18 hours and Mack Ridge (04/09/07)

Got up early again and were on the 18 Hours of Fruita trail by 7.30. More singletracky than I'd expected, lots of swoopy flowy loveliness and with the sun just coming up it was a delight to be there. Lots of rabbits, the odd Gofer and the briefest glimpse of some deer proved that we were at one with nature. We finished the 18 Hour course with over 16 hours to spare and retired to the RV for fresh coffee and brownies. We'd spotted some mad looking pedal boats – basically a bike mounted on a mini catarmaran, but the lakeside hire place was closed because it was a week day, so I didn't get to try them, shame.

Not wanting to dwell on the disappointment of the pedal boats we made off for the Kokopelli Trailhead to do Mack Ridge. Fixed a puncture before setting off so it was about 11am when we started turning the pedals and we realised that in Fruita at this time of year it gets pretty hot by 11am, very different to Frisco – but we had lost about 5000' altitude, so it shouldn't have been a surprise. To get to Mack Ridge you have to climb – it's a ridge, see? The clue is in the name. It was quite tough actually, the annoying kind of track that's not steep enough to excuse getting off and pushing, but loose enough and long enough to demoralize. Sue was feeling less than 100% and decided to turn back when the levelled out bit turned upwards again. It was probably just as well she did given what came next. The climb up to the ridge was on rough and loose doubletrack but when you reach the ridge the views are stunning – the massive Colorado river runs a squllion feet below you and there's just this view that I can't put into words, I thought about taking a picture but it wouldn't have captured it - I'd have need a trick camera with wide angle lense and being there 4 hours earlier would have helped too, but trust me, it's a spectacular scene.

Enough of that – the descent starts right away and it quickly leads you into some spicy rock steps that were borderline crash territory for me. Then I was treated to some quality rocky singletrack that had a couple of silly technical moments that I just walked down, but most of it was a total hoot.

I was back 'home' by 12.30 and only the sun stopped me going out for another loop. We'd decided that Highline campsite was too far from everywhere to be of much use to us so we booked in at the Colorado River State Park in Fruita which offered the luxuries of water and electric hook up for the RV. Did the first 'dump' of the grey and black water tanks (grey water come from the sinks, black is worse). A typically chatty american pulled up alongside as we were reading the manual to see what we were supposed to do; “ah! The great leveller! It don't matter how fancy a rig you got, we all end up here doing the same thing, no getting away from it!” Of course everyone loves us because we're from the UK and everyone's got a grandfather from Scotland.

Peaks Trail, Frisco (03/09/07)

This place is cool. Why? Well, one of the reasons is the free shuttle buses that operate between places. Both me and Sue had slept intermittently again, but had managed a lie – in until nearly 7am. We drove the RV into Frisco where she caught the free shuttle to Silverthorne and I took the bus to Breckenridge – with my bike on the bike-rack. A free bus that takes bikes – I like.

Another reason I like this place is that when some guy hears you're from the UK he doesn't go “Oh, Manchester United, Liverpool...”, no, he says “Steve Peat's an awesome rider man!”. But I digress. The bus ride saved me an hour or so of tarmac climbing and at 9000 and something foot elevation I think avoiding unnecessary climbs is a good thing. Still, there was still a 30 minute climb out of Breck to the start of peaks Trail which sort of contours along about 1000ft below the ridgeline of the 10 Peaks. It's very good. No big climbs but lots of short technical ups. It has rocks roots trees in just the right configuration. The first 6 miles from Breck undulate nicely, to be honest the altitude makes the climbs tougher than they look, a short pull leaves you out of breath and even though i wasn't ragging it i could feel a lactic burn starting in my legs, I guess that's oxygen deficiency for you.

The last 3.5 miles seem to be entirely downhill. You read that right. A very big blast. I got a bit too close to a tree at one point which unerved me a bit when I tried to imagine how many pieces my shoulder would have broken into if I'd hit a tree at warp speed. Eventually i was spat out onto a double track that looked like it was the end of the fun, but directly opposite was a sign for Rainbow Lake trail. I'd never heard of it so i asked the dog walkers who'd just come along it where it went and was assured that it would be a fun return to town. They weren't wrong. A wide and unremarkable track took me past Rainbow lake then headed back into the trees. After a while I spotted a bit of singletrack diving off to the right, so I followed it – fanbleedintastic. Super tight, twisty, rocky, rooty, like the old Innerleithen downhill trails, but better because it's Colorado and its sunny! The icing on the cake.

Sue had been feeling ropey again so did the shops at Silverthorne. After lunch in safeway's car park we hit the I70 and didn't stop until we reached Highline state reservoir, Fruita, site of the 18 hours of Fruita event.

Frisco (02/09/07)

We drove the RV down to Frisco – no great distance but we were very aware that at 9000ft and with no acclimatisation we were likely to be feeble UK bikers. Looking for an easy warm up ride we stumbled on the Shoreline trail that was lovely buff singletrack around the peninsula. We hadn't heard anything about this trail, it was just a line on the map, but it was great.

After that I bought some cleats that actually fitted the pedals on my Dawg. Not wanting to over do it on our first day we went shopping in Silverthorne, but I only came away with a $20 pair of lycra shorts. Sue was feeling pretty ropey by now so we headed back to the campground. I was dead sympathetic and took off on my bike again, popped over the hill and picked up Soda Creek trail – another gem. Colorado doesn't do duff trails. In fact all buff, no duff could be there tagline. Maybe.

Denver - Dillon Reservoir (01/09/07)

Woke up at 3.30. got up about 5am and had a shave. Managed to make enough noise to convince Sue that she might as well get up too, she wasn't sleeping anyway. By 6.30 we were in the pool, then we moved next door to the jacuzzi. Jet lag never felt so good.

We dumped our stuff at the RV rental place and took a bus into town to go shopping at REI – the outdoor megastore. Bad idea – I spent a ton of money. Minor mishap getting the bus back, we naively assumed that if the 31 bus took us from 98^th to Spere Avenue then to get back to 98^th we just needed to pick up the 31 going back the other way. Not that easy though is it? Still, we had a nice tour of residential Denver.

The RV was bigger than the one we booked, which was nice and they got a bike rack for us too. First priority was to buy food – the Eggs Benedict I'd had for breakfast were great, but that was 8 hours ago. So the first meal in our new home was in Safeway's car park – classy.

We hit the I70 and headed west and in just over an hour we were rolling into Lowry campground above Dillon Reservoir – lovely spot. I built the bikes, Sue sorted the unpacking and made dinner and that was that.

Bangor to Denver

Alarm woke me up at 5.45, I'd decided to ride into Bangor to get the train rather than sit in the back of the van. It was raining a bit so there was a last minute bike change (the nice road bike doesn't go out in the rain) but it was a nice start to the day to have 35 minutes on traffic free roads.

Train to Watford (delayed), bus to heathrow (delayed) queue, queue, queue some more, buy a bottle of 16 yr old Highland Park in duty free and board the (delayed) flight. Before you know it you've been up for 23 hours and are checking into the poshest hotel you've ever stayed in.

Welcome to America, baby!

Poor pootch

Pippa's my dog. She's had a hard time lately. Anterior cruciate ligament went in one of her back legs, coincidentally the same one that she tore all the tendons in 4 years ago. That wasn't so bad, the vets can fix these things, they substitute fishing wire for ligament and away you go, after a few weeks of recuperation. She was healing well, very well in fact, doing 15 minute walks a few weeks after the op. But then she started carrying her 'good' back leg, same symptons as before.
It's an age thing, her ACLs have stretched and she's got hip displacia.

It's rubbish when dogs get old.

Tryfan

Went to Ogwen on the way home from work to go for a run, it was a perfect evening so I went up Tryfan. Ok, it was more of a scramble than a run, but was oodles of fun nonetheless. Saw the RAF rescue helicopter on my way up, seems as though someone needed help getting off the hill. I decided that as I was only wearing shorts and T shirt and didn't have map, compass, spare clothes or food with me that it might be polite to give the Mountain rescue boys a wide bearth.

Tryfan was ace though, first time I'd been up to the top. although on the way down I'm pretty certain I passed the spot I'd reached with Pippa a while ago, when I turned back in the mist, not having a clue where i was - turned out I was about 40m below the summit. North Wales rocks.