Riding the CT - Denver to Buffalo Creek
My pal, Dana and I are planning to ride the Colorado Trail (CT) from Denver to Leadville this season. Now Dana is an endurance athlete - she mainly road bikes(she's a fast and fit) and does 24hour adventure days. Crazy stuff like rides her bike to Estes Park, hikes Longs Peak, rides her bike back to Boulder, paddles around the Rez a couple of times and then hikes up the Flatirons - all in one fell swoop and without stopping much.
however she just dabbles in mtn biking - so doing the CT trek will be something different for her. In the interest of recon - we (along with my buddy, Mark) rode from Denver to Buffalo Creek last Friday.
It promised to be a ~35mile day of mostly singletrack. yippeee!!!
Starting off
Here's Dana and a new friend
We started off ~9:30am - predicting anywhere from 6 to 8 hours total time. Up the familiar dirt road toward the Colorado Trail. I was riding the Safire that day.
It was warm when we started but I hoped it would cool down as we got up higher.
It's GREEN!
Once we reached Lenny's Rest and headed toward the Platt river - Mark commented that it looks like motos have not been riding the trail and he speculated that the Forest Service has banned them this year. The trail was very green and sometimes overgrown in places. Here's a pic Dana on the green, green trail.
Here's Mark in the green - his face is partially obscured by a leave - Mark will appreciate the irony in this. ;)
It's an awesome ride from to the Platt River (~13miles in). The descent to the Platt has around 20 switchbacks to negotiate. fun, fun, fun! Here's a pic of me approaching switchback #17.
It's HOT outside!
We had hoped the heat would let up - but it hadn't - it had gotten hotter. By this time it was around 12:30. We took a little lunch break by the Platt River. We all checked our water supply - I had started out with 100oz, dana with 132oz and Mark with 132oz. Dana and I had been drinking consistently and we both still had ~50oz left. Mark on the other hand (he is bigger than us) only had ~30 oz left and we still had 23 miles to go! yikes...
Mark filled up his bottle in the river and threw in some iodine tablets.
Climbing the burn area
I mentioned the climb out the Platt in my last post. My words do not do justice to this climb. it's about as bad as the climb from dewey bridge. Climbing in that open burn area is like being in an oven. And all those little power moves just suck the juice out of your muscles. This climb is unrelenting. Dana was as tough as nails and hung in there - whenever I stopped - i'd see her ride up with a smile on her face. (or it might've been a grimace)
It took us ~1.3 hours to go a whopping 5 miles. We finally stopped in the shade at mile 18. Whew - half way there!
Oh and I had a flat. Jason had Stan's-ed up the rear tire for me and apparently it wasn't holding air very well (maybe that contributed to that climb being so hard??). I tired to pump it up but it wasn't holding air. So I threw a tube in it.
Are we done yet?
After we hit the trees - the terrain was rolling and trended upward. But it was so nice to be in the shade. At this point Mark was a bit worried as he was pretty much out of water. We rolled through the trees and were able to roll a bit faster.
I guess we spent ~4miles in the trees and then the terrain opened up into more burn area. Oh my! Even tho we were in the open and the terrain was rolling it trended downward. We clicked off the next ~6miles in a quick fashion. It was really beautiful too. I can't believe how GREEN everything is in late June! Dana said she was so busy looking at the scenery she accidentally rolled off the trial!
Dana and i rolling the last 6 miles of Segment #2
We hit CR 126 and saw the local firestation. there is an outside water spigot so we filled up with water.
The last 6 miles were really uneventful as we rode the CT to road 550 and took the road to Buffalo Campground.
Aftermath
Our friend, Angela picked us up and we were really glad to see her. Total time out 6:57 - ride time 5:27 and ~35 miles.
I had a 40th birthday party to go to after the ride and wondered how I'd hold up. Dana dropped me off in Golden. i was stinky, covered in suncreen and dirty. but I'm glad I went - my friend, Ann, is such a great person and has awesome friends.
I did have an interesting encounter - later in the evening ~8:30 - some guy walks up to me, puts his hand on my back and leans in to tell me something. i didn't know this guy and my first instinct was to pull back as I smelled so bad I didn't want anyone to be that close to me. He said "I just wanted to say - I noticed you earlier and you are a very attractive woman. I had to tell you before i Ieave. Have a nice evening" and then he walked away. I was taken aback and said "thank-you". It was flattering for sure - esp since I was so grungy. My friend Vickie goes - "it's a good thing it's dusk and he couldn't see all the sunscreen you have caked on your face". hee-hee...
here's pic of my jersey - it's almost white in places from all the salt I sweated out.
however she just dabbles in mtn biking - so doing the CT trek will be something different for her. In the interest of recon - we (along with my buddy, Mark) rode from Denver to Buffalo Creek last Friday.
