Yesterday I did Molas Pass to Durango on the Colorado Trail. I've never done a ride like this before, and thought you folks may like it.
No action shots, 'cuz it's hard to convince friends to do an 75 mile/8500' mountain bike ride, much of it in alpine during an active monsson season. imagine that.
Also, it's hard to sum up a 15 hour ride in a few pictures. so for the tl;dr crowd you may just want to skim it or skip it.
EDIT to add: these pictures all looked a lot better on my iphone. sorry for the shaky blurry photos.
I started at 6AM. It had rained hard the evening before, so some clouds were starting to lift out of the valleys.
It was early, and I was fresh, so I was popping off lots of pictures.
Yeah. I like living here. a lot. I've only been here for a year but I take this for granted. What, you're local trails don't have eye candy like this?
Here I'm getting close to the top of my first climb, Rolling Pass. I was making decent time (1:45 to Rolling) but I had to put the camera away for a bit and plug away some miles.
It was cool (at this point) to spend some time riding hard and gave me a chance to do some reflecting. Not to get to cheezy with the mtbr crowd...but life has been very good to me lately. Great friends, great place to live, job i love, amazing wife and truly incredible badass little children. everything has been coming together for me and I spent some endorphin-fueled miles here focusing on how fortunate i have been.
I had never ridden this section and whoa. it was sick. (from Cascade Divide cut-off to Celebration Lake)
When I got to Celebration Lake (about 22 miles into it) I met a group of guys from Telluride. They were riding the next 10 miles of the CT the same direction. It was just starting to rain, but we pushed forward to Blackhawk Pass. By the time we got to Blackhawk the sun was out. I was feeling strong and only took a few pictures of this segment because I wanted to keep moving. This was about mileage 23-33ish.
Hermosa Peak
I was feeling good and strong and it was fun to leap-frog with some other guys. One of 'em had done this same ride before and he was encouraging, and another dude had a mutual friend. I pounded some of their Guinness ontop of Blackhawk and took off, on my own schedule. One of my favorite downhills in the area from Blackhawk to Hotel Draw.
This is after Hotel Draw as the CT climbs (slowly) through mixed conifers for the next 16 miles to Indian Trail ridge. Specifically, this is looking down Coral Draw.
I didn't take too many pictures because it mostly looked like this. for a very. long. time.
Somewhere in this segment I bent my derailleur (or the hanger, still not really sure) which rendered my little ring up front useless (at least I think this is the problem...the chain wraps around the ring and gets chain-sucked in the chain-stay every 5-10 pedal strokes). Maybe the chain is stretched? So I was trying to do this segmentt (total from Hotel Draw to Kennebec is over 20 miles and 3700' of climbing. That on top of the 40+miles and 4500'+ of climbing I had already completed). In retrospect I should have turned around, as trying to pedal up this section with tired legs and mashing the middle ring wasn't working for me. Turning around would not have been an "easy" out, at all. So I kept going. I walked a lot of rideable terrain. This was not only putting me way behind "schedule" but also fking with my head. I was now moving slow, food tasted terrible, I was a long way from home and lost my mojo. But, I pushed through. digging deep.
Sht started getting really real as I neared Indian Trail Ridge. I had friends and family calling and texting at this point to see how i was doing (awesome of them. remember that "reflecting on how lucky I am" part?). I was so slow through this section. But somehow the skies were not clouding up and I just took my bike on a long walk over the ridge. This was a section I had never ridden and while the trail was not as great riding as other segments, it was in-your-grill views.
As Indian Trail Ridge led into Kennebec Pass I took a picture from where I came from. See the mountains wayyyyyy off in the distance? i started on the other side of them.
At this point, I had to put the camera away. Kennebec Pass to Slide Rock was uneventful but was getting late (was at Kennebec at 6PM, 12 hours after I started. And 6 hours after Hotel Draw. That section with no little ring killed me.
I chilled and ate on top of Kennebec before the downhill to Champion Ventures mine. Here at the mine (7PM, 13hrs in) I had a tough decision. Bail on the CT and take Junction Ck Road all the way home (longer mileage but no significant climbing) or soldier on through the CT. I have ridden this section many times and I knew that after 60 miles Wall's Gulch (1500' climb) was going to kill me if I couldn't sit-and-spin in my granny. Not to mention, it's a pretty remote section of trail and any further mechanicals would have made me bonkers). I did have my light by I wasn't to stoked to use it.
So, I opted for the dirt road. which was not "all down hill" as I had told myself. The camera was put away. So no pictures. Imagine a 20 mile dirt road through the forest. At least i could middle ring all the ups. and I did. It was not as easy as I had hoped but was manageable.
I got home at 9PM, 15hrs of riding time. About 75 miles and 8500' of climbing.
Well deserved
It was a bittersweet ending to not finish the whole CT, but I still feel like I made it home from Molas Pass.
Also, its a reminder that there are some strong mother****ers around here. Travis Brown just finished the same ride (with Wall's) in ~8:45! Purely a way higher level.
good times. sorry for all the scenics. action shots would've been boring of xc geeks being all nerdy anyway, so you're not missing much.
