scaqaboutwest: Dave's Visit

Is it my imagination, or is it easier to get family and friends to visit when you live somewhere interesting. Perhaps it helps, too, that Colorado is reasonably close to Kansas. My friend, Dave, came out from Wichita for the weekend following July 4th. We rented a bike for him so he could get a taste of mountain biking in Colorado. Dave had not previously done much of that, or maybe any, so I hope this was a fun experience for him. Fortunately, he was good shape, so despite the lack of acclimatization time he held up quite well.

We rented a Rocky Mountain Element 10 from the Single Track Factory. That's the Denver bike shop that I would call my new favorite bike shop. The Element is a comparable bike to my Nickel, with 26" wheels and about five inches of travel front and rear. I gave the Element a test myself on a trail near our house (it wouldn't be right to put a good friend on a bike you hadn't fully evaluated for trail-worthiness), and found it to be a fine ride.

Not knowing exactly how things would go for Dave, we started out on Friday morning with the Meadow View Trail at Elk Meadow Park. Cindy was working, so it just Dave, Q&A, and me. Here's the Garmin log from our ride: Elk Meadow. We hadn't ridden here before, but knew that it was supposed to be good intro-to-mountain biking sort of ride. It turned out to be really nice. The trail took us upward, not too steeply, through a nice open meadow and thin forest, then made a long rocky, rolling traverse across the slope above the meadow, before descending back down along the far side of the meadow.

The morning ride at Elk Meadow went so well that we decided to head over to the Alderfer Three Sisters Park to get in some more trail time that afternoon. It should have been a quick trip between the two parks since they are both in the vicinity of Evergreen, but as usual, I managed to miss a couple of turns and get us going the wrong direction. But eventually we figured out where we needed to be. Here's the Garmin log: Alderfer / Three Sisters. The ride at Alderfer also went really well. We stuck to the north side of Buffalo Park Road, riding the Mountain Muhly and Bearberry trails. I tried to get everyone to ride the rocky, rugged trail up to the Three Sisters themselves, but they were all tired and after several yards of hauling bikes up the rocks I had to deal with a small rebellion. So we turned back and zipped down to the parking lot. We had a great time.

Dave and the kids:

Dave and the trail:

In the picture below, the Element sits on top of our truck, along with Quinn's Superlight and Abbey's and my Nickels. Three of the four bikes are white; not by preference, but by simple accident.

After the first day of riding, Dave had done so well and seemed so strong that I thought we could take on something a little more challenging for our Saturday ride. So I picked one of our favorites, the Colorado trail in the Buffalo Creek area. Specifically, we road the Green Mountain Loop. See the Garmin log here: Colorado Trail - Green Mountain Loop. This was a more ambitious ride than those of the previous day, with a total distance of about 17 miles. But with limited climbing, as Front Range trails go, so I thought it was not an unreasonable choice. Cindy had to work again, and Abbey's knee was sore after Friday's rides, so for this one it was just us boys. Quinn and I decided it leave our white Santa Cruz singles at home this time and break out the big black tandem instead.

Once again, we had a great time and the ride went really well, but by the end we were all pretty beat. Dave took one pretty good spill, sliding as a he rounded a steep and slightly descending corner; no major damage, but he picked up a few bruises and left a little skin as he slid to a stop on his side. Near the end of the ride I was feeling like I might have bitten off just a little too much. The trail is very much a classic Colorado Mountain trail. It traverses a north-facing slope for several miles, dropping in and climbing out of one drainage after another, and weaving through the open forest on a smooth gravelly trail. Well, there was the occasional rocky section, and the more-than-just-occasional, rough, challenging roots-across-the-trail section. And the climb up green mountain in the rain was not exactly easy. So by the end, we were all beat. I was thinking the Chair Rocks trail would have been a rational alternative this rugged brutality. But now I'm ready to do it again!

Quinn sits for a break: