Random Stuff

It's been a while since I've last updated, so here's what's been going on. Last week was really hot. I didn't get to ride much in the beginning of the week, and then I got sick later in the week. I think it was food poisoning of some sort, but I'm not sure. That lasted for a few days. Then on Saturday John, James, and I decided to go ride some trails in the southwestern part of the state. We drove to Kenosha Pass and stopped there to ride the Colorado Trail. We did about 16 miles on that, which was pretty cool. It was a nice day for a ride, but that meant that everyone else was out also. It was pretty busy for a trail, so we kept the ride to 2 hours. Then we hopped in the car and drove the rest of the way to our final destination, Salida. We found a good camp site and set up camp, then went back into town for dinner. After dinner, we pretty much just went right to bed because we were planning on waking up early the next morning to catch the shuttle to the Monarch Crest Trail.

Sunday morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and ate breakfast and took down the tents and stuff. Then we drove into town to the place where you catch the shuttle, and caught the 8 o'clock up to the top of Monarch Pass. From here we planned to do an epic 40 mile ride back down to Salida. The first part of the trail was awesome. Actually the entire trail was awesome. The first part is just rolling singletrack above treeline, which seemed like another world. The elevation was about 11,500 feet for the first part of the trail. And oh yeah, there were still massive snowbanks. Check out the video.

Then we hit some cool descents and some more climbs, and then it was time for a lunch break. After lunch, we had another really fun descent, but this is where the trouble started. John had one flat not too long into the descent. Fairly routine. Then he and I both flatted about ten minutes later. At this point we were kinda pissed because the loose rocky descent was destroying our tires. And to make matters worse, John realized that he had broken his rear skewer. This rendered his bike unridable, and we were still a good 6 miles or so from the dirt road that would take us back to town. This meant it was walking time. So we took the next cutoff trail and walked/pushed John along for a good 4 or 5 miles, then I took John's keys to his car and went ahead to get it.


After another 6 miles or so, I reached the car and drove it back up to meet John and James. It was kind of disappointing to have to cut our ride short, but we still got a good 4 hours of riding in, and the trail was probably the best I've ever ridden. I'll have to go back for sure.

Yesterday was another sweet ride. This time it was just John and me, and we decided to go to Buffalo Creek. I had never been here either, but now I sure want to go back. This area has a bunch of cool trails that you can connect into pretty much as big a loop as you want. John had a general idea of where we were going, and with the help of the map we came up with a super cool loop that incorporated more of the Colorado Trail. The whole trail was pretty much a sandy consistency with very few rocks, which made it smooth and fast and it had a good flow to it. The scenery was pretty too. All in all it made for another excellent ride.



Today John and I planned out a course for the short track race tomorrow, and this weekend I have the Mt. Evans hill climb (which is probably the hardest thing ever) and then Mike comes out to visit! I can't wait.

This is what some of the riding out here is like, for those of you back on the East Coast (sorry, the first one is sideways):