Gooney Riders

Colorado Trail: Take 3

Well, I feel like I should write some sort of fond farewell before we head out on the Colorado Trail Race.  But I'm really not quite sure what to write.

I finished my last minute Front Range shopping this morning.  Calories are counted and packed.  Bike is running beautifully.  I'm not quite sure what to do with myself right now.  I've never been a particularly organized person (unless you're planning on hiring me, in that case, I'm very organized) and each adventure seems like a frantic last minute scramble to get stuff together.  So either I'm forgetting something, or I may actually be getting the hang of this bike-packing business.  

 

Either way, I'm ready to get out on the trail.  There are people who thrive on buying gear, testing gear, refining gear, talking about gear.  I'm not one of them.  So the fact that all the gear is packed and all I have left to do is pedal makes me incredibly happy.  

 

Follow Chris and I either here or at Trackleaders.com. We leave Monday morning, 6:30 am.  Should be fun.  

Flow

Pedaling Singletrack all week next week.  Stoked.  Just gotta ride my bike and nothing else.  

Cheers,

Chris

Difference of a Day

Monday commute picture.

Tuesday commute picture.

I do believe we are firmly settled under a nice, monsoonal flow pattern.  On the plus side, it only rained on me a little bit on the way to work and I beat the storm home only to go out riding in a 'weather window' that turned out to be much more of a 'sucker-hole'.  It did make for some hero-dirt, so I'm not complaining.

Adventure Ride

Chris' post ride comment on Saturday really sums up our ride perfectly: A few years back, you wouldn't have talked to me for days after a ride like that.  Now, you're just like, 'Well, that was silly.'

(The look says it all: This better be a darn good downhill if I actually hauled my bike all the way up here)

Silly, indeed.  The CTR-leadup plan had instructed 3 hours of riding with some hike-a-bike thrown in for good measure with a fully loaded CTR bike.  So it was fairly amusing when after two hours of pedaling, Chris pointed to a summit, a good distance away and informed me that this is where we left the established trail to try to find another trail on the other side.  But from the top, it was going to be all downhill.

At first, I was a little bit miffed at the idea.  I really don't mind pedaling a fully loaded bike around, but I'm still working on perfecting the 'I love pushing my bike up steep hills with two cans of garbanzo beans in my Mountain Feedbags and two cans of tuna in my Gas Tank, plus far more water than I'll need for a "3-hour" ride' state of mind. 

Still, being high is beautiful and once I got far enough up the ridge that it wasn't worth throwing a fit and reversing our tracks, I actually started to enjoy the situation.  Beautiful flowers, beautiful views, and a rumored ripping descent on the other side.  Plus, there were no motos, and I had just thrown a mini-hissy fit on the trail when we had to pull over for multiple groups of motos.

Plus, Chris wanted a summer/winter contrast picture from the top.

The descent was...chunder-riffic interspersed with some really nice trail.  And then we had to get out from the bottom, which was less than trivial given private land issues.

So in the end, my 3-hour scheduled ride turned into 2 hours of pedaling, 1 hour of hiking, 1 hour of burning my brakes up as we flew down 4,000 vertical feet, and an hour of hiking around following deer trails through the woods trying to get home.  

But in the end, it was a day like no other.  It'll be slotted into the memory banks as the day we got followed home by a lost Little Dude who hung out with us for a day while we played with bikes and a ride that was fun for novelties sake, but probably doesn't need to be done again.

The same way it was fun to have a little dog for a day, but it also probably doesn't need to be done again.

Going to Camp

When my family first moved to Boulder, they signed me up for Y-riders, a mountain bike camp run through the YMCA.  I was going into 5th grade and if I had to pinpoint a summer that started me down the dark path of mountain biking, this was it.  It was always me and a bunch of boys and while I could never keep up with all of them, I like to think I held my own.  Regardless, I had the time of my life.  We took trips to Winter Park, did 4-day bike tours around the Front Range, it was awesome.  I crashed a lot, coming down 4th of July road, cut my shin with a chain ring, countless scraped knees.  And my counselors were awesome.  George S. and Matt T.  20 years later, I still remember them clearly.

This summer, I'm working at a camp up in Mt. CeeBee, taking kiddos mountain biking twice a week (and rafting, and hanging out at the beach, and canoeing, and apparently fishing next week...) and at first, it was terrifying.  My first day out, a kid didn't know how to use his brakes and T-boned a dog and ended in a ditch.  The next day, a 8-year old girl ended up in a cattle-guard.  My first day taking them downhilling, we had to call Bike Patrol for a truck ride down the mountain.  

But after a couple of weeks, I'm learning.  I'm learning what my beginning girls can do.  I'm learning what my intermediate boys can do.  I'm learning that it is a-okay to ride a bit, hike to Long Lake and throw rocks in the water and go swimming, ride some more, eat lunch by the river, and then go to the dirt jumps for the last half hour.  I'm learning that little kids can hit the dust, but they really don't fall far, so generally they can walk away with a scraped knee.  I'm learning that my older boys can fall of the side of the trail, slide down the ravine with their bike on top of them, and as long as their buddies are there to make fun of them, they won't cry.  

