Colorado Trail - Durango

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The 470 mile long Colorado trail starts in Denver and finishes in Durango, I set out to ride the last 20 miles of it. Keen mathematicians will have gathered that this implies a 40 mile round trip, which is quiet a lot. I don't have the exact figures, but I'd estimate there was roughly a billion feet of ascent involved too. The first 3 hours were nearly continuous uphill on dirt road – all steady middle ring climbing, just for 3 hours solid. That was OK, I was on schedule when I hit the Colorado trail and was looking forward to 90 mins of glorious singletrack. For the first 30 mins it rocked, then it turned steeply uphill which blew. I was pushing for long periods and didn't really know where I was beyond being on the Colorado trail, in the trees, with the creek below me – which narrowed it down to a 15 mile stretch. When I thought I'd got to the top of the climb the trail started undulating, but by this time my legs had gone and was pushing every time the gradient went up. After forever it levelled out and i had a traversing super narrow trail to enjoy for so long that it started getting boring! Then it finally started descending. Relentlessly. I was nearly too worn out to enjoy it, but not quite :)

I think it was an hour of continuous craic. Possibly the hardest ride I've ever done, certainly one of the best. Epic.

Horse Gulch trails Durango

We rode into town and out the other side to the Horse Gulch trails where we split, Sue rode Meadow loop and other bits while I did Telegraph Road, most of Sidewinder (couldn't find the top of it despite an extensive search), a bit of Cowboy, Crites, Anasazi and half of Meadow. Damn fine trails. It didn't suck at all. Not massively technical, just tight, twisty, flowing REAL GOOD STUFF.

I was cooked by the end of it though (all 2 ½ hours of it).

We headed back into town in search of fluid which was provided by Carver's brew pub and their Lightner Creek Lager. Bought a camera (Yay!), dragged ourselves back to the RV and I finally managed to bully the laptop into looking for other wireless networks apart from our home one, which was clearly out of range.

Fruita to Durango

Got up with the sun and rode up Prime cut and down Kessel Run with Sue before breakfasting on eggy bread and beans – a pretty good start to the day.

Tried to buy a camera in walmart but they were shite. “Do you need any help sir?”

“Yes, do any of these compacts have an aperture priority mode?”

“Well, I'm not too sure about the technicalities, but I think you can adjust the ISO on some of them”.

It was hard to leave Fruita, but the cooler climate of the mountains did have it's own appeal, so we headed south for Durango, stopping briefly in Ouray (little Switzerland as it's known because the mountains around there are reminiscent of well, Switzerland) for huge and delicious ice creams.

Stopped at the United RV park on the edge of Durango.

Bookcliffs, Fruita (06/09/07)

The trails that everyone associates with Fruita. Went and did Prime Cut with Sue, then rode Joes ridge, which didn't quite live up to the hype. We were chilling out in the RV waiting for the sun to cool off when Troy, keith and Quentin from OTE showed up with a couple of guys from out of town. They offered us a shuttle run up to do Prime cut and then Kessel run. They hammered the trails and I was going all out to hang onto a wheel. Prime cut was loads more fun at full tilt, but Kessel run was just brilliant swooping, twisting trail. Sue did it twice she liked it so much.

After a couple of beers and a nap I summoned enough energy to set out to ride Zippetty Do Da. I went up Western Zip and down Q70 and up Coal Gulch Road to Frontside (not something I'd repeat). I was suffering on Frontside, it was undulating singletrack with brutal climbs that I was too exhausted to ride. But Zippety delivered. One of the best trails I've ridden anywhere.

I was happy and broken by the time I finished. A tough day enjoying myself. Camped at the trailhead. Discovered my camera had died :(

Kokopelli's Mack trails, Fruita (05/09/07)

Went out earlyish and did Steve's loop with Sue, a nice ride which ran along the edge of a bench with the colorado river way down below. At one point the trail is a few feet from a 300' drop – hello vertigo. The most scenic loop in Kokopellis? Probably. Sue took the shortcut back while I did handcuffs and Troy built. In general these trails are moderately technical, narrow singletrack with short bits of seriously difficult/impossible problems usually at the start and end of the loop as you descend to / climb out of a bench. I'd had 3 punctures in 24 hours and decided that my back tyre was for the bin, picked up a new one at OTE.

Went out on the Wednesday night OTE ride which was Troy built again but in the opposite direction to how I'd done it in the morning. It rocked again. As the light was fading there was lightening going off all over the place, but amazingly we only got rained on for about a minute. It was half light by the time we finished Troy Built, so it was quarter light as we came down the stupidly fast descent off Lions.

Rounded off the day with Shrimp Burrito and Margarita at Fiesta Guadalajara. Perfect.

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.