Big day, wrong bike
June 11th, 2008 Posted in Rides, tripsI spent the better part of the day near Salida riding the wrong bike.
The family and I headed out for a three day weekend, two nights in Breckenridge seperated by a day trip to Salida. More riding was planned – a bunch in Breck, but that all failed. Day 1 due to family time and a great hike on the Peaks Trail, and Day 3 to some snow and moisture on already wet trails.
Day 2 was Salida, and I wasn’t entirely sure where I’d end up riding until I started pedaling. I bailed on the Rainbow trail and decided to head up behind S-Mountain for some big road climbing and singletack descents. As I neared the turn to head down towards the singletrack, I still had a bunch of time in my back pocket, but no map. I remembered from last time, a year ago, that there’s a ‘ghost town’ up there not too far from my turn. 6 miles by road, the signs said. Shouldn’t have been a big deal, but again, I had no map in that back pocket.
I headed towards where I thought I would find it, and the forest service signs kept confirming my guesses. That 6 miles was rolling, not in a pleasent way, but in the super steep way. It headed through some old limestone quarries (I think) and an unnaturally crystal blue lake. Eventually, I ended up seeing more and more private property signs, started running short on time, and bailed.
When I got home and checked my GPS against my maps, turns out I was only about 1/2 mile from the place. Damn. So close!
After hitting the not so pleasent rolling section back to the Jeep road downhill, time was running even shorter. I hit a piece or wo of ultra prime singletrack, but ended up riding a pretty rough road back to town. Excellent nonetheless. Four plus hours of riding and one big smile.
The best view of the day:
Sad thing is, the day would have been better served by my On-One, but with the other riding planned for the weekend I took the Intense instead. It’s a grea bike though, and in the end I wasn’t bummed at all.