It promised to be a ~35mile day of mostly singletrack. yippeee!!!
Starting off
Here's Dana and a new friend
We started off ~9:30am - predicting anywhere from 6 to 8 hours total time. Up the familiar dirt road toward the Colorado Trail. I was riding the Safire that day.
It was warm when we started but I hoped it would cool down as we got up higher.
It's GREEN!
Once we reached Lenny's Rest and headed toward the Platt river - Mark commented that it looks like motos have not been riding the trail and he speculated that the Forest Service has banned them this year. The trail was very green and sometimes overgrown in places. Here's a pic Dana on the green, green trail.
Here's Mark in the green - his face is partially obscured by a leave - Mark will appreciate the irony in this. ;)
It's an awesome ride from to the Platt River (~13miles in). The descent to the Platt has around 20 switchbacks to negotiate. fun, fun, fun! Here's a pic of me approaching switchback #17.
It's HOT outside!
We had hoped the heat would let up - but it hadn't - it had gotten hotter. By this time it was around 12:30. We took a little lunch break by the Platt River. We all checked our water supply - I had started out with 100oz, dana with 132oz and Mark with 132oz. Dana and I had been drinking consistently and we both still had ~50oz left. Mark on the other hand (he is bigger than us) only had ~30 oz left and we still had 23 miles to go! yikes...
Mark filled up his bottle in the river and threw in some iodine tablets.
Climbing the burn area
I mentioned the climb out the Platt in my last post. My words do not do justice to this climb. it's about as bad as the climb from dewey bridge. Climbing in that open burn area is like being in an oven. And all those little power moves just suck the juice out of your muscles. This climb is unrelenting. Dana was as tough as nails and hung in there - whenever I stopped - i'd see her ride up with a smile on her face. (or it might've been a grimace)
It took us ~1.3 hours to go a whopping 5 miles. We finally stopped in the shade at mile 18. Whew - half way there!
Oh and I had a flat. Jason had Stan's-ed up the rear tire for me and apparently it wasn't holding air very well (maybe that contributed to that climb being so hard??). I tired to pump it up but it wasn't holding air. So I threw a tube in it.
Are we done yet?
After we hit the trees - the terrain was rolling and trended upward. But it was so nice to be in the shade. At this point Mark was a bit worried as he was pretty much out of water. We rolled through the trees and were able to roll a bit faster.
I guess we spent ~4miles in the trees and then the terrain opened up into more burn area. Oh my! Even tho we were in the open and the terrain was rolling it trended downward. We clicked off the next ~6miles in a quick fashion. It was really beautiful too. I can't believe how GREEN everything is in late June! Dana said she was so busy looking at the scenery she accidentally rolled off the trial!
Dana and i rolling the last 6 miles of Segment #2
We hit CR 126 and saw the local firestation. there is an outside water spigot so we filled up with water.
The last 6 miles were really uneventful as we rode the CT to road 550 and took the road to Buffalo Campground.
Aftermath
Our friend, Angela picked us up and we were really glad to see her. Total time out 6:57 - ride time 5:27 and ~35 miles.
I had a 40th birthday party to go to after the ride and wondered how I'd hold up. Dana dropped me off in Golden. i was stinky, covered in suncreen and dirty. but I'm glad I went - my friend, Ann, is such a great person and has awesome friends.
I did have an interesting encounter - later in the evening ~8:30 - some guy walks up to me, puts his hand on my back and leans in to tell me something. i didn't know this guy and my first instinct was to pull back as I smelled so bad I didn't want anyone to be that close to me. He said "I just wanted to say - I noticed you earlier and you are a very attractive woman. I had to tell you before i Ieave. Have a nice evening" and then he walked away. I was taken aback and said "thank-you". It was flattering for sure - esp since I was so grungy. My friend Vickie goes - "it's a good thing it's dusk and he couldn't see all the sunscreen you have caked on your face". hee-hee...
here's pic of my jersey - it's almost white in places from all the salt I sweated out.
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