Tuesday Nite Ride 5/8

****recap****

1776' of climbing in the first 3.2 miles. The first descent was about 1100'. The second descent of the day was 900'. Total elevation gain/loss was 2133'. Total mileage was only 6.83 miles. NICE!

Here's more of the shenanigans.

****end recap****

5:45pm. Left Hand Canyon OHV. It's been a long time since I've hiked up there. :)

We'll meet up at the parking lot on the left (between the road and the river) that's about 1 or 2 road switchbacks before the main entrance at the USFS sign.

Let's shoot for a 5:45 departure. Me may be able to get some exploring done. This ride will involve riding/hiking up some extremely steep jeep roads. It will also involve riding down technical rock garden roads and heinously steep rutted, rocky singletrack. Did I say seriously steep? Rumor has it that some area downhillers go here to practice. They push their bikes to the top, don their armour, and ride down. We ride up, we ride down. We don't need no stinking armor!

Turner Bling

Mikes new Flux turned out beautifully.

And check out the Turner hitch covers. Got a 2" receiver and need some bling? It's like a big belt buckle for your vehicle.
watch out for bears!

Transition Bottle Rocket

medium, Kelley Green. Sweet. Here's the bike porn.

The local loop

I was concvinced that I wouldn't be riding today after last night's weather report. Got a nice loop in out at Marshall Mesa on the cross bike.

I know...

Redstone doesn't carry this bike but this article is about the absolute dedication to detail in creating a daringly/scary light race bike. Ride this at Crosier Mountain, i think not.

Lyons Fat Tire Fest VII Memorial Day weekend

It's once again time for the Lyons Fat Tire Fest! It's hard to believe, but this will be the 7th annual. We will do 2 rides in 2 days up 2 different canyons. This year's fest will showcase some of the best riding found within a short drive from Lyons.

The first ride on Friday will be 2-3 hours long. We'll meet up at the shop at 2 and will drive from there.

The Saturday ride will be an all dayer, meeting up at the shop at 8:30 to arrange the caravan. This ride will be a point to point so there will be some shuttle arranging. We will cover approximately 25 miles with over 3500' of climbing and over 4500' of descending. It will be 60% steep and rocky jeep road with some pristine singletrack, mostly towards the end. There will be a bailout option as well. It sounds easy, but is anything but. Expect difficult terrain and some great views. If folks are not using my name in vain by the end of the ride, it won't be a Lyons Fat Tire Fest type of ride. Gotta keep that Death March Dave nickname somehow. :)

After Saturday's all day extravaganza, we reconvene to party and cook out at the casa del Dave. I'll have a short course singletrack set up as well, so maybe we can look forward to a chicken crit or a time trial competition. We'll see...

Tuesday Night Ride @ 5:00 w/o DC

Hey all,
Dave is going to be out of town Tuesday so i figured we would get the ball rolling for the Tuesday night ride. Since he is out of town a few of us have decided to meet @ 5:00 instead of 6:00 this week to give us a bit more ride time. Since we have more time we're thinking of getting out on something other than Hall if we can. thoughts?

Thanks for making it out early this Tuesday, it was worth the effort. Hard to believe but I think the conditions were even better Tuesday than Sunday. I didn't think that was possible. Everything was perfect: the dirt tacky, the grass super green w/ only singletrack splitting it & the little stream crossings were a touch more wet than usual. The only downside was that not everyone was here, hope all is well. - cm

never gets old...

We once again made our way up the hill for a beutiful day of riding. Josh & his roomate Andrew made it up to get out with Chris & I. The trails, views & weather were certainly better than I on this day, but we had a great ride. Andy rolled up on this pimp ass machine, smooth.

This never gets old

Whats up with velonews?

I gotta say it, Velonews.com is so pathetic. If you go to their website, the first thing you see is a photo of Basso and a caption about how his life is in balance. Why isn't there a photo/story of Gerolsteiners back to back wins. It seems they would rather focus their stories on the troubles of cycling. I do want to hear about riders who are facing troubles but why can't it be a sub-story? They have absolutely no reports on recent racing. Cyclingnews on the other hand has found a way to do both (please don't use the excuse that one has a publication and the other doesn't), I won't wait to read about racing results a month after it happened. Velonews simply dwells on drama and not the positive side of cycling. I'm pissed. I guess I'll just accept the fact that Velonews is the National enquirer and not NPR. I think they should rename their publication from Velonews to Velo-bullshi*t.

Whats your vote? Cyclingnews.com or Velonews.com?

perfect dirt at Hall

Well, the Tuesday Night Ride rainout ride this Thurs was great. Not knowing what we'd find, and fully expecting to have to turn around, we rode the Antelope Trailhead at Hall Ranch to look it up.Well, we picked a great night for a rescheduled ride. The trails were in great shape. There were only a few puddles left and the rest offered perfect tracti0n. Here's some random photos.

