Another Nice Weekend

The weather was looking to turn ugly on Saturday morning but turned out to be fairly nice. 60 degrees and partly cloudy. Plenty of wind. Rode the cross bike up to Dunton Road and out to the end of Eagle Creek Road and back. 38 miles and 2580 feet of climbing.

Today will be a ride going North to Dunton and circle South and will be about a 60 + mile ride on the cross single speed. Getting lots of miles in for the Vapor Trail 125 on September 12th and in two weeks the Halfass 100 in Nederland , CO. http://groups.google.com/group/halfass100/web/halfass09-route?pli=1

More of the Same.....High Country

Well, it's Friday, August 14th already...seems like it was just Monday. After my epic ride on Saturday I was able to get up and ride Scotch Creek to the CT and down salt Creek on Sunday. 26 miles, 3k of climbing and a great 3 hour ride. Again, the weather was flawless.

If you look close enough you can see Rico in the background.

The aspens are thick on Salt Creek Trail.

At the bottom of Slat Creek where it meets Ryman trail.

I had an impromptu day off on Tuesday so I took advantage of the perfect weather and chose to ride the single speed cross bike and did a loop over to Dunton and back to Rico. 61.5 miles and just under 4k of climbing. 4 hours and 14 minutes. It is about 1/2 pavement and 1/2 dirt road. A perfect ride for a cross bike with fat tires, well, not so fat, 35cc.

Lunch time.

The mean machine.

Dunton...a private little getaway where they have some hot springs. $2k a night can get you through the gate I hear.

High Country

Atop Blackhawk.

View from Blackhawk

Amazing views.

Section Point of the Ct looking toward Circle Trail entrance.

Celebration Lake

East Fork Trail.

A great ride yesterday in the high country. Planned on getting up in the middle of the night but didn't work out but I still got an early start and managed to ride 70 miles, 6500+ feet of climbing on the single speed. Rode up to Groundstock trail, to East Fork, over Blackhawk and continued on down to Roaring Fork and back to Rico. It was a perfect sunny day. The Colorado Trail race is in progress and ran into Dave Harris who was having a rear hub malfunction.

Sunday Recovery Ride

Another great day for a ride in the San Juan's. Took an easy recovery post-race ride up 145 to and around Trout Lake which is located on the North side of Lizard Head pass. 31 miles and 2k of climbing on the single speed cross bike (geared at 42x18). Changed out the handlebars from the On One Mungo's to the Origin 8 Propulsion's. The Propulsion's have more of a drop on them which I prefer. They felt great on the ride. I put on some Oury grips on the drops and it is a great bar to ride on road and off road. The Oury grips offer extra dampening for the rough fire roads around here.

The new bars are awesome. Do not be jealous of this fine looking 1x1 machine. I hope soon to repaint this steel frame all black.

Hermosa Creek Challenge

The Hermosa Creek Challenge was a beat down for sure. 39 miles and 5k of climbing. My time was 3 hours and 48 minutes. 5th in the single speed class I believe. Jon Bailey from Durango tore it up with a 3.19. It was a typical fast XC start and my legs didn't have the punch to hang with the leaders at the beginning. I settled down into my own enduro rhythm and rode my pace. I eventually caught up to some other single speeders in my class and at about mile 28 there were 4 of us bunched together. Cramping seemed to be the issue for the other three and and I was able to get in front of them on the Colorado Trail part of the race. The descent down into Corral Draw was a bit sketchy so I took my time and let some people pass. The room for error was about one inch. It seemed to never end. After the Corral Draw section we ended the race three miles up Hermosa at the North Trail head. I was happy to see the finish line

The finish line.