Over Labor Day weekend 2012, Steph and I headed to Crested Butte with a group of friends for 4 days of riding, relaxing, and general not-being-in-the-city activities. What follows is a trip report I have adapted from her personal blog over at Fear of Bananas with a bit of my own wordsmithery thrown in. Please give her blog a visit if you please, there s plenty of good stuff over there.
Steph absolutely alaska travel agency LOVES Crested Butte, with how much amazing mountain biking there is to do and how many miles of trail there are . Hit those links for moar posts from her about riding and racing in CB. While she s done a lot of cross-country riding alaska travel agency in Crested Butte, I am usually there for the Mountain States Cup DH race, doing my best attempt at CAT 2 domination. This year I got 4th, by the way.
So while I have only ridden a few trails, most of our friends hadn t ridden anything in the Butte. The options seemed endless, and I was on a mission to get our unsuspecting cohorts out on a fairly alaska travel agency big endeavor. The week prior to leaving I poured over map, read guidebooks, consulted alaska travel agency a good buddy who had just ridden in CB, and spent veritable minutes staring blankly at the Crested Butte Mountain Bike Guide on 14erSkiers.com , in awe at all of our options. We decided on a couple of rides that were high on our to-do list and finally forced ourselves to put the map away.
Totally irrelevant to all of the biking we did in CB, but awesome still, alaska travel agency there were tons of open range cattle on the way and on every trail we rode. It s no secret that Steph loves open range cattle an unreasonable amount, and with our friends threatening to chase a heifer down and slap it on the arse, there was a bit of hilarity to be had.
Anyhow, when we got to CB on Friday we settled in then hit the Alpineer to say hey to the wife of a good friend of a couple of good friends who works there, alaska travel agency for some trail beta. While Steph wasn t sure how we could need more trail beta after all of the map-looking and internettering we had done the week/night before, it (as always) turned out to be extremely alaska travel agency valuable. alaska travel agency Local bike shop knowledge is always the best source of trail beta, I m not sure why she doubted it for even a millisecond. Further, our Latitude 40 Map of Crested Butte and Taylor Park was spot on in mileage and elevation for every ride, and all of trails in the area are extremely alaska travel agency well signed. alaska travel agency So, I m not going to give TOO detailed of trail descriptions just the goods. Go to a shop, talk to the locals, get a map, read signs, pedal your ass off, repeat.
At the suggestion of a good buddy who had just ridden in CB, we decided to mission the Green Lake Trail on Friday afternoon. Roughly a 4.5 mile out and back, the trail was really pretty alaska travel agency and for the most part fairly smooth, climbing gradually out of the CB Nordic Center. There were some suffer-steep sections, and the upper section of the trail got quite a bit rockier, but those were fairly short sections. On the way down we noticed that the leaves were starting to change and it made for some gorgeous alaska travel agency views on all of our rides and some colorful trail decorations as well.
We took our time knowing that we had a lot more riding ahead of us, but that didn t stop us from zooming on the descent. It was a blast with great dirt, fun rocks and roots, plenty of flowy turns, and definitely a great way to start the weekend. The whole ride covered around 9 miles and took us probably just shy of 2 hours.
Post ride we had a hankering for margaritas. Despite a local whispering Don t do it! as he walked past us, we wandered into Mexicali Grill plenty thirsty. Turns out, they have Beermargs on the menu! Well, they called them River Margs, but we prefer Beermarg or Cervesarita. Cheap beer + cheap tequila + limeade = surprisingly delicious. We agree.
Yea, shuttle logistics can be a major pain in the dick. Steph hates, nay ABHORS shuttling, but has made an exception for this ride not once, but twice now and swears she would do it again in a heartbeat. This combination of trails ranks as one of my top most favoritest rides in all of Colorado alaska travel agency for the everything about it, and after this weekend it might even be in the numero uno slot—even if just temporarily. We remembered the Doctor alaska travel agency s descent being life-changingly fantastic, alaska travel agency but didn t remember how insanely fun the descents before Doctor s were too.
Even though this was a shuttle alaska travel agency assisted ride, we didn t shuttle up the first climb like we have done in the past. The climb up Reno Divide Road isn t super fun, but totally tolerable and doable alaska travel agency and most likely alaska travel agency takes less time than shuttling to the top once you re all said and done. Don t drive it. Just ride it.
The Flag descent alaska travel agency starts traversy and fast, with whooped out sections from the motos. Me and my buddy JWB were leading the charge, taking turns out front and trying to out-do each other as we gapped moto whoops, root-balls, sparse rocky sections, and anything else we could find. Once you hit the woods it s game-MF-on, tons of turns and root-balls everywhere, alaska travel agency all the way to a creek crossing that begins your climb up Bear Creek. This descent was way more fun than I remembered, and the group seemed to love every second of it.