Thursday Ride!

Um, do to the rainout, the Tuesday Night Ride for this week only will be the Thursday Night Ride. Thankfully, we can still call it TNR.

Bike shop at 6pm and we ride!

Happy Birthday Chris

Since the Tuesday night ride has been rained out I figured I would post some pictures from Chris's Sunday birthday ride. Due to some unfortunate logistical errors it turned out to be a "Where's Waldo" type event, with the birthday boy being the "Where?". We hit some great trails & a tiny bit of snow while trying to catch the views of the day. Upon return we were treated to some fantastic food & drink. Thanks man, we missed you on the ride. Cheers, CM

Tuesday nite Ride 4/24

Unless it's bitter cold an rainy, we'll ride from the shop at 6pm. See you there!

Cohutta 100 action Jackson

Still operating from the East Coast these days, my fellow Redstoners. But that did give me the chance to race a 100 miler in April. Which is early.

I went down to the NC, TN, GA state line and raced the Cohutta 100 on Sat. Oooooh, I suffered in a bad way. I was on pace to crack the 10 hour mark, but then around mile 70, I just came unglued. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t drink. Hip flexors locked up. Just barely limped across the line in 10:48 or something. Which ain’t that good, but hey – it’s April. I’ll get there.

My brother, on the other hand, is a sick individual these days. He did it in 8:13, after being sick all week. The course had a lot of steep fire road climbing. 12,000 feet of up, total, and 90% of that was in the first 50 miles. Which fits Shawn well. He's a great climber, and twitchy. Very twitchy early. He actually was in the hunt for a while and finished not too far behind Tinker Juarez and Chris Eatough. Sick. I’m not sure where he ended up overall, maybe top 20 or so.
I can hardly walk today, but I think he's out training right now. He’s on a whole different level.

I talked some trash to Tinker at the registration table on Friday. Told him the line started behind me. Which was nice, because I never saw him after that until he was standing on the podium beside Eatough. Chris E. cranked this thing out in 6:40 or some such craziness.

Out early with the ringleader.

Dave and I got out early today for a nice little trip around Coulson. Most most excellent. Thought we'd see some other Lyon's peeps, but no sign of any other riders.

24 SOLO

A reminder 24 SOLO is playing tonight @ The Boulder Theater tonight @ 7:30. Jill's happy hour @ 5:30. See you there.

Spring Mancation

I haven't spent nearly enough time on the bike in the last few weeks, but I'm going to have a week without my ladies early next month, including an entire weekend all to myself. Spring Mancation it is. I can't afford any time off work, but I'll be leaving Friday after work and coming back late Sunday. So... the only bummer is that the Spring Mancation for me will land Mother's Day Weekend and that won't work for most folks.

Maybe Fruita, more likely Salida, and maybe somewhere completely different. Depends on who can make it!

Anyone?

Tuesday Night Ride was a bust, well sort of. Hall Ranch was a bust. 15 min or so up the trail and we ran into some sticky mud. We turned around and opted for a grunt of a climb up Jasper off of Red Gulch. It did the trick. So did Oskar's...

Anyone up for a REAL deathmarch this summer? Read on...

"Hey,Just wanted to let you all know, the 2007 Vapor Trail 125 is a go. Itwill happen September 8-9, and it will be a no-fee ride. It will berun on the same course as the '06 event, and pretty much the same way. We will be limiting the field to 30. The limit has never been an issuebefore, but who knows?A couple of you have semi-officially notified me that you'll be doingit. I have started a list. If you want to be on that list, let me know. If you do count yourself in but then your plans change pleaselet me know about that too.Looking forward to a killer event in September!Tom Purvis, Salida, CO - http://tom-purvis.com/tom.purvis@gmail.com or tpurvis@arkansasvalley.net"

Let's ride bikes

6pm at Redstone for the Tuesday Night Ride. We'll hit Hall Ranch. Seems like the days are a gettin' longer now, too. Perhaps we should think about what other rides we want to get in over the course of the next few weeks. If we're organized enough, we could even make up a schedule. Here's a few I've been thinking of that are clear of snow and rideable now:

Marshal Mesa SS ride
Walker Ranch
Left Hand Canyon OHV
Boulder to Betasso and back
Heil (this would have to be a super multi lapper)

Blue Sky

A handfull of us made it north to check out the new Blue Sky Trail. We rode it from the Devil's Backbone Open Space to Horsetooth Mountain Park. The new trail is a nice change of pace, buttery smooth & flowing with very little climbing.