No action shots, 'cuz it's hard to convince friends to do an 75 mile/8500' mountain bike ride, much of it in alpine during an active monsson season. imagine that.
Also, it's hard to sum up a 15 hour ride in a few pictures. so for the tl;dr crowd you may just want to skim it or skip it.
EDIT to add: these pictures all looked a lot better on my iphone. sorry for the shaky blurry photos.
I started at 6AM. It had rained hard the evening before, so some clouds were starting to lift out of the valleys.
It was early, and I was fresh, so I was popping off lots of pictures.
Yeah. I like living here. a lot. I've only been here for a year but I take this for granted. What, you're local trails don't have eye candy like this?
Here I'm getting close to the top of my first climb, Rolling Pass. I was making decent time (1:45 to Rolling) but I had to put the camera away for a bit and plug away some miles.
It was cool (at this point) to spend some time riding hard and gave me a chance to do some reflecting. Not to get to cheezy with the mtbr crowd...but life has been very good to me lately. Great friends, great place to live, job i love, amazing wife and truly incredible badass little children. everything has been coming together for me and I spent some endorphin-fueled miles here focusing on how fortunate i have been.
I had never ridden this section and whoa. it was sick. (from Cascade Divide cut-off to Celebration Lake)
When I got to Celebration Lake (about 22 miles into it) I met a group of guys from Telluride. They were riding the next 10 miles of the CT the same direction. It was just starting to rain, but we pushed forward to Blackhawk Pass. By the time we got to Blackhawk the sun was out. I was feeling strong and only took a few pictures of this segment because I wanted to keep moving. This was about mileage 23-33ish.
Hermosa Peak
I was feeling good and strong and it was fun to leap-frog with some other guys. One of 'em had done this same ride before and he was encouraging, and another dude had a mutual friend. I pounded some of their Guinness ontop of Blackhawk and took off, on my own schedule. One of my favorite downhills in the area from Blackhawk to Hotel Draw.
This is after Hotel Draw as the CT climbs (slowly) through mixed conifers for the next 16 miles to Indian Trail ridge. Specifically, this is looking down Coral Draw.
I didn't take too many pictures because it mostly looked like this. for a very. long. time.
Somewhere in this segment I bent my derailleur (or the hanger, still not really sure) which rendered my little ring up front useless (at least I think this is the problem...the chain wraps around the ring and gets chain-sucked in the chain-stay every 5-10 pedal strokes). Maybe the chain is stretched? So I was trying to do this segmentt (total from Hotel Draw to Kennebec is over 20 miles and 3700' of climbing. That on top of the 40+miles and 4500'+ of climbing I had already completed). In retrospect I should have turned around, as trying to pedal up this section with tired legs and mashing the middle ring wasn't working for me. Turning around would not have been an "easy" out, at all. So I kept going. I walked a lot of rideable terrain. This was not only putting me way behind "schedule" but also fking with my head. I was now moving slow, food tasted terrible, I was a long way from home and lost my mojo. But, I pushed through. digging deep.
Sht started getting really real as I neared Indian Trail Ridge. I had friends and family calling and texting at this point to see how i was doing (awesome of them. remember that "reflecting on how lucky I am" part?). I was so slow through this section. But somehow the skies were not clouding up and I just took my bike on a long walk over the ridge. This was a section I had never ridden and while the trail was not as great riding as other segments, it was in-your-grill views.
As Indian Trail Ridge led into Kennebec Pass I took a picture from where I came from. See the mountains wayyyyyy off in the distance? i started on the other side of them.
At this point, I had to put the camera away. Kennebec Pass to Slide Rock was uneventful but was getting late (was at Kennebec at 6PM, 12 hours after I started. And 6 hours after Hotel Draw. That section with no little ring killed me.
I chilled and ate on top of Kennebec before the downhill to Champion Ventures mine. Here at the mine (7PM, 13hrs in) I had a tough decision. Bail on the CT and take Junction Ck Road all the way home (longer mileage but no significant climbing) or soldier on through the CT. I have ridden this section many times and I knew that after 60 miles Wall's Gulch (1500' climb) was going to kill me if I couldn't sit-and-spin in my granny. Not to mention, it's a pretty remote section of trail and any further mechanicals would have made me bonkers). I did have my light by I wasn't to stoked to use it.
So, I opted for the dirt road. which was not "all down hill" as I had told myself. The camera was put away. So no pictures. Imagine a 20 mile dirt road through the forest. At least i could middle ring all the ups. and I did. It was not as easy as I had hoped but was manageable.
I got home at 9PM, 15hrs of riding time. About 75 miles and 8500' of climbing.
Well deserved
It was a bittersweet ending to not finish the whole CT, but I still feel like I made it home from Molas Pass.
Also, its a reminder that there are some strong mother****ers around here. Travis Brown just finished the same ride (with Wall's) in ~8:45! Purely a way higher level.
good times. sorry for all the scenics. action shots would've been boring of xc geeks being all nerdy anyway, so you're not missing much.