Lovell Gulch Trail

In keeping with the previous post, I'll add some pics from last October. On the way down to Pueblo we rode the Lovell Gulch Trail, west of Colorado Springs. It's just north of Pikes Peak. We selected this one partly because we could take The Mouse with us, as long he came immediately when called (according to the guidelines on the sign at the trailhead). The ride was fun, climbing up through a nice valley to a ridgeline, and then following a power line trail back to the trail head. We had great views of Pikes Peak from the ridge. It was cold when we started, and the climbing was tough for our smallest rider, but the power line trail was wide open, sunny, fast and fun, so we all finished happy.

Pueblo Reservoir Lost Pics

This weekend is looking good for getting out and riding, but we've had enough snow that many of the close-to-Denver trails are likely to be muddy or, if far enough into the mountains, snow-packed. There are some great lower-elevation and mostly dry trails down at the reservoir just outside of Pueblo, so we're looking at that as a possibility.

Click here for a link: Pueblo Reservoir Trails

Last fall we spent an afternoon on the Pueblo Trails, and I thought I had posted some pics here, but it looks like I never did. We had Amos with us on that trip, but we weren't supposed let him run off leash, so we took turns riding and walking with Amos. Consequently, I only have pics from a couple of rides Quinn and I did together.

Village Green Mountain Bike Trail

We recently learned that a new mountain bike trail has landed nearby. The Village Greens Park is just across the street from what will be Abbey's high school. That's not more that a half mile from my office and about 5 miles from our house. We'd seen evidence of a trail a couple of weeks ago when we were on the highway headed towards the airport, and later learned that it was indeed a new trail. It's part of a larger set of 'improvements' to the park that include a pond, some improved wildlife habitat, and a disc-golf course.

It's certainly not a trail in the mountains, and in a sense it might seem silly to be excited about a 2.5 miles trail through a small patch of desert grassland in the middle of dense suburbia, but it's much closer than any of the real Front Range trails, so it will be easy for us to make a quick trip there and get in a few miles. Plus, the trail has lots of interesting and challenging features, like big boulders, steep climbs and descents, and whole bunch of log skinnies.

The kids and I took Amos over to the trail and walked to see if it was finished and to get a closer look at the layout and all the features. We're pretty excited. There were no signs indicating the trail was closed, and all the signage appeared to be in place. Most of the features were done, but it looked like there was some final construction still going on in. Tire tracks indicated a few riders had given it a try.

Here are some pics. This first is a rocky downhill. I hope the cyclists will use the rocky slabs and not just create a big rut in the dirt beside them.

Quinn doing a butt-scoot on the downhill slabs.

This is the rocky climb up to the top:

 This feature looks fun:

Basketball and Band

This winter Quinn played basketball. He had a good time and his team did pretty well, although they didn't make the play-offs. Isn't he a handsome young man? His right arm is not missing, it's just behind his back.

Abbey made first chair trumpet in the Cherry Creek District Middle School Honor Band. The Diddiwah joined us for the concert on the 2nd of February. It was quite impressive, especially given that they had only two evening rehearsals and one all day rehearsal the day of the concert. Abbey said her lips were so tired from rehearsing all day that she could hardly play during the concert. I hope she was exaggerating! Can you find her?

Green Mountain

Green Mountain is a treeless mound on west side of Denver that has several miles of well-worn trails sliced into its grassy face. Despite its being somewhat closer to home than other Front Range trails, we hadn't ridden there yet, so on the 26th of January when most other local trails were snowy and muddy we gave it a go. The trail climbed steeply for the first couple of miles, something our winter-weak legs didn't appreciate. Once on top, the views of Denver to the east were expansive, but were still just views of huge, smoggy metropolis. The mountains to the west looked nice. There was some fast, loose, and rocky downhill that was fun, but other users ascending forced us to keep our speed reasonable. We try very hard to be respectful of other users, which means riding at a reasonable pace rather than an insane one.

Here's a link to the route, mapped on my Garmin GPS.

So, Green Mountain: we logged a few miles and had some fun. The trails were primarily populated by fast cross-country racer-types out logging miles on their plastic Specialized 29er hardtails loudly discussing which category they'd race in this year. There were some ordinary folks, too. I even saw a guy pushing a Huffy across a small gully and up a short hill. The wide-openness of the mound was interesting, but overall I didn't find it as enjoyable as some of the other places we often ride. I didn't remember my camera, but Abbey had her phone.

Another Nickel

I'll cover a couple of weeks with this post. We've been at least as busy as usual and our cycling adventures have taken a lower priority than work, school, holidays, and music practice.

After a bitterly cold week in Kansas over the Christmas holiday, and then a few miserable days with a terrible cold, Cindy and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary with an afternoon ride with the kids on the Highline Canal Trail. It was finally warm enough that we could get out for a ride without coming home with frost bite -- or bike frost. Q and I rode the big black tandem and the girls rode their one-person mountain bikes. There was still plenty of snow and ice on the trail, so we had to bundle up to be comfortable.        

