Another early day … five o’clock is an ungodly hour to awaken.

Lunch Loop Trails today! Well, mostly for Richard – we’re DEAD. We did ride, but almost not at all – just did the kiddie loops, and they were plenty. When we got done, Richard said the trails had been brutal, so we sent him out to do what we’d done, and he agreed that it was actually enjoyable, especially compared to the others he had just done.

Here’s the trailhead:

I do like the receptacle for bottles and cans. Here’s the general area:

Pretty! Pretty rocky! After this, just loll about. It is HOT here. Next week we’re off to a mountain, somewhere … ANYWHERE. Gotta get cool.

Well, sadly, Richard leaves tomorrow, but he still has that job thing to do, so I guess it’s ok. We’ll miss him. He pushed us hard, but we needed it. Thanks, Richard! You’re welcome with us any time you want!

No early start today, as we’re going up  into the mountains, to ride Turkey Flats. I want my money back – I never saw or heard a turkey, and it sure as hell was NOT flat! Richard says he saw a turkey, but he’s English, so there’s really no telling what the heck he saw. Could have been a goldfish.

Here’s where we parked:

And the trailhead where we started:

The scenery was – again – spectacular. Colorado really is a beautiful State:

We split apart half way through, and it’s a good thing – evidently the last half of the ride Richard did was pretty harsh – hike-your-bike harsh. I was WAY too tired to have wanted any part of that. After we split, the trail mostly dropped, then we got to another trailhead:

It would have been much better to start from here, as the climb up the trail was much more gentle than the way we came; Of course, the return up the road would have been brutal. Here, the way we went, the road drops fast, until you get to the road we came in on, and then there’s a long climb back to the parking area. The scenery:

And finally, Richard returning to the truck:

We headed back to camp, and saw this:

Intriguing house!

Another thing we saw were sweeping vistas:

HA, HA, HA! “Sweeping vistas” – get it? They were sweeping the highway … never mind.

Anyway – back in Fruita, this sign:

Hard to argue with that!

Tomorrow? Lunch Loops! Hopefully not “lost my lunch” loops.

EARLY rise today. Want to be on the trail not long after sunrise to avoid the heat. We get to the trailhead about 7:00, so life is good!

Barri and I decide to only do Mary’s Loop, and the climb damned near kills me. Ok, not really, but not being warmed up, it really hurts. I have a hell of a time breathing the whole way up. Finally, my body figures out what we’re trying to do and cooperates – the rest of the ride os much easier. the vistas? Still spectacular! Check it out:

Like I said – spectacular! Also did a pano:

Richard did a couple extra loops, but he’s an animal. After the ride (late morning, just after ten we got off the trail – yay!) it was off to the grocery store to get dinner, then home for some leftovers for lunch. Leftover pizza is still good! Steaks tonight, and tomorrow? Not sure, but we’ll have it figured out by morning!

I love Fruita! Mostly because I really like the trails out at 18 Road. Richard really wanted to come here, and it’s a great choice. The time of year sucks, because it’s HOT. We’ll have to ride early to avoid most of the heat.

Ok, that was the plan – the reality? Somewhat different. We awake at 7:00, and get to the trailhead by about eight thirty or so. It’s already hot. The Bear and I cut our ride a bit short, we only do almost eight miles, but we get done the essentials – Prime Cut on the way up, then we decide to try Joe’s Ridge, which two locals highly recommend, and they are quite correct to do so – it’s another nice trail up here! Then we take the road back up to the top so we can do my favorite trail of this system – Kessel Run.

Not many photos today, really just one from out there that shows why we can’t have nice things:

That broken brown thing is one of those fiberglass sign posts that the Forest Service uses for various marking purposes, and that small red thing is a fired shotgun shell. Really? Never mind we are in a “No Shooting” area. Even if this were an “It’s ok to shoot” area, those are not targets, moron! This person deserves to have their guns taken away, at least temporarily, as they CLEARLY do not know anything about responsible gun use. And this was not the worst of it – we went around looking at different campsites (most of which were pretty nice, for primitive campsites), and in a couple of them there was trash everywhere – empty plastic water bottles, plastic bags, what probably were dirty diapers, and at one site even an old shirt. And in a couple of them, the stone fire rings had been dismantled and strewn all about, and in one site it had even been driven over! REALLY?? Oh, and at that one, they had also driven over (and broken) the brown fiberglass thingie that had the site number on it. REALLY?? What the hell is wrong with these people, that obviously think it’s perfectly fine to destroy public property?

