Deer Creek

After a week in Crested Butte of riding, I have quite the number of pictures to look over. It has been one outing after the other since we got here. After two weeks in Colorado, I have to admit that this is *the* place to be in the summer.

Scott and I did a great from our condo at Mt Crested Butte to Upper, Upper Upper, Brush to Deer. Plenty of time to take in the views. It is clear from the angle of the pictures that I had one thing in mind....mountains. The end of the tree line catches my eye, perhaps even more than my love for aspens.

This is a special place and I plan on coming back here many times in the future....





...it is easy to see why.

















Many more pictures/rides to come from Crested Butte. Thank you for checkin' in.

CDT Trail Work

This past weekend, we decided to help the CO trails that we have been riding/hiking by working with the Volunteer for Outdoor Colorado with a 2-day trail construction between Hope Pass and Clear Creek. The goal of this project is to get the Continental Divide Trail off the Winfield Road and back onto a trail. As you can see from pictures below, we had a blast. I was able to ride back on the trail to Hope Pass on the new section of the trail that has been built in the past 3 months. The VOC is very well organized and its members highly motivated. We

Twin Lakes

The 4th of July in was our rest day after two days of riding around Leadville. It was great to see the local parade and do some hiking/fishing to celebrate the 4th. Not only am I grateful for this country, but it is pretty amazing to be able to stay in Colorado for such a long period of time.

Lee conjured a plan on to ride a lollipop on the Colorado Trail near Twin Lakes, heading south. Enjoy some pictures....

 Photo by Aaron M

Breckenridge 100 pre-ride

We showed up to Lee's house here in Leadville a few days ago and immediately went for a quick ride around the local trails. With only 3 hours of sleep (driving from San Diego) and the 10k elevation, I was a bit surprised at how winded I was on some of the climbs.

That night, Aaron and Lee conjured about a plan to ride some of the Breckenridge 100 from Frisco. With tons of singletrack available, there were even some moments to veer from the double track route in favor of more scenic singletrack.








We rolled a few miles on the bike path before riding up Peaks Trail and over to Breckenridge.





The climb out of Breckenridge was pretty steep, although it provided us with some scenic views. This was a great first, big ride in Colorado.



Chicken and cheese...mmmmmmm. Good riding and good eating.









Later, we connected to the Colorado Trail for some more climbing and big views.




More hiking and biking adventures to come during our stay here in Colorado. This place is pretty special.

San Diego Touring

After a little over 3 weeks in Guatemala, I spent a week with Collin riding San Diego, creating new loops and riding new reserves. Several of them involved riding from the house, adding reserves as we went.



Others, required a little driving, like Noble Canyon. Knowing it was going to be a little toasty, we left early and did the out-n-back on Noble proper.



The route up Noble was quite the technical challenge. It was a great, new place to practice some technical moves because there is a lot of buff singletrack near the house.














After about 2.5 hours of climbing, we turned around and headed back down.





After the ride, we went to Green Valley for a swim and post-ride beer. The water was freezing, perfect for a post-ride recovery.



Later in the week, we rode from the house to La Costa, a beautiful mountain in the heart of the city. Quite the loop. We used the Archipelago Ride GPX to help us find the route to La Costa. On the way back, we found quite the number of smaller, horse singletrack in the town of Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Santa Fe.




Five days of good riding in San Diego before venturing to Las Vegas for some family stuff and over to Leadville. After nearly a month off the bike because of traveling, it is going to be a slow process getting back into the shape that I was before the trip.

Final rides

It is that time of year again when Tucson is rapidly becoming less appealing. Night rides and Lemmon rides are the only things that keep Tucson on the radar for cyclists this time of year. After a few blistering rides in 50 year earlier this week, the plan was to do the cooler, more preferred rides. I can do the hot, but if you have the option, why not just do the cooler rides?

The Mi Ranchito Starr Pass Thursday ride from Scott's house is becoming a tradition (soon to break). The GV and Tucson crew united for one last ride.

Lee sums up the ride with a simple gesture. "It's good to be on the bike."

After graduation, I met Scott for a camping trip on Lemmon. Short and quick.Scott summed up the singletrack on Lemmon, "There is no singletrack that is easy on this mountain." We rode from camp to the top of Aspen and back, hoping to stop at the Cookie Cabin for cinnamon buns and coffee.

Ohhhhh, the old foot dab. Pretty impressive riding from Scott given the recent Great Race attempt last weekend.

We tried to move a few logs on the trail, only we failed miserably. We needed Duncan several times to show us how to move deadfall.

Scott was a machine on most of the climbs and technical sections.




It was a different story for me. I am still hurting from last week's beat down on CDO. I have a lot of riding to do before I can recover from 12-hour rides faster. Part of me thinks that these rides, although fun, might be impeding some growth on the bike. It's a bit of dilemma of sorts for me. Do you want to train or just ride? Harder when you see people around you training and getting stronger.

New lines and new log roles, some need some TLC.

Smack it!

Scott said it best when trying to attack this section, "it has to go eventually." And it did. I was there, on top of the last rock lip when I ran out of energy. Scott cleaned it on the next attempt.

Another move cleaned. As usual, most lines look easy when put into a picture format.

Scott was hitting everything.

As fate would have it, we forgot our credit cards for the Cookie Cabin. Might have been a good thing as I had to get back for a meeting at noon. Great ride, Scott. I hope to be stronger come CO in July.