I'm ending the mountain bike days more energized and excited than than the days where we sit on the beach at Blue Mesa and make sandcastles (which for some reason exhausts me).  

We shuttled the 401 this week and for the most part, they rode the road and hiked over the snowbanks and downfall without complaint.  It's fun watching them get stronger each week.  Maybe this camp will be the turning point for some of them to take up mountain biking as a lifetime sport instead of playing video games.

Maybe this is my way of helping make the world a little better of a place.

Day Off

Pass go collect $200. Sweet! lets ride!

Got to see the other side of the mountains I look at everyday

Drew and I did a bunch of skiing on Axtel this winter;

January 14th 1st Bowl, 

Feb 23, 2nd Bowl,

March 13th, Pencil,    

 March 27, "the Quill" ,

March 27, 1st bowl,

April 21st, 4th Bowl Chute.  

We were able to circumnavigate  Axtel on bikes by linking Kebler to Carbon Trail to Green Lake.  Green Lake is the 5th bowl on Axtel, and the one that I have not touched with my skis yet.  Looks like some nice chutes.  Think many avalanches blow out through here?

From Green lake, it is a sweet descent all the way down to town.  I was following Jon who is an ex- downhill racer. Needless to say, he rides pretty well.  I have to remind myself I was on a hardtrail following him into rocks.  One of my favorite types of trails, fast and techy.

Cheers,

Chris

 

 

Evening ride with the Boys, and Aaron Tribute Video

Got out with Steiny and Andy last night for a little pedal.  The flowers up caves are insane.  Feels like you are in the front yard in 'Honey I shrunk the Kids.'  It's actually difficult to lean the bike and corner because the flowers will hook your handlebars and take you down.  Been feeling kind of worked after digging in the dirt all day, so its great to have someone with Steiny's enthusiasm to go ride with.  Singletrack tends to wake me right up.  With Steiny we'll hike back up to hit a corner again, because he felt we did not hit it hard enough.  Sessioning singletrack, there is a time and a place.  

 

 

 

It must be mid-summer because I had a dream of skiing pow.  Always get that mid-summer.

A week or so ago I made a little tribute video of skiing with Aaron in Crested Butte.  Aaron got me into skiing big peaks when we worked as bike couriers together.  Aaron is making the move out to Bellingham, WA in hopes of becoming a teacher.  Some people simply pass through your life, and some become a piece of who you are. Good Luck Aaron!

 

Chasing Friends through the Woods, and some Bike-a-neering.

I learned how to really ride a bike chasing my friend Charlie through the rooty woods of the East Coast.  In Boulder Bama taught me how to think/ride outside of the box on a bike.  After all the trail is your canvas much like a mountain is for a skier.  It's not always about the fastest way from point A to B, but going fast is pretty damn fun! In Crested Butte there is plenty of folks to chase through the woods.  

Timmy on  top of Crystal Pass

Had a fun ride Saturday sampling some of the favorites from Cement Creek and Brush Creek.  Waterfall Cut-off, Star Pass and trail 400.  Waterfall is super tight and techy while 400 is a fast moto trail.  On the way up to Crystal we stopped to drink some fresh water from snowmelt and snacked on Glacier Lilies.  

Quite a bit of snow still up there, no motos past this point.

There was a bit of a headwall to top out with the bikes.  

Timmy with Drew above

We had a fantastic descent down 400, well other than 2 crashes and several down trees.  

Hanging out with a friend who decided not to pay rent this summer...  

Video of Waterfall Cut-off and 400.  Chasing Timmy is pretty damn fun, he has some pretty amazing foot work cutting the rear tire out around corners.  Good thing is is on a single so I can chase back on.  

Cheers,

Chris

Timeless Trails, Timeless Memories

Before last weekend, I spent a lot of time looking at maps of the area.  It started to dawn on me how vast the trail network in our area really was.  Large swaths of trail criss-crossing the Continental Divide.  Unexplored.  Unknown.

 

We were inspired.  What did those dotted lines on the map hold.  Beautiful trail or rocky misery?

We went up.  And up.  And up.  And where the ATV's couldn't pass, we could.

There's something magical about being up high...

About winding through aspen forests...

Crossing streams still frigid from snow run off...

Finding lost lakes in valleys that we didn't know existed...

And climbing some more, thanking the universe for sending the storms somewhere else...

Climbing through meadows while being watched by elk...

Only to descend into a drainage to find our 'it's all downhill from here' turn at the bottom...

And even appreciating a flat tire for letting us take the one picture of what may be the most magical trail we've ever ridden...

The universe delivered us magic on this one.  Watch-less, time seemed to stand still.  It was just us, our ponies, and the never ending trail. It was beautiful.

Thank you Jj for the magic-cracked-out-blissed-out ride through the woods.

Melting Snow and Flowers

Summer appears to be here.  At least for the weekend.

Nothing like three weeks of rain to make you really appreciate a weekend of limited thunderstorms.  But the flowers have gone NUTS!