Damned animals. Must have been related to that jackass on the four-wheeler that we ran across when we did that loop the other day outside of Buena Vista. Jerks. Oh well, end of rant.

What did Richard do? Well, when we got done with Prime Cut, we ran into a couple of locals, so I sent him off with them, as they were going to do Western Zippity, Zip Off, and Zippity, and I knew riding with me would never do the trail justice. He didn’t want to, but I was forceful – I wanted to be sure he enjoyed himself here. Anyway, after that, he wanted to ride Zippity-Doo-Dah, so we drove him back up the road to the trailhead, then caught him at the half-way point to take some video, and after he was done, we took him back up to get in a quick drop down Kessel Run. It was noon when he was done, and it was HOT. And he was also the only person dumb enough to still be on the trails – but he had a blast!

After riding, what do we always do? EAT! We hit the Hot Tomato for some pizza:

An Icarus Sicilian pizza. Mmmmm. Good stuff, but so huge we couldn’t finish it. As last year, it was very good pizza, but not quite on a level with the Slippery Otter in West Yellowstone, or more recently Moonlight Pizza in Salida. Still, REALLY good! Also saw a sticker there for our friends in Dallas who are suffering muddy trails and can’t ride:

And then, at the local bike shop (Over the Edge Sports), we saw this cute one:

Yeah, what did you THINK that stood for?

A good day. Tomorrow, the Kokopelli Trails, but a lot earlier than today. we hope to ride at 6:00!

OUCH!

That’s the word of the day. To paraphrase the start of “Fantasy Island”: “The pain! The pain!”. We should listen to The Police – King of Pain.

Do you get the idea that we all hurt? We do. A lot.

We go into town for lunch, have a brewski, and just relax. Of course, Richard soon gets restless and wants to ride, so we go back and get our bikes. It’s only the two of us on this, The Bear stays behind to take a nap – the only smart one in the bunch.

We go to the Arkansas Hills Trails system, behind Salida, where The Bear and I rode our second ride out here. Of course, we want to ride new ground, so we ride to the very furthest parking spot, and take the North Backbone trail towards town. BIG mistake. “More Difficult”, it’s rated. That means ROCKY. And hard. Even Richard has to walk some spots. That’s the first two thirds – the last third? BEAUTIFUL! Wow, what a difference! Smooth, flowy, and the scenery is again spectacular. Not mountain vistas so much, mostly the valley below and the town of Salida. Wow.

Here are some shots, first, near the start:

Then some valley shots:

And here a shot from just before the end of NB:

I refuse to take that trail back – I KNOW how hard it was to get here! We drop a bit, and I take ‘Lil Rattler down, while Richard takes Backbone to Tenderfoot, which, along with a short stretch of road will take him to the mid-point of ‘Lil Rattler, where I will wait for him. I get some shots of Richard, first on Backbone:

Then on Tenderfoot:

And then we meet,and take the last of ‘Lil Rattler down to the forward parking area. Not going back the way we came, so the only choice left is the road. Off we go. Second BIG mistake. It hurts. God, how it hurts! We make it, but the rest of the evening is spent in pain, even after Ibuprofen and dinner.

OUCH!

Tomorrow? Travel day, so day of rest! Yay!

RIDE!

Yes, finally a good, long ride. It’s Judgement Day in Dallas – 10 trails in one day. We’re going to do our own version. Only one trail, but it starts at 11,312 feet, and flirts for hours with 12,000. Or at least it seems like hours! I think it was a few minutes shy. The start is pretty boring – a parking lot at the top of Monarch Pass – you can see it on a previous day’s photos. But soon the scenery turns spectacular:

Here’s some of the trail:

We ran across three patches of snow – the first, not too bad, the second … well … I busted my ass on the second. It was six to eight feet tall, and slick as … well, slick as wet snow and ice:

That’s Richard, and it’s actually taller than him, the angle and distance makes it seem shorter. I slid right off the top, and landed on my left leg and cheek, handlebars getting knocked sideways in the process. No permanent harm done, and it was a quick job of straightening it all out. Onward we went. Later, we saw a much bigger patch, and had to skirt it, as many others had done:

This patch is a LOT thicker than the previous two. We continue:

About a half hour later, and that last patch is what you see in the top center of the photo, atop the mountain. We made pretty good time. Several miles, not sure how many.

