Georgia Pass with Jefferson Creek 07/21

Amber and I headed up to do Georgia Pass. We had tried this ride 3 or 4 times before and never finished it. Once was because of a storm as we approached the treeline, the other times were simply because we came to early in the season and there was still to much snow.

This time we got a nice early start - and what a reward. The riding on this section of the Colorado trail and then back down Jefferson Creek is just amazingly fun. It is entirely likely we will go back and do it again next weekend it was that much fun.

This ride is typically done by starting at Kenosha Pass, but we opted to start down near Jefferson Creek as a big part of the section over near Kenosha is hot and exposed and it was a really hot day. I also wanted to make sure we got to beat the afternoon storms so eliminating 5 or so miles of the trail was what we did.)

We joined the trail about a mile before the Jefferson Creek road and this section is fun and technical as well. (there is a dirt road that weekend campers use that lets you access the trail without having to pay the usage fee that is required if you drive in along Jefferson creek road).

I didn't get many photos of the climb up, but it is actually pretty fun climbing. There is some nice technical sections but mostly you just get to sit and pedal. The climb from Jefferson Creek road to where we took the trail down Jefferson Creek is about 6 miles of climbing.


We played leap frog with a fairly big group of nice guys who were doing the ride as a point to point from Kenosha across to Breckenridge. That also seems like it would be an excellent option but a bit more involved with a very long shuttle drive. Being Colorado their group ranged from people on Nomad's and 575's to single speed full rigid. (of course the guy on the single speed was way out in front on the climbing)


Once you break out of the tree line the views start. Both Amber and I were fading by the time we were above the tree line and breaks became more common to recover your breath. (you are above 11K once you clear the tree line)


Just after the junction with the Jefferson Creek trail you are greeted with a sight that can only make any mountain biker ecstatic. Thin single track that drops down and travels beneath a huge bowl. It was a great section of riding that was fun, fast and technically enjoyable as well. It is hard to see in the photo but the trail dives down and runs parallel all the way under the snow line.


Amber on the last section above the tree line.

Once you enter the dark timber the trail steepens up significantly and the riding is (still) amazingly fun.


There is a section of many switch backs - most of which were really steep and, mostly we couldn't ride them. There was also a section in these switch backs with a number of fallen trees that you needed to lift your bike over or drag it under) Still some great riding even with the disruptions.


Once you are out of the switch backs the trail just is awesome. It actually reminded me of some of the (natural) trails in British Columbia. Great riding with roots and rocks that needed you to keep momentum.


It was hard to stop and take photos.


Towards the bottom you started to get wetter sections again and logs had been laid a long time ago to stabilize the trail and they were also great fun to ride over.

The Jefferson Creek trail is about 5 miles of descent and is easily one of the most fun sections of single track I have ridden in Colorado. This is a must do ride and having it as a reward after climbing to Georgia Pass is most excellent.

Mt Hood Oregon Trip

Amber went on a 5 day trip with Western Spirit riding singletrack around Mt Hood, Oregon. She decided she wanted to do this because she couldn't get the time of to go on the Whistler trip I was planning on doing in September later in the year.

Below are some random photos that Amber needs to write words around. She didn't get a lot of photos because she was riding up in the front mostly with the hammer heads in the group and stopping to take photos was a lower priority to pounding along and enjoying (suffering :p ) the riding.


The Group on Day 1 after riding uphill to this lookout with a Mt. Hood view. We got to ride back downhill to our campsite for the week. This was the best downhill of the entire trip. I ended up doing it three times during the week :)


A Day 2 section. Day two was a bit hideous as we rode downhill first, and then suffered uphill on the way out, which was a different way than we had ridden down. I told the guides that I would NEVER take anyone on this ride ever. The day's riding was dramatically improved as some of us that wanted more riding for the day combined it with the Day 1 ride that included the awesome downhill back into camp.


Another Day 2 section. This was the bottom of the downhill beginning of the day's ride. We had lunch here and hung out for quite awhile delaying the inevitable uphill exit.


A day 3 section. This was a bunny ears loop with views of three mountain peaks and some nice up and down and winding riding. Today was a lot of FUN riding.


View at the end of Day 3


Day 4 view. This was a 30 mile day on a HOT ridge part of the way, but fortunately there were some parts of the ride that were pleasant riding in the trees.


Another Day 4 view. We had some great views of Mt. Hood on this day, but this was another out and back day with lots of uphill suffering both ways. Also, I'm pretty sure that if I was riding with Sean we would have taken the ride at a much more pleasant/slower pace. I think this was actually a really nice ride....if only the group would have gone a bit slower and stopped sometime before the 15 mile mark.


Taking a break on Day 4. This was one of the guides on a single speed, and one of the strong uphill riders of the group.


A day 4 section. Another one of the riders on one of several wooden bridges that we crossed. I took a lot of pictures on the way back on day 4 because I was not in the mood to do "race pace" riding on the way back that day.


