What a beautiful day for a ride. I started the day pretty slowly, not having gotten much sleep, and putzed downtown for a while before finally getting to the trail around midday. My plan was spend about 5 hours out on the trail and get a decent amount of climbing in.
The trailhead marked the start (end?) of the Colorado Trail. As soon as I started the ride, my prior post comments about not feeling the elevation came back to haunt me. Now I’m feeling it! The first 10 miles was pretty much all climbing, starting at 7000 ft and ending up at 9600 ft. I typically take a couple of hours to get warmed up, so heading straight up the mountain was a little painful. At least the weather was cool, unlike the 100 degree temps I’d gotten used to in Austin. OK, “getting used to” is a little bit of a stretch, but you get the point. The climbing wasn’t too technical, but it was a little slick from the prior day’s rain. Just a couple of short hike-a-bike sections, so nothing major. I did a fair amount of granny spinning to keep my power output down to conserve energy. Although my perceived exertion was 7-8, my heart-rate was still pretty low for me (140-150) because of the altitude.
I came across a couple at a scenic overlook, and stopped to get a shot. I’m really bad when it comes to taking pictures in general, and I’d been told by a MoJo buddy to “take lots”, so I pulled over and posed. He did ask me to get closer to the edge, but I suffer from mild vertigo, so elected not to do that…
The vertigo got really bad for me at one stage on the ride, with a skinny trail on the edge of a very long drop. I’m puckering up just thinking about it now. I had to really concentrate on the trail and do my best not to look right. Gulp.
About two hours in, the black clouds behind me were looking ominous, and there were a few loud claps of thunder. I layered up, thinking that the weather might turn colder, and was ready to throw on my raingear. Luckily the cloud didn’t catch me and out came the sun. Now I’m starting to overheat. Sigh.
At the peak of the climb, there was a open area with a couple of guys grabbing some food and taking a breather. We started chatting, and one of the two looks at my Hammerhead bike shorts and says “so are you from Austin?”. Turns out he and his buddy drove up from Austin for the weekend, and he knows with some of the same MoJo riders I ride with. Small world! The first riders on the trail I meet and they are from Austin. What are the chances of that happening?
I started back down the other side of the mountain and met a small group of full-faced downhill riders pushing their rigs up. They’d been shuttled up to the top of the next mountain pass, hit a downhill and were now pushing up towards the peak I was coming down from. They informed me that the trail just went down for another 3 miles, then straight up a “wicked climb” that was washed out, muddy and pretty much unrideable. At this time, I was 2.5 hours in, with the potential for the black cloud to come back and catch me again. I had the option of going down another 3 miles, only to turn round and climb straight back up the 4 mile climb.
Hmm, decision point. I started off down the trail again, but was faced with more of the vertigo inducing skinny trail. After another 15 minutes of this, I decided that enough was enough and I should head back up. At least I remembered to take a shot of the turnaround point.
I caught up with the other group at the top of the climb, and we chatted for a little while. They were from Fort Lauderdale, where apparently the hills maxed out at about 50ft. HaHa. They were all equipped with long travel bikes, and were anxious to do the bomb down the mountain I’d climbed from the trailhead.
I started off ahead of them, only to be brought up short by a cow in the trail. Yup, a big assed cow running down the trail ahead of me. Oh, I gotta get a picture of this! By this time, the downhillers had caught up and zipped by. This spooked the cow, who galloped down the trail ahead of the group (do cows gallop?) and eventually veered off . So much for that picture.
I soon caught up with them, and pulled by on a flat section. The lead guy didn't seem too happy about this and yelled that he’d catch me up on the downhill. Hell no! I gunned it and pulled away without too much problem. Man that was a fun downhill. My front brake started to fade after a while, which was interesting to say the least.
The 10 mile climb took on a whole new complexion going back down. I actually enjoyed having a shorter travel bike as I was forced to take much better lines and employ more body English to throw the bike around to avoid rocks & roots. More rewarding in a strange way.
What took about 2 hours to ascend whipped by in about 30 big-ass-grin minutes. Yeehaw! Now I was getting close to the trailhead, but was only 4 hours into the ride. Time to start exploring some more. I rode for another 30 minutes or so, and finally popped out at the trailhead feeling tired but invigorated.
Now that was a fun day’s ride!
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