This ride was also significant because it was to be the last outing for Abbey's lime green Chameleon. We set her up with the Chameleon in the fall of 2010 when she was several inches shorter than she is now. It's been a great bike for her, but as much as she liked it, she was getting too big for it.

I'd been thinking that the most cost-effective option was for me to find a new (or even used) frame from the same manufacturer (Santa Cruz) so that all of the existing parts could simply be swapped from her current frame to the new and larger frame, but I was wrestling with the cost. I also really wanted to put her on a dual suspension bike; the Chameleon was a hard tail. And then, this fall, Santa Cruz discontinued the Nickel (which is the bike I ride) and the frames were selling selling for half price. There's just no way I was going to get a better deal than that, so I ordered it. It took a couple of weeks for me to find time to get everything swapped over, and there were a couple of minor complications (like the hydraulic brake line being to short and the headset not being entirely compatible), but we addressed them and now it's done. And the Cannondale MT800 tandem and the Santa Cruz Chameleon frame are now for sale:

Anyway, here they are, the girl and her bike on a warm afternoon in January:

We took it out for a short test over the weekend. January 20, 2013. Mom was on a plane on the way home from a week in Michigan, so the kids and I went without her to ride a few laps around the Mesa Rim Loop in the Hidden Mesa Open Space near Castle Rock. The sun was out, but the air was cold and the wind brisk. We didn't dress warmly enough, but we survived and I think we had fun. The trail was mostly flat and easy, but had a few fun spots on the rocks.

Connecticut in the Dark

I spent this week working in my company's office in Glastonbury, CT. On the evening of my last day I had the opportunity to ride some trails in a local park -- in the dark. The husband of one of my coworkers, we'll call him Evan (since that's his name), is an avid mountain biker and former cross country mtb racer; I've heard many tales of his cycling adventures, mostly related to broken bones and broken bike frames. When I started planning my trip, he suggested we get together for a ride. Although I was skeptical that it would actually work out, and a little concerned about what I might be getting into, I packed my bike shoes and some cool weather clothes, a set of pedals, and my helmet. I'm glad I did.

We rode at Day Pond State Park.

The park was an interesting mix: forest, ferns, logs, and leaves that reminded me of the trails we used to ride in Michigan, but with slanted slabs and slippery rocks and deathly dark and dangerous drops more like one might find in Grand Junction's Lunch Loops or some of the more technical trails in the Buffalo Creek Recreation Area much closer to what is now home. I would like to see this park sometime when the sun is up! At night, in the beam of a bright headlamp, the granite on the trail sparkled like stars in the sky.

I was afraid I was in trouble when my riding companions unloaded their burly all-mountain bikes with big travel and big brakes and then donned their hard plastic body armor. I felt naked and unprotected! Nonetheless, I pedaled off with them into the dark on a borrowed bike that didn't fit, on a trail strewn with in frost-covered leaves.

The trail was challenging. I did not feel that my riding was up to my normal level, largely because I was not on my familiar steed; I was riding a borrowed Gary Fisher Cake that used to be Evan's. It was nicely upgraded with a five-inch Fox Float fork and very effective hydraulic disc brakes, but it was really too small for me. I could not find a comfortable balance point; the fork, shock, and tires all had more air pressure than they should have for my skinny butt. I was perpetually struggling with traction and balance, and found the bike's handling very twitchy with overly sensitive steering. I was scared of the log skinnies, and stayed away from many of the big jumps. The rock gardens gave me fits! Oh, for my Nickel!! But it was still great fun, and so much better than just sitting back in my hotel room at night working!

At one of the first of the more challenging obstacles on the trail, Evan easily rode down a steep granite 'roller' -- a name he used for very steep drops that had just enough angle that they could be ridden rather than jumped. I was not comfortable trying to roll down it on the undersized bike so I wheelied and attempted to gently jump off the three-foot high rock; it worked, sort of, except that when I finally reached the ground, I landed on my back tire, and was then unable to bring the front end down, I rode it out for a few feet, but eventually rolled over backward and landed hard on my back. That left a mark. Consequently, I came away from the ride with a few minor bruises, but Evan later had a big rock-slide crash that definitely won the best-crash-of-ride award. At first I thought he might have been seriously injured, but eventually his wind returned and he stopped making horrific sounds.

This was my first time riding trails at night. I used Evan's new NiteRider MiNewt 750 mounted to my helmet. The light was great; I rarely had any issues with visibility, as the light created a perfect patch of daylight on the trail in front of me. However, my lack of familiarity with the trails and the poorly fitting bike slowed me down significantly. I will have to go back!  Only next time perhaps I'll bring my Nickel...