The lead guides bikes he used on the tour - Single speed pain and suffering. Day 5 riding was ALL downhill in which we were dropped at the top and one of the guides waited for us at the bottom. I did this ride substantially faster than anyone else in the group because I was the only one on the tour that really loved going fast downhill. There were a lot more people that enjoyed the rolling hill riding, flats, and uphills instead of the awesome downhill singletrack and technical bits that were way more fun for me :)

Keystone days 07/07 and 07/14

No photos - but both of these days were Keystone days.

On the 7th Amber and I went to keystone and she did a couple of runs on my Intense M1 while I road my Mojo. (we did this because Amber's mojo was waiting for her in Oregon).

I had been very interested to try my Mojo on the Keystone Super D runs to get a feel for how it performs in that environment. The run we did was the same used at a recent Competition G3 Gravity Series. It is a mostly Blue run with a section of single black and no drops. Girlscouts (Keystone Climax SD start) / TNT / Logger's Way / Boyscouts / Cadillac Road / Bluegrass / Sleepy Hollow / Easy Street / River Run Trail to finish.

I was very happy with how the Mojo performed and felt. Hand Timed and without the super-d Le Mans start I managed a lazy 21.55 and that involved a couple of waits for people to move out of the way.

Interestingly though, later in the day I did the same run on my Intense and it felt significantly faster so I feel like I have some tuning or tweeking to do on the mojo suspension as I think it should be able to rail that terrain at the same sorts of speeds as my big bike. The main difference is that I had to brake a lot less on the big bike in the rough stuff in the TNT section.

Amber said it took some getting used to riding the big bike and decided that she needed to ride more in a manner of "steer more but control less". As the big bike for her just needed to be directed and then for her to trust it over the rough stuff. All in all a fun day.

On the 14th I was there solo and had an excellent time until I had to go pick Amber up from the airport as she returned from Oregon.

Searle Pass - July 4th

So feeling much more determined and committed this time we headed back to Searle Pass for the July 4th holiday. We had left the sent set up in a great camping spot from the weekend and figured that by heading up Tuesday night we would get a nice early start the next day to beat the afternoon storms. We tried Searle Pass last summer but didn't get an early enough start and had to turn around just above the tree line as a storm rolled in and the lightning started.

This time were riding at a much early (for us) time of about 10.00am.

For some reason both Amber and I just didn't feel pumped or energetic as we started the climbing. The way Searle works is that you have some pretty steep climbing for the first 2-3miles until the trail opens up into a meadow. It then gets steeper again as you climb out of the dark timber just beneath the Tree Line.

You start the ride at 10,000' and climb up to Searle Pass which is 12,063'. It is generally done as an out and back but you can continue on to Kokomo Pass or even further if you are so inclined. For us it was 8 miles up to Searle Pass and then 8 miles back down.


We hung in there and plugged away at the initial climbing. A lot of the first part of the trail is really dusty because they run guided horse groups on it. It is not that bad though and pretty quickly the horses are sent of in another direction and you get nice single track along the Colorado trail.

We took plenty of breaks to make sure we just kept moving along.


After the initial grunt of a climb both Amber and I started to feel much better and the climbing started to pass more quickly.


Until we got above the tree line and Amber slowed down dramatically. I lost sight of her a few times and she took this as endorsement to stop and take lots of photos of flowers. I think she was just using it as an excuse to slowly make her way up to the pass. Here is a nice photo is some pretty flowers.


Once Amber joined me at the top we turned back downhill pretty quickly because there was a large group of riders that had ridden up from the Leadville side that were getting ready to head down to Copper as well and we didn't really want to get stuck behind them in the fun downhill riding ahead.

One of the group was riding a Ibis Mojo :) It was the first other mojo we had run into out on the trails and it was fun chatting with him and forming a mini self-adoration society at 12,000'.

I headed out from the pass first and Amber got caught behind one of the group, but quickly passed him the technical rocky stuff that the trail goes through up near the pass. The last section up there is in a scree slope and has some really nice riding in it. We never saw the group again which somewhat surprised me as I thought they would catch us lower down in the trees since we had to wait for Moab to catch up all the time.


The riding on the way down is just amazing, fun and fast with just a few more technical sections like this waterfall crossing. It is descents like this one that make you just love riding and love your bike.


This is one of the last sections before you head back into the trees again. We passed a group of riders on their way up that had full face helmets and plenty of armor. This is a ride that you can really pin the descent on and I was happy to have my knees and arms protected for some of the fast somewhat loose sections further down the trail.


This is probably the most technical section and it was not that bad at all, just a little section of steep and rooty riding that made sure you were focused on what you were doing.


This is a fairly typical section of faster descending with either a few loose rocks or some exposed baby heads to ride over. It was the sort of riding that is just plain and simple fun to come down as fast as you can and to stay of the brakes as much as possible.


The clouds started to form up a bit more as we got further down the trail and by the time we were back at our camp site the lightning had started. It was a good call to get going early and get of the mountain before the storms rolled in.


