A TBD Colorado Weekend Roll - A Beautiful Weekend of Exploring
Let’s be honest - we’re all losing it a bit. We can’t go out to a restaurant, or plan a trip, or go on a cruise (okay, we have no interest in going on a cruise, but you get the idea). However, it’s spring in Colorado, which is arguably the best time of year… and here on TBD Colorado we’re lucky enough to be able to get out on our bikes for a few adventures.
This weekend included my solo mountain bike adventure to Staunton State Park on Saturday as well as a ride Rod and I did together on gravel bikes Sunday. We’re really enjoying finding new, quiet roads and trails and this weekend may have featured some of our best planning.
On a solo adventure, the only photos are selfies…
Saturday morning I took off to Staunton for my adventure. I had planned my ride from MTB Project and thought I’d have around 3 hours of mountain biking ahead of me. Which is pretty substantial… especially considering the almost 3,000 feet of climbing over 19 miles! Spicy! But I was super excited. I had only tried mountain biking at Staunton once, when it was still pretty snowy and I ended up hiking through the snow with my bike for at least a mile. I had heard things were clear, and I knew because of the State Parks entry fee, Staunton usually isn’t very crowded. This happened to be true but I got an early start regardless - Staunton is open to hikers as well as mountain bikers and I wanted to be out of the highly trafficked trails before I became annoying to those around me.
Definitely rode this, I was pretty pumped! It’s more steep and bumpy in real life!
I really enjoyed the ride. There are a number of super flown sections along with a few technical spots. Nothing that’s not rideable… but a few places I’d like to come back and practice. The views were absolutely insane. I had a really nice time and I was able to finish the loop in about 2:45 of riding time and as I kept riding, I gained confidence in my skills. Very fun.
For our Sunday ride, I had an idea to ride out to Morrison on a combination of bike path and singletrack, up to Idledale (a town I googled and found it has a population of around 250 people), over to Lookout Mountain on a new road I’d never ridden, through Golden and home. Clearly I am a route planning genius because this was a terrific ride and the new road, Grapevine, was steep, quiet and gorgeous.
Not bad….
We cruised back from Golden and outside of wishing we could stop for lunch, things felt pretty okay. I’ve really enjoyed finding new routes from my house - I admit that since I grew up here, I used to take Denver for granted a bit. What I’ve realized this year is that there is a ton of great riding, and a really nice variety, from my house. We’re really lucky and I am very much looking forward to some more riding adventures this summer.
Barb is the team manager for TBD-Colorado. She loves cyclocross, gravel and mountain biking and doesn’t mind a road race every now and again. She also enjoys adventures with her Golden Retriever, the Colorado branch mascot.
