Collision Course

Got out for a good ride Thursday with Eric again. This time a paved, dirt, gravel, dirt loop since the wind was down and the temps were up. All in all it was perfect except for 20% of Cow Creek. I'd heard it was dry and good to go. It mostly was, except for when it wasn't. Which when it wasn't, it really wasn't. Either way it was fun. Like cross racing without the cross racing and just the fun mud.

 

 

Once the road cleared up it was smooth sailing until the near assailing. I happened to look over and saw a herd of deer racing parallel until the road turned across their path. We stopped to avoid calamity and witnessed 1 or 2 get temporarily hung up in the barbed wire with misjudged jump attempts. They kept cruising once across the road as well.

A few miles later as we were making our way up the paved climb back towards town the same running herd crossed in front of our path again. Silly deer. Must have been looking for Eli, they always seem to love to take him out on his bikes.

Shoulder Season

It has been an adjustment coming from two-season Tennessee to six-season Steamboat. TN was either wet and cold season or wet and hot season with a few perfect days interspersed just enough throughout the year so you'd forget how really miserable the two weather seasons were. If the few perfect days weren't enough to convince you, winter would throw in some really horrid ice storms or snow storms to remind you to be grateful the two miserable weather seasons weren't worse. 

Not only do I get the full 4 seasons to enjoy here: winter, spring, summer, and fall, but I also get 2 new bonus seasons called "shoulder" or "mud" seasons. They pretty much exist in between winter and spring, then again between fall and winter. This "shoulder/mud" season is when trails are either wet from snow melt or wet from not-really-good-for-much snow.  

Magically this year we have experienced 8 seasons, with 4 full shoulder/mud seasons interspersed between the other 4 seasons. Yay! What a load of crap. We had winter, then mud season, then spring, then snow for another mud season, then summer, and then on the summer solstice 24" of snow and another few weeks of mud season, then fall, then 60-some inches of early snow shoulder season, and winter is still yet to come.

Luckily we have a lot of mixed surface options to keep us busy in between seasons. What better shoulder season activity than shoulder seasons urbangrabblecross. Timing is key. Gotta hit it when it's warmer than 20 out but early enough to not be completely shite from freeze/thaw, but back in time for the sun not to go down and thaw/freeze catch you out. 

Shoulder seasons aren't that bad really. The dry alpine air temps combined with all of our 300+ days of sunshine make 30-40 degree days feel like a TN 60-70, so you can actually enjoy being outside and active. The only thing that sucks is that all the dirt options are covered in mud or un-fun snow (as in more mud and slime than snow even for fat biking). Living dreams. 

Cross of the North

JD and I headed out to Fort Collins for the weekend. New Belgium Brewery was hosting the CX of the North races this weekend and the trails were dry with a 70 degree and sunny forecast. Time to leave the boat bubble for a while and spend some QT with the FoCo Fam. 

The amount of green space, open space, bike space, trails (dirt, gravel, and paved), rivers and creeks, and bike routes that FoCo has (and is still building) is amazing. Coming from Nashvegas, I never would have imaged a place could be this amazing outside of Bentonville and it's Walton money. Ryan and I headed out from the homestead on some green belt trails over to the Pineridge Natural area to hit up some dirt before cutting back East on mixed dirt and paved trails over to the Spring Creek trail and eventually over to the Poudre Trail and up to New Belgium. We hit every dirt off-shoot we could catch in time. 

After 22 miles of trails to get to a location 8 miles away, we met up with the girls and enjoyed some food trucks and brews at New Belgium while taking in some CX racing. The new Hop Adventure and Mountain time brews are pretty legit too, btw. And who doesn't love a freakin' artisan corn dog?

My favorite bike of the day: Rock Lobster in Seafoam green. 

Sunday was up early after our Pizza and O.G. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie night for some Coyote Ridge riding with Rox. Her second ride on her new YT and she's killing the rocky tech descents. It was fun continuing my underbiking streak. Also glad no new rim dings were acquired while playing underbike in the rocks. Precisely why I can't have nice things, but also why the things I have are the things I have. Dinged but dependable. Damaged but still rolling, just like me. 

As usual, the weekends are always several days too short and JD and I found ourselves navigating the Poudre canyon yet again. Racing daylight and elevation snow packs, we managed to eek out a quick hike up Dadd's Gulch before the sun and temps dropped. Always good to get out and stretch the legs and enjoy the time in the Poudre. One of my favorite places in Colorado. Please don't ruin it.

I love the pre-winter and early spring jaunts into the higher mountains when the sun is still warm, the skies are deep blue, and the trail runs from warm and dry to cold and snow several times within the same mile of trail. The clear and icy water runoff filling the streams and creeks, perfect for filtering refills into water bottles. Straight from the source.

While exploring, JD and I found our perfect 2019 Charlie Brown Christmas Christmas tree. Rather than kill it for killing sake, I'll settle for a photo. I'll print it and hang it on the wall for decorating. She's a beaut though, isn't she Clark? (Good Grief)

Timing worked out to get to watch the sunset and colors change amongst several of my favorite mountains. Something pretty magical about being surrounded by the Never Summers, Medicine Bow, and Rabbit Ears Range Mountains. Not to be missed if you can ever make the trek. You'll not be let down. Magic.