Oh, and the riding was pretty decent!


Back down near the end the trail gets a bit more beat up from the horse traffic and you get some uphill sections thrown at you just to make sure you are good and tired at the end of the ride.

It is definitely a ride you can repeat many times. The scenery above the treeline and along the beaver ponds is great and the riding on the way back is just world class. Just be prepared to work hard at altitude.

Semi-Lazy weekend in the mountains - June 30th

We were all packed and planning on heading the Crested Butte this weekend but I had been wavering all day while at work on whether I wanted to do the drive and put up with the bugs and the crowds that would likely be there for the end of the Fat Tire festival. We were literally in the car leaving Boulder when we decided to stay closer to home for the weekend instead.

We got up fairly late Saturday morning and headed up to around the Keystone/Frisco area intending on deciding up there what we wanted to ride. We knew for sure we wanted to stop in at Keystone and watch some of the first stop in the G3 Gravity Series. But beyond that we were undecided between riding Searle Pass (a section of the Colorado Trail next to Copper Mountain) or perhaps downhilling at Vail. So we packed all 3 bikes that would let us choose E) - any of the above.



Strapping the 3rd bike to the top actually worked surprisingly well.

We also found a great camping spot just of the road from Copper the Leadville that had all the traffic noise muffled by the river flowing noise.

Suffice to say we didn't get much riding in. We eventually decided that Searle Pass was the preferred option and headed over there after lunch on Saturday only to find that the normal parking lot up near the stables was now a work site for even more condo's for the resort. We didn't really feel like find another parking lot that wasn't close by and bailed on the Saturday ride option and headed back to Keystone to watch more of the racing.

In the afternoon I did a little fishing in the stream by the camp, it was fun but unsuccessful.





Sunday morning we once again got up and decided that we should try Searle Pass again and headed down to Copper Mountain and found a parking lot closer to the trail head. Sadly we got about 2 mile into the climb when Amber realized that her bike (which was her old Cake since the Mojo was mailed to Oregon) had no brakes at all.

Searle Pass is an 8 mile out and back with most of the riding on the way back all being fast and fun downhill - no brakes doesn't work so well for that sort of thing. My Mojo was also riding really funky and it wasn't until the end of the ride I realized I had the seat set much to high after I had swapped to Speedball seat post.

We took it as a sign and bailed on riding all together and headed back to home early to avoid the traffic.

It ended up being a fun and relaxing weekend but mostly lazy. We decided to leave the tent set up and to come back up Tuesday night to ride Searle Pass on the Holiday (July 4th).

My downhill Bike

I picked up this bike at the end of last summer for $1100 from Craig's List and road it at keystone and vail for the end of the downhill season. Over the winter I upgraded a few key components and now it rides like a dream!

It is a medium Intense M1, I am not sure of the year but I think it is one of the latter models of the M1 before it was replaced by the M3. At the end of the season I was torn as to whether the size of the frame was correct for me. For some reason the bike felt really good in the steep trails at Vail but just didn't feel right at Keystone. But I couldn't decide if it was me not being comfortable riding all the time in crouch position or something about the sizing of the bike.

when I got the bike from craigslist it came with:
- Stock wheels - 3" tires with a 26" front and 24" rear doublewide Sun Rims
- Stock Stratos fork
- XTR rear derailleur
- Chris King headset
- Vanilla RC coil rear suspension
- Hayes Brakes

I changed:
- the stock Stratos fork to a Boxxer Team, this was a really nice upgrade as the fork was about 2lbs lighter and just flat out a far superior fork. The bike now absolutely floats through the fast and rocky stuff at Keystone where as before I never really felt like I could open up the speed in those conditions. It always felt good in the smoother terrain at Vail but now it rides amazing at keystone as well.

- The wheels and tires I changed to Mavic DeeTrax hubs/rims and am running 2.7" Maxxis minion DH front and 2.5" Maxxis minion DH rear. This was another great change that lightened the bike by another 2'lbs (approx).

- Replaced the rear drive chain area to now be a Shimano road cassette rear and Shimano 105 Road rear dérailleur. These changes were based on advice from Alex at The Fix. With the old rear 24" wheel and the longer rear dérailleur I used to always get the chain sucked down inside the swing arm and trapped against the tire. Now the chain line has no problems at all.

- Added MRP bashguard and Chain Tensioner. I did this at the end of last summer to try and fix the problem where the chain would bounce down between the swing arm and the tire when going fast through small bump terrain.

Intense M1 - 42lbs with pedals
Fork: Boxxer Team 8" Travel
Rear Suspension: Vanilla RC 8" Travel
Front Wheel: Mavix Deetrax, 2.7" Maxxis Minion DHF
Rear Wheel: Mavix Deetrax, 2.5" Maxxis Minion DHR
Cranks: Race Face with Azonic Flats and single front ring
Bash + Chain Guide: MRP
Rear dérailleur: Shimano 105 road