Leadville

Abbey and some friends spent a few days camping south of Leadville this weekend. It took some convincing for us to let her do it, but eventually we gave in. So on Sunday, the rest of us, including Grandma and Amos, made a day trip to Leadville so that we could check up on or possibly rescue our daughter. We did neither, but we had a pretty good time.

Quinn and I brought our old, white, well-used and well-loved, almost-matching Santa Cruz bikes with the intention of getting a little high-altitude pedaling. We stopped in at Cycles of Life to get some suggestions about the Timberline trails, which are just outside of Leadville. The Timberline trails are very much like Michigan mountain bike trails--lots of linear distance of trails squeezed into a fairly small area. Small concentric circles and twists and turns and ups and downs. The guy at the shop was very friendly and helpful--gave us a map and some suggestions for trails and directions. He also had some good ideas for Cindy and Sharon for their exploration of the Mineral Belt trail--a paved trail, mostly old railroad grade, that makes a big loop around Leadville. Cycles of Life seems like a great shop.

The trails were fun. Here is our Garmin log. It was raining, so the fog and clouds obscured our views of the surrounding mountains, and the rain moving towards us across the valley made us feel a little rushed to get in our ride and be done. 

Here's Quinn checking out the view from the "Upper Deck."

Most of the trails were moderatily easy cross-country trails, fairly rocky, with lots of curves, but easy enough that most any mountain biker would find them fast, fun, and rideable. There was one trail, "Jump Trail," that had some interesting features. Here's Quinn testing one of the drops:

After having a hot, rough ride the previous day at Deer Creek Canyon, it was nice to have this fun ride to finish out the weekend.

Little Scraggy Trail and Centennial Cone

We are running out of summer. Out of desperation for some vacation, we extended our weekend into a Monday. But I'll start back on Saturday when Quinn and I went to the Buffalo Creek area to do some trail building with COMBA. We worked on a continuation of the Little Scraggy Trail, the first half of which was completed last year. Eventually it will be about a 10- or 12-mile loop connected to the Colorado Trail. This was our first trail building event with COMBA. We met the group at 8:30, had some coffee and muffins, and then walked a couple of miles to the section of trail we'd be working on. The trail was flagged, so mostly what we had to do was use some tools to remove the organic layer and get the slope right. There were some more challenging spots where we had to figure out how to get the trail past loose rocks in and out of a drainage. It was fun. Here's a picture of Quinn with a McLeod.

We worked until about 1:30, then walked back to the staging area (in a campground) where COMBA set up a grill and we had a mid-afternoon lunch. Quinn and I brought our bikes with us, hoping for a ride after the trail building was done, but we were pretty tired, and then the afternoon storms rolled in. So we just headed home.

Sunday was spent running errands and spending money. Quinn's feet are growing at about an inch a month, I think, so he's almost always in need of new shoes. I also did some cleanup on the black tandem, including replacing the fluid in the suspension fork, and we set up my Nickel for Luca to ride the next day.

Monday morning, instead of going to work, we got an early start for a ride at Centennial Cone Park. We loaded the bikes and gear onto the big black Armada and picked up Abbey's Luca on the way. Cindy and I rode the black tandem, the kids their usual bikes, and Luca rode my Nickel. It worked out pretty well that way, but tandem mountain biking is a challenge! Click here to see our route on Garmin Connect.

Quinn had to make sure the tandem was working before Cindy and I got on it.

It was a beautiful day to be out. The high temperature was only about 80 F, so it was very comfortable; just a little warm in the sun.

The rain has made for happy vegetation this year.

There aren't many challenging rocks on the Centennial Cone loop, mostly just a bunch of tight switchbacks, but there is one fun staircase. Quinn rode it very smoothly.

Tandem on the Colorado Trail

It's been a long time since I found the time and effort to post anything here. Not since spring break back in April. So what's been going on?  We lost a lot of time to an unproductive house hunt; I made two work-related trips to Wisconsin in May and one to Utah in June; Cindy had bus competitions in May and June; Abbey and Cindy ran a half marathon in early June; Quinn got a computer and became assimilated; there was school, of course, which wrapped up at the end of May; and Abbey went to Drum Major Academy (boot camp). And at the end of May we moved out of rental house into a different rental house a few block down the hill. So we've been busy. We've had some fun, and a few good rides, but this spring and summer have just about gotten away.

But this weekend Cindy and I have had an unusual experience: Quinn and Grandma flew to Texas for the week, and Abbey went up to Greeley for Band Leadership Training. We have a weekend to ourselves for the first time in 16 years. So we went mountain biking, of course.

Since it was just the two of us, we thought a tandem ride would be the way to go. We rode up the Waterton Canyon road to Lenny's Rest and then continued west (down and up) until we reached the highest point on the trail along the south side of Strontia Springs Reservoir. Click here to see our route on Garmin Connect.

We were looking for something we might not do with the kids. This was definitely that. It was undoubtedly the hardest ride we've done on the tandem. Not the six miles up or down the easy road in Waterton Canyon; just all the rest of it. That stretch of Colorado Trail was not "built by mountain bikers for mountain bikers." It was rough and rocky and steep, with many, many very tight switchbacks that we could not handle on the tandem. It was wet and slick and thickly vegetated. We pushed and dragged the tandem through many steep rocky trail segments. I can't count how many times we had to dismount, drag, and remount. It was really hard work, we were battered and scratched and bruised and exhausted. It was really challenging and fun. I cannot think of a better way to have spent our day together!