After ten miles, we reached Marshall Pass, from here, it’s all road. Dirt for the next twelve miles, and we make really good speed.

Soon, though, we hit rush hour traffic:

Way further down, but the scenery is still spectacular:

Those twelve miles down? Had to stop three times to shake the hands and keep them from going numb, and it took FIFTY minutes! No pedaling, no brakes, just rattle down the mountain. And after the ride? FOOD:

Yum! What a day! I will sleep well tonight!

Today, we ride again!

We were going to ride the trails on the other side of town from yesterday’s, but found out that they’re closed because of the 4th – fireworks going on out there, so they want people off.

So, instead, we go to Buena Vista – there’s a rails-to-trails out there, nine miles out-and-back, and it sounds pretty good.

We get to the trailhead and decide instead to make a loop of it – we’re going to ride it clockwise, because that seems to work out well – we would come back on the rails-to-trails, dropping all the way, so it should work out well.

Luckily, there are some locals at the trailhead, so Richard asks them of advice – they suggest riding it counter-clockwise! Good to know! In retrospect, a spectacular idea, as it would have been a killer ride the other way.

This is the map at the trailhead:

Damned photo-bombers! Anyway, here’s a closeup:

The red loop is what we’re going to do, we’re at the lower left trailhead, then go East on the rails-to-trails:

Yup! That’s the start of the rail bed – looks easy, doesn’t it? Well, it is, except that there are four trestles (bridges) that are missing, and you have to ride down into the ravine, then back out. The down is not the problem! Luckily, the fourth one is down only, as the trail stops there, at the East Trailhead. Along the way, I got this shot of Richard:

Now, we have to ride vaguely North on a dirt road, for probably three miles. Doesn’t seem too bad, until we get there – it’s VERY sandy, and therefore hard to ride.Hard because it pulls your front wheel this way and that, and also hard just because you sink into it about a half to a full inch, and that makes it quite hard going. And it is ALL uphill, with NEVER a respite. Ugh! A few vehicles pass, but fortunately most of them slow down so as to kick up minimal dust, but of course, there’s always ONE asshole in the bunch. Maybe it was Richard signaling for him to please slow down that did it. Who knew that that was rude! He does slow down, but as soon as he gets even with Richard, he purposely gasses it to kick up maximum dust. Nice!

Later he returns, kicks up a bunch of dust, and flips us off. Nice! He must be the ambassador for the area.

At tho point, there are storms in the distance, and we get sprinkled on a bit:

Anyway, finally very close to the top, and soon we find our return route, which we’ve been led to believe is single-track. Ok, no suspense – “they” lied. It’s double-track, but it IS mostly downhill. Ok, to be fair, from here it looks like it’s ALL downhill, but we’re not to be disappointed for a while. It starts its way down, and gradually gets steeper. Here’s a shot from near the top:

It get steeper further down. Fun stuff! Of course, it also gets rockier, with loose, big rocks, and it would have been a BITCH to ride up – SO glad we listened to those guys!

A few hours after we start, we’re done, and it’s time to go somewhere for food! We choose Eddylime Pub and Brewing Company, get some beers, and some pizzas. The beers were good:

The pizzas were good too, but only good. Moonlight Pizza has nothing to worry about!

Tomorrow, we try the Monarch Crest Trail!

Today, we ride! We’re going to re-ride the part of Little Rainbow that The Bear and I rode the other day, and then we’re going to ride the other side, which none of us have seen.

The ride goes well. Even The Bear and I ride better than we did the other day. We take about 8 minutes off our time out, and almost three minutes on the ride back, so we feel pretty good about that. Richard seems totally unaffected by the altitude. Bastard!

Now, we’re ready for the new section. Logic dictates that it’s all downhill,but this trail is not logical – at the start, we have to climb a bit,but it’s not too bad. A couple of miles out, we hit the Lost Trail, that goes South to the truck. It’s rated Most Difficult, but Richard decides to try it. The Bear and I are not going to do that, so we go on to Race Track, and that one lives up to its name – almost all downhill, and nothing but lefts and rights, and some straightaways, all the way down. A couple of dodgy spots, and the towards the end, one really badly washed out spot that made me come to a screaming stop, but overall, a great amount of fun! Gotta do that one again soon!

A good day!

Today, mostly waiting for Richard White to arrive. This will be fun. Richard is an old-timer from DORBA, and we’ve been on trips together, though it’s been over a decade (maybe two!).

We mostly walk around town, and try to figure out where to ride when there are three of us.