beautiful and has hardly any traffic. And it's only a couple of miles from Heil to Hall via Old South. And the leaves are just starting to change. Perfect.



This about says it all. From what I know, the trail is done and just waiting to be ridden. This boring part isn't too long. The trail goes thru an open field that has just recently been disked. The crusher fine/limstone trail is there to protect the trailbed and help it to compact in future years.

Thinking that looked pretty good, I rode back into town via paved roads and bike paths and thought, "there has got to be a better way." The road heading to the Picture Rock (Heil) trail just isn't safe. Nothing wrong with the design of the road, per se, mostly the fact that the yokals that live in those parts speed down the road like they're trying to qualify for the Indy 500 in their F250 truck. How about slowing down, y'alls? Anyway, regardless of legality and who is in the right (bikes and peds, cough, cough), I don't want to argue with a redneck ahole weilding a 3500lb weapon. Instead, I found another way. There's a social trail in town that starts in Bohn park and runs up to a fenceline. Here is the view from that fenceline...

Hmmm. Hey Boulder County, how about opening up the gate on the fence and letting us thru? That way we don't have to deal with the Red Gulch Nimbys, their bad attitudes, and their aggressive driving.

See, there's already a sweet singletrack connector to town...

Did I mention that there was a reason that I didn't feel particularly motivated to drive anywhere or ride hard? Doug M and I had plans to go bike on Monday. Oh, about 9+ hours big. Here's a teaser.

Tuesday ride anyone? 5:30 at the bike shop with lights. That'll be me, riding waaay off the back :)

med black Intense Tracer VP!

Woohoo! Medium Intense Tracer VPs are starting to ship finally. Looks like next week will be a good week. There's still an unspoken for black medium on the way so I thought I'd post this up if anyone is interested. I'll get some pics up when it arrives. We've got a large on the way for demo, too. Can't wait!

Fall Deathmarch is on

Save the date...

Meet at the bike shop at 9am on Sunday 10/5. We'll be doing a point to point that will end up back at Redstone. Think 40+ miles, 4,000'+ climbing, 7500+ feet descending. We'll hit every kind of terrain, too. Singletrack, jeep road, dirt roads, and paved. Yep, it'll be big. Just bring yourself and your gear and we'll line up all the shuttle details.

Here's a more recent post from a preride on 9/29...

weekend wrap up

BMA's Sufferfest was this weekend. Big ride on Sat, starting in Ned and ending at Beaver Res Road for camping and partying. I couldn't make the ride as I had to have the shop open, but I was able to load the truck up with 15 cases of donated Dale's Pale Ale for the campout.
Before I knew it, it was dark, the fire was raging, and focusing was difficult.
I guess that means we had a good time. Sunday morning we rose to a wonderfull egg sammich breakfast courtesy of Botsy and Andria of BMA (thanks!). Chris and I missed the 9:30 start time apparently so we set off by our lonesome. When we realized that we wouldn't ever catch the guys we originally intended to ride with, we struck up our own route. We cut thru a couple of old, old, unknown ski trails back to Sourdough, UP South St Vrain, up Waldrop to Brainard lake road, then back to camp via Sourdough.

The USFS only recently signed Waldrop as a bike legal trail. I try to avoid riding it often due to big marshes, river crossings, etc. Waldrop is on the USFS management plan for improvements (bridges, etc) but I had heard that construction wouldn't start until Little Raven was 100% done, which it is not.

Guess I was wrong.

There's already a couple of really, really nice structures on Waldrop as well as some skinny plank bridges thru the bogs. Sweet!

Tired as we were when we rolled back to camp, we found that our camp had seen a visitor. There was evidence of bear activity and we saw the bear scurry off when we arrived. He was pretty darn big.

Apparently we didn't scare him off much.

After taking a few pics, we were out the door. Didn't want to play Darwin award winner with that one. I think he ate well. There was lots of bagels and beer left over.

