A group of us got together — from Crested Butte, Salida, Evergreen and Buena Vista — for a day in the mountains. We rolled from Kep’s house in BV, climbing hot (!) roads to get higher into the mountains.
The singletrack was steep, and those without little tiny gears did some walking. Jeny doesn’t walk unless she has to, and egging each other on, we rode some pretty ridiculous sections. Too much fun…
Eszter got into it too, cranking out yet more steepies on CTR legs.
Kep is the man behind Kep’s Balls, and it seems he does his product experimenting on himself! Some kind of new concoction of coconut oil didn’t seem to agree with his stomach so much on this ride. It’s cool that he tests his own products, and also that he held on with our ride to the bitter end, despite having to make several stops “in the woods.” Tough guy.
It gave us some extra time to do a little sessioning, or at least stalling before attempting the next ridicu-steep section of 12,000′ trail.
sky riding! photo by Eszter Horanyi
photo by Ed Ellinger –
I think a wheelie above 12,000′ gets multiplied by 2 or 3 times in height, right? Meaning my eight inches was really more like a real wheelie! In any case, it’s an appropriate expression for how it felt to be ‘up there’, and this time with such a cool bunch. (Thanks for the photo, Ed). A tiny little path went east, towards a 13,000′ sub-peak. Man did it call to me, and even with the weather threatening (“it’s not going to rain (*) ” – haha, Eszter!) and group ride being as good as it was, I was tempted.
Instead we flew down the other side, first with me leading and Chris following with helmet cam. After my arms gave out and demanded a rest we paused for a moment, back in the trees. Not a few seconds later Jeny came ripping by.
“Catch me if you can!”
I forgot how fast she descends. We gave chase and didn’t catch on until she stopped for a rest.
(*) A classic quote from Eszter. I think her definition of “rain” is just short of a hurricane. So, technically, she is and was right, even at Old Pueblo.
Nobody made it across this creek, and Jeny took a seat on a rock trying. My dismount was seriously lacking “grace and style”, but no one was there to see it (or snap a photo!).
We dropped into St. Elmo and took parallel roads to avoid traffic, going backwards on the Vapor Trail route.
Ooops. Turns out they are going to rebuild it, and for now there’s a ghetto route around it that Vapor Trail racers can take.
It seemed to take forever just to descend back to Princeton Hot Springs, rounding our circle around Mt. Princeton. I think a lot of us were tired (raises hand) but no one was entertaining talk of not riding the Colorado Trail to close the loop. With as much combined experience on the CT between us all, we should have known better than to expect anything but climbing, even after the climbing. It seems every segment of the CT between the major drainages of the Arkansas Valley has to reach 10,000′ — not for any good reason, just to reach it, contour a bit, then drop down. It’s as if the trail designers had their altimeters out and wouldn’t stop climbing until they reached the magic five digit number.
Pretty funny stuff, as we rolled into the 7th or 8th hour of the ride. The singletrack was over too quickly, getting fast and flowy, following the others into and out of the trees. Kep showed us a nice little rocky shortcut back to BV, where I got too excited following Chris’s crazy playful lines, flatting my rear tire. I stuck a plug in it and limped on into BV.
photo by Eszter Horanyi
Yep, it was that good a ride. Group rides can be hit or miss sometimes, but this was a good one, and it was a privilege to ride with them all.
Ed and Jeny followed me back to Salida, where we ate steaks at Scot Banks’ new house and got the full enthusiastic tour.
It was a lazy morning, which suited me just fine. Over breakfast at the Laughing Ladies Cafe, the conversation drifted through trails and recollections of different rides, somehow landing on the perfect idea for the day — Alpine Tunnel and the CDT. And so at the right well hour of 1pm we were off to climb above the trees again. Perfect!
Both Ed and I were slow to wake up and get moving, even at 1pm, climbing slowly on the road to the Hancock townsite. Jeny was patient with us.
The old Alpine Tunnel Grade is a classic part of the Vapor Trail route. Last year my tiny lights struggled to show me the chiseled out cliffs, flowers and greenery. It was so nice to be here during the day.
More steep climbing!
Ed cranked out some sections I struggled to ride in my super granny, and I’m still not sure quite how. Crazy singlespeeders!
photo by Ed Ellinger
And finally, some ROCKS to play on!
photo by Ed Ellinger
I got it after a few attempts, and it felt about as awkward as that photo makes it look.
Jeny really wanted it and was getting close, but the clouds were building, airplanes were sounding like thunder, thunder sounding like airplanes, and we had many miles of 12,000 foot singletrack to ride, so we moved on. Never fear, we would get plenty of sessioning in later that week.
photo by Ed Ellinger
It did drizzle on us, but that did nothing to our spirits.
I’d say they were soaring, if anything. This piece of trail has such a wonderfully raw feel to it. Dare I say a “wilderness” (lower case w) feel. Yes, I do dare. It was a gem of a discovery for MC and I, bikepacking from Leadville to Salida some years ago. A line on the GPS that turned into solid gold and exceeded all expectations. Likewise today, it was better than I could have imagined.
It’s just too bad you can’t ever get Jeny to smile.
The clouds lifted and gave us some warm views and maybe slightly warmer hands. We descended new switchbacks down to the Tin Cup pass road. What an effort — and one that has been going on for more than 4 years. When MC and I were last here they had just started the first few.
What a great weekend. I was seriously in need of some time away from the bike, but that’s easier said than done during a Colorado summer.
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