GORC Crested Butte Trip - Day 2: Lupine / Lower Loop

On Day two, the group started our "real" rides with a nice easy introduction to the trails around Crested Butte - the fairly new Lupine Trail and the more established Lower Loop.  These trails were easily accessible from the house we were staying at, so after we all got together, we rode down Gothic Road and into the Saddle Ridge subdivision where the trail started at the end of the cul-de-sac (How cool would that be to have a mountain bike trail literally start right next to your driveway?).  From there, we climbed about 100' along a mostly grassy hillside before we got our first descent.  Then we got a nice quick descent to a gravel road where we would then climb again for a while before descending to the valley floor on some more singletrack.

Along the gravel connector road

View from the gravel.

 

About to head down the second piece of singletrack.

On the way down.

 Once we were down in the valley, we crossed a bridge to another gravel road which started climbing up on the other side of the valley.  Some of the aggressive guys went a few switchbacks too far here and climbed about 1000' feet up this road (and may have taken another trail as well), but the trail we were looking for only required a 100' or so of climbing and the rest of us found it at the second switchback.

Either more descending or in the valley.

At that point, we had a couple miles of mostly flat to downhill singletrack that would take us into Crested Butte, where we stopped at a place called Brick Oven Pizzeria for lunch. They had a nice sized outdoor patio in front of the building, so we commandeered a few tables and kicked back for some adult beverages, appetizers, and of course, pizza.  While they didn't have the Blue Moon that I would've preferred, I did get something that was kind of similar (but not good enough to order more than one - water after that), and the pizza was really good.  Good enough, in fact, that we wound up ordering it again for dinner that night, though I will say that it was much better at the restaurant than at the house after it had cooled off somewhat.

View from our table on the patio.

One of many full bike racks in town.

The only bad thing about being on our bikes at lunch was that now we had a 3+ mile ride back to the house.  This isn't normally an issue, but Mount Crested Butte sits about 500' above Crested Butte, so we had to climb that on full stomachs.  It was time to pay for that 40 mph downhill we had at the beginning of the ride.  It took us probably a half hour to climb that hill, but we eventually made it.  I was happy that I was staying in the offsite condo here, so at least I didn't have to climb quite as far as the guys that had to go back to the house.  Later that afternoon though, rains came through again and we were treated to this nice rainbow off of the patio.

One of the crisper rainbows I've seen.

Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of picture taking today, but this evening I was fortunate enough to secure a MicroSD card (Thanks Tom!) that would work with my phone (I'm forever pushing the limits of my phone's picutre capacity), so for the rest of the trip, I would have plenty of room for pictures on my phone.  

GORC Crested Butte Trip - Day 1: Salida

It's been a while.  July was unbearably hot here in St. Louis, so I haven't been doing a whole lot of riding.  After I got back from Nebraska, there were the Alpine Shop Dirt Crits (more on those soon) and a couple Trailnet BFC rides (okay, I rode in one and just volunteered at registration at one), but other than that, I mostly stayed in the air conditioning all month.  That is, until the afternoon of the 24th when I took off for the much cooler climes of Colorado!  It was still over 100° when I left around 6:00 that afternoon, and it was not real fun driving into the sun as it went down that day.  With the very sloped windows on my car, I could feel the intense heat just beating down into my car all the way across Missouri.  When the sun finally set somewhere close to Kansas City, I could not have been happier.  I stayed with my friend in Topeka that night, and spent the next day crossing Kansas into a (hopefully) much cooler Colorado.

That evening, I made it to another friend's house in the countryside south of Pueblo, and it instantly started feeling better outside.  In fact, as the sun was going down and I was moving my bikes into their garage for the next 36 hours, I almost wanted a jacket!  I hadn't felt like than since, oh, probably March, with the weather we've had this year.  I spent Thursday in Denver before continuing my trek into the mountains Friday morning.  I was told that the plan was to meet at a store called Absolute Bikes in Salida at 9:00, so I left my friends house about 6:30 to make sure I had plenty of time to get there.  I also wanted to take the scenic route along CO 165, 96, and 69 rather than the more direct route up I-25 to US 50.  I was told that 25 & 50 would be faster, but as it turns out, at 7 in the morning, there was barely a car along the lesser traveled state roads, and I made it into Salida about 8:30 or 8:45.  After looking at my phone once I stretched my legs a bit, I saw I had a message saying the guys wouldn't be arriving until 10:30 or 11, so I went to the cafe next door and ordered breakfast.

Isn't this an awesome view?

 Breakfast was just as awesome!

What a breakfast it was!  The view from my table alone was enough to get the wheels spinning about moving to Colorado (full disclosure:  I've had the desire to move there for say, oh, 15 years, but have yet to actually act on it), but the food was yummy as well, and afterwards, I went back to the bike shop to get a tube to replace the flat tire I had on my hardtail.  That took a bit longer than I expected (I wound up breaking 3 tire levers in the process), and by the time I was finished, I started to go look for some place to get some cash from, but then I saw some cars with Illinois & Missouri plates, so I followed them back to the shop and sure enough, it was the rest of the group.

After they spent some money at the shop and got some trail advice from the workers there, we pulled the bikes out and headed to the Salida Mountain Trails, which are right across the Arkansas River from downtown Salida.  First though, we made a stop at the pump track, which was just a few blocks away from the shop.

 

After we had fun there riding around, it was off to the real trails.  We went back through downtown Salida and crossed the river on to the park where the trails were, but before we started climbing, we had to wait for one of the guys to change a flat tire.  Salida is definitely dry, and there were some goatheads that could wreak havoc on your tires at the pump track. 

The mountain.

Once we got going, the trail up wasn't too technical, but it was definitely more climbing than I was used to.  Barely being on my bike for the last month surely didn't help (I say barely, but I did get 150 miles in - it's just that my monthly goal is 210 or so).  The strategy out here is to just gear down and start spinning.  Eventually you'll get to the top.  When you do get to the top, at least you'll be rewarded with some sweet views.

Starting to climb up.

Looking back at the town.

The ride to the top didn't take too long, at least not compared to what I would experience over the next several days.  It wasn't real technical on the way up, but then coming down, there were definitely some more rocky areas where I was showing my lack of technical expertise in this group, so I was just about bringing up the rear by the time we got back down.

Another view of the town.

Rain moving in

Since everyone else in the group had driven through the night to get out to Colorado, this was just a short warm up ride.  I think we only rode 4 or 5 miles in total the first day, and that includes the mileage getting to the trail from our car and back when we finished.  Afterwards, we headed over to Taco Bell for lunch, then headed west to check into our house that we would be staying at for the week.