I got out for 2.5 hours on the cross bike today. It was chilly.

Turner 08/09 info

Wow, there sure has been a lot of buzz lately about Turner Bikes. In case you haven't heard, David Turner and co have collaborated with legendary modern day suspension guru Dave Weagle for their entire 2009 lineup of bikes. Before I get into that, though, I'd like to note the following pricing for the remainder of Turners '08 stock (based on remaining availability). Now is the time to own a true classic!
Flux - 1400
Spot - 1600
RFX - 1760
Sultan - 1500

On to the 2009 line up! All models will have a 30.9 seatpost (so you can run a Crank Bros Joplin if you want), DW linkage, Turner specific journal bearing pivots, and will be made in the US by Sapa.

I'll start off with the 2009 Turner 5 Spot, since that's the first bike we'll see availability on. Should be here shortly after Interbike (ie by Halloween).

5.5" of travel. 6.7 lbs. Stock colors will be blue streak and iron glimmer. I'm excited about the iron glimmer. They've been doing that as a custome color and it's battleshipoliscious.


One for the lift guys. Bye bye Iron Horse Sunday, hello 2009 Turner DHR. Little links, big travel. 8.3" to be exact. 9.5 lbs, too, so pretty light. Semi gloss black baby.

Flux time. This bike has been one of my all time favorites for a long time. I'm sure the 2009 Turner Flux will keep the flame burning. Fire Engine Red or Stardust Silver. 4" of travel and the bike will retain it's 5.5lb weight.

The 2009 Turner RFX. It's swoopy, but still looks like a Turner. This is Turner's all mountain/light freeride offering at 7.6 lbs and 6.7 inches of travel. The RFX will build into a sweet go anywhere, do anything ride. Gloss white or British Racing Green.

And finally, the 2009 Turner Sultan. Yeehaw, for 2009, the Sultan goes to eleven. Well, not really, but it does go up to 4.7". Still svelte at 6.8lbs, too. This will be a perfect match the the new 120mm Maxle Reba 29er or the Fox F120 29er. Gloss white to match the Fox fork or bronze glimmer.
That's all I know so far, folks. There's still a big buzz online and amongst Turner afficionados so more info should be available soon. I'll keep you posted!

Turner + DW Link = ????

Wow, Turner's completely changed their line. No more 4 bar, all new DW link bikes, across the board. I can't imagine a better riding bike than my Intense (ok, maybe the new Tracer), but the new 5 spot sure has my curiosity piqued.

http://www.turnerbikes.com/09fivespot.html

How long before a demo, Dave?

Two Elk and Meadow Mountain trails

I was able to get out of town for Labor weekend for a couple rides in the Vail valley. On Saturday we rode Two Elk trail via Shrine pass road and Bowman's Shortcut off of Vail pass. The climb up Bowman's Shortcut is pretty brutal but rideable. The reward is the view at "The Top of the World":

Dave set Beau up with a new Turner 5 spot. He broke it in well on this trail!

The descent past Vail's back bowls was beautiful with plenty of flowers still in bloom.

When we got down to the Orient Express lift, my camera battery died. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of the technical parts of the trail in the gully leading to Minturn. It's the kind of riding we're used to riding around Lyons; lots of rocks, some steep exposure and some hard falls!

On Monday Beau and I got out again and rode Meadow Mountain from Eagle Vail. This trail had a steep 2000+ foot climb for the first 4.5 miles. This part of the trail was especially craptacular:

We took a break at this near mint condition homestead at the top. The single track started to the right of the cabin.
This is where the real fun started! The single track was twisty and tight through the aspens.

I'd definitely like to hit this trail again before the snow flies. Below is the route we took and elevation gain.