Mostly the climb up Bear Creek is pretty bear -able (see what I did there?) but there are a few rocky, rooty, steep sections to negotiate. Most it is just beautiful rolling singletrack, and more high-country cows made it basically awesome for Steph. Yes, she not only loves cows, but climbing as well.
The weather was crazy on us. The saying alaska travel agency if you don t like the weather, wait five minutes could not have been more true this weekend. Coat on, coat off. Long sleeves on, long sleeves off. I think that means fall is in the air. Also, those fiery yellow aspen trees are a pretty strong sign of impending autumn.
The fun-factor on the descents of this ride builds with each new descent. Flag Creek is a hoot, and Bear Creek takes it up a notch. It traverses for a bit then heads into the woods and lets loose into fast fun trail on the edge of a gully with a few rocky sections, a few sections alaska travel agency of root-balls, and a whole lot of fast fast FAST corners. JWB and I again taking point, again trying to kill each other as we switched off the lead. Super pumped for Steph as well, as fast as we were pushing it she was never far behind us. The others in the group rode at their various comfort levels, with a couple of the guys doing their best to keep the pace. We kept everyone going at a pretty decent clip.
I remembered the climb up Doctor s Gulch to Doctor s Park being the worst climb ever. Basically a soul-crushing, life-sucking death march. Simply put: I was not looking forward to it, especially 20 or so miles in. Amazingly, alaska travel agency it wasn t that awful. It was steep and seemed long, but it was totally manageable. I m not sure if my expectations were better or if I was riding stronger. alaska travel agency Either way, it was worth every struggle of a pedal stroke.
The Doctor s descent starts out rocky, rooty, loose, and steep, but turns into the most perfect singletrack on the most perfect pitch with the most perfect turns through the most perfect aspen trees. Seriously, it s so good that I won t even TRY to give you a description. alaska travel agency Well, I ll say this: it s the closest thing to actually Jedi-pinning a stolen Imperial speeder bike on the forest moon of Endor this planet has to offer.
We had some Crested Butte newbies in our group so the 401 was a must. The first time Steph and I rode the 401, it was enjoyable but not really a stand-out ride. This time, much more impressed. We climbed the road. Not full-on local from town style, but from the lower trail head. The climbing alaska travel agency itself wasn t that awful, but the cars and sheer amount of traffic on the road sucked pretty bad.
Once we hit the trail head we rested, fueled up and made the final push up the singletrack climb. All twelve or fifteen or however alaska travel agency many switchbacks. We agreed, they were much easier than we had remembered—steep, but nothing technical. My tired legs managed to get me up the hill pretty okay though.
The beginning of the descent isn t my favorite, with long side-hilled traverses, but the singletrack is narrow and mostly smooth. There are some ripping sections for sure. This time around the early turns and switch alaska travel agency backs had a lot of brake bumps. Like I said, mostly smooth . Not too bad, but not that awesome. The views from the traverse are really beautiful, but it s fairly exposed so if you wanna channel your inner gaper you should just stop for a bit, lest you go rolling off down the hillside.
Once the trail isn t so exposed and the descent through the aspens begins, it starts to get really good. I do not remember that at all from the last time we rode it, possibly because I had taken a bad spill up earlier in a gully crossing and was nursing a banged up elbow. No crashing this time, and we stayed pretty pinned to the bottom of the upper half. There were a couple of near misses, alaska travel agency though we came around a switchback in the aspens to see a fella fully-clad in kitted-out spandex climbing alaska travel agency up 401. If you re not familiar with 401, although it s not a directional trail per se, every description on every map, in every guidebook, and every local I have ever talked to, says to ride up Gothic Road and down the singletrack. We had plenty of time to stop, let him by, and exchange a friendly smile. As he passed us, he said something like It climbs really alaska travel agency good this way, really low angle! in a kind of snide way. Part of me was thinking, Yeah buddy, it descends this way even better! but I kept it to myself. If that guy has to climb 401 on the arguably busiest weekend of the year to prove some kind of point, that s his deal not mine.
A bunch more roots, rocks, and turns later we came flying around a corner into a much bigger adversary: a heifer. alaska travel agency She was straddling the trail broadside, with her front hooves alaska travel agency on rider s left of the trail and rear hooves on the right. I came within 12-16 of her, I d guess, and am thankful as H3LL to the new XT s
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