Welcome to Colorado's Jungle

where the forest is wet and lush, seeing a lion(mountain, that is), bear or wild Turkey is a common occurrence. This is Indian Creek. An area of unique biodiversity for Colorado within Pike National Forest. The forest is very much alive at any given time. Butterflies and hummingbirds buzz within inches of your face, singing birds of all kinds chirp a fun and blissful tune and after a hard nights shower, like last night, a rare humidity for Colorado, reminiscent of the forest of the east coast mountains.

The Falcon is indeterminately disabled, a handicap that I will spare to share but through the kindness of good hearted friends I have another bike to ride, A Salsa El Mariachi, set up as a 34x22 singlespeed. Perfect for today's 5500 ft of climbing in 30 some odd miles.

Getting to the trailhead at 5:30am is hard for any man but I do it so I can spend the evenings with my family and the only other soul I could get to join me was a man with young kids himself, Guacamole.

Our ride begins on CR5 near Roxborough State Park, a gem of beautiful landscape and Red Rock Formations



a short hike a bike on a hiking only trail leads us to the Nelson Open Space where there is a chance to ride up close to a piece of the Red Rock Formation



a bit of mellow meadow riding before the climbing begins



and Roxborough dissapears far beneath us as we climb Ringtail into Pike National Forest



where we are immediately enveloped in a lush, dark, and humid forest



that stretches on



and on for miles



Near the bottom of Stephen's Gulch, Gaucamole's chain bent in a manner that required 2 quick links and a bit of new chain from my pack to fix. It was a gimp fix but enough for him to limp out to the Waterton Canyon trailhead where we had luckily left his truck earlier in the morning.

I continued on, connecting to Section 1 of the Colorado Trail and though the South Platte beckoned I turned off at Lenny's Rest and reconnected to the Indian Creek Trail and eventually back to Ringtail where a 6 mile descent awaited.

The El Mariachi at the Ringtail shack



A quick bombing descent and I was back in the Front Range



Spikefest this weekend...just to decide if I want to do the 55 miler and hang out with the boys or go for the pain of 85 miles.