I put the icing on the cake by riding a lights mandatory Tuesday night ride. 3 rides in 4 days, what's not to like about that!

cleaning out the garage - another bike for sale

So, I'm trying to thin out some of the bikes laying around the garage that I don't ride. This one is pretty cool and very unique. I started working for Schwinn right before Schwinn bought out GT. With the buyout of GT also came the acquisition of GT's custom frame facility in Longmont as well as it's employees. Long story short, I picked up this custom hand fillet brazed, 853 steel, GT Edge road frame from one of the GT guys that worked at the custom shop and lived in Lyons.

He was about 6' tall and just a hair over 200lbs and this bike was built for him. He and I have about the same proportions but I'm a lot lighter. Surprisingly, this GT Edge is super comfortable and has impeccable road manners. Actually gotta say that it's the best riding road bike I own (since it was made to ride the roads around Lyons) but I'm the least sentimentally attached to it. Also seeing as how I ride on the road maybe twice a month and I have 2 other roadies and a cross bike, this one's got to go.
black beauty

853 steel and immaculate fillet brazing. Dura Ace cranks, too. The bike is a Dura Ace/Ultegra combo. Ultegra shift levers and brakes



Dura Ace cranks (175) and front der

Dura Ace rear der. Ultegra 12-25 cassette on there for the hills.
I have a few 853 bikes. Steel is real baby.
This sweet handmade beauty has Henry James dropout front and rear. Light, functional, and asthetically pleasing.

Here's the Henry James dropouts on the steel fork. The fork rides beautifully, too. Velomax Circuit wheels front and rear. light and stiff.

Super detailed craftsmanship right down to the cable stops.

The bike has a few nicks and scrapes, mostly shop wear. I had the frame for a couple of years before I built it. It's been built now for 3 years and I think I've only ridden it about 5 times. It does have a little ding on the top tube where the bike fell over onto the bike stand (while I was watching, of course). I only need $700 for this bugger, so let me know if you need to have a sweet stylin steel roadie added to your stable.

Measurements:
top tube - 58cm
seat tube, c-c - 58cm
chainstay - 41cm

It's got a 135mm 3ttt Pro Chrome stem made of Columbus Thron tubing. It's the real deal. If no one wants it, I'll probably keep it, but this bike is just too cool to sit in a garage.

Bombs and Bacon @ exit 426

I took the family back to Nebraska for the weekend. I managed to sneak one ride in at Platte River State Park. Trails close at 9 for horse traffic, but it works out ok because the bacon buffet shuts down at 10.




Dawn at the gate.




Tight, twisty, tacky.



Rick leading us out.



Sac museum was pretty amazing. Two huge hangers stuffed with military airplanes. Speed + camera = SR-71.

labor day ride 08

I was lucky enough to get out of town today with Bstiff and KJ. We drove to a place not oft visited by anyone. Well, except vultures from the looks of it. Despite it's short mileage, it's uber technical and steep nature dicated that we were out for over 3 hours. Good stuff fellas. Thanks for helping me to forget labor. :)

the Redstone September Calendar

September is a busy month. Here goes:

All Tuesday rides meet at the bike shop at 5:30

**Tues, Sept 2 - Tuesday Ride. Lights Mandatory. We'll drive to Peaceful Valley and will be out late!

**Sat Sept 6/Sunday Sept 7 - BMA Sufferfest Epic Ride & Campout & Ride

**Tues, Sept 9 - no Tuesday Ride

**Thurs, Sept 11 - shop ride at 5:30. Lights Mandatory

(ahem) the Fall River ride will have to happen sometime between the 11th and the 16th...

**Tues, Sept 16 - Tuesday Ride, lights Mandatory. Ned?

**Monday Sept 22 - Picture Rock Trail opening and ribbon cutting ceremony

**Tues, Sept 23 - Tuesday Ride, Picture Rock - Heil Ranch from the shop!

**Tues, Sept 30 - Tuesday Ride, Hall Ranch.

**Sunday October 5 - BFRIII. Big Fall Ride. Expect death and cursing :) More details to follow.