With summer dwindling, the Colonol and I wanted to get in a solid gravel ride. Ben wanted to see what this whole gravel bike craze was all about, so I lent him my Trek Domane for his virgin drop bar ride – might as well start out with a 57 mile, 5200 foot outing right? A 30 second test ride around his neighborhood in sandles the evening before was all he needed apparently. “I know how to ride a bike” was his justification as he sped through the street in fading light. Read more…
August 5th was the date of this year’s Copper Triangle bike race, a classic road route that traces out a big loop from Copper Village to Leadville to Vail and back to Copper Village. As one of the more well-known road races in the state, it’s a popular one that’s been held annually for a long time. So naturally at some point the mountain bikers came up with their own dirt version of the Copper Triangle which loosely follows a similarly themed loop between Camp Hail and Copper. Also (or perhaps originally) known as the “Copper Three Pass”, the route traverses over Searl and Kokomo Passes along Section 8 of the Colorado Trail. Read more…
One consistent thing about my biking ‘career’ is that it has almost always felt like a massive struggle. Contrary to most other sports (particularly those involving mountains and/or endurance), biking has never really felt natural. Or easy. Or consistently enjoyable. Or that I was ever any good at it. Over the past 20+ years I’ve discovered all kinds of novel ways to realize that me and biking simply aren’t an instinctive fit. I mean, just the inherent challenges of going for the a casual ride are seemingly endless. Keep Reading…
Crooked Gravel is part of the Ride Collective, which includes the classic Copper Triangle, a few races out in Grand Junction and then a tour in New Mexico called Enchanted Circle (which got cancelled this year due to construction projects). It was close to Denver and looked intriguing so I signed up. The race was a hard start at 8am and roughly 350 riders were participating in the 67-mile course. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little intimidated at the start with a bunch of people elbow to elbow, a good portion of whom looked like they were “in it to win it”. My unofficial goal was to finish in under 5 hours. Read more…
