Goat in a Turtle Shell: July 2012

Saturday I headed up to the High Country for a spin with Luis and Kelly Klett. Kelly was in town from Raliegh, NC and turned out to be a bad ass singlespeeder, not only smoking me and Luis on the climbs but I even gave up the descent to let him rock it all out.

Our drive up to Copper was a bit ominous. Thick clouds swirled in the sky and the rain drops fell thicker and thicker as we neared the Continental Divide. When I broke my hand back in May it had been raining and maybe I let this set me up for a stupid mistake later in the day.

Right as we arrived in Copper, the rain stopped and we had awesome east coasty like rain forest conditions for the rest of the day. As we climbed about two or three miles out of Copper we ran into a fella from Littleton attempting the CT from Denver to Durango. It was right after saying out pleasantries and, "see ya at the top" when I clipped a pedal on a rock, flipped over the bars and my right thigh landed on a tombstone shaped rock. The pain was an intense fire that had me withering on the ground. This has not been my year on the bike as I count this as no less then a dozen crashes.

Luis and Kelly thought I had either broken my leg or the Littleton CT attempter was a raging maniac who was chopping me to pieces as my moans and screams of pain cut through the silence of the morning air. After about 10 minutes I was able to sit up and swallow about 800 mg of Vitamin I. Both asked if I wanted to bail which I declined but the rest of the day's ride would be plagued by that leg trying to give me a Charley Horse which just seemed to suck some of the will to ride from me. In the end, I just settled into a slow pace and kept it cool and enjoyed the Alpine singletrack as it should be.

looking down the Camp Hale side of Kokomo Pass(12,022 ft). I had debated all day whether to do a loop with included Ptarmigan Pass but that was 60% singletrack, 20% dirtroad, and 20% paved bike path. We decided after seeing this that we would be happy with a 100% singletrack out n back even if it did cut ten miles off the ride.

somewhere between Searle and Kokomo Passes

Kelly with Searle Pass in the Background

Sometimes, you have to make things work.

waking up at 3:30am to get them all accomplished is sometimes necessary and worth it.

My original plan was to get up early and ride Three Sisters and go celebrate the forth later with family and friends. Then I sent out a text to a few friends that was a joke but wasn't at the same time.

"Jones Pass super early?"

"Ummmm....yes"....was the reply from Lubes and later Slow

Lubes decided we should meet at 4:15am in Golden since I needed to be home around noon and we had a shuttle to set up and we can't ride Jones with hitting Pavilion Point down in Silver Plume.

by 6am we were sitting at 12,300 ft and the views east were looking like this

The snow cornice was the smallest we had ever had to climb....maybe 12-15 ft tall...My 1st attempts resulted in a small slide of maybe a foot or two due to ice at the top edge. That slide was enough to make me and slow nervous so we headed north just a bit and found a friendlier climb up and over

Photo Cred: Lubes

After that, it was game on!

One thing about reaching an altitude of 13,215 is there is some hike a bike. I keep an attitude of hike a biking is good for the soul. It teaches a person to calm themselves and settle into the beauty that surrounds them.

it also leads to more of this

and this...photo cred: Lubes

oh, and I guess a little more hike a bike

and before you know it, your on the top of the world..(13,215 ft)...yes, those crazer fockers, Lubes and Slow were on Singlespeeds while I kept true to duel suspension and gears

and when your on top of the world, its all downhill from here...with a climb or two being the joke and the reality

We took a small detour to Herman Gulch Lake and by this point we were maybe 2 to 3 miles from I-70 and the hiking traffic became heavy. We probably saw 40-50 hikers on our way down and we kept our speeds super slow while most hikers simply stopped off trail for us or we stopped for a second or two to say hi as they passed. No Stravassholing here. =)

Over the past weekend, Slow and me took Hirsch out for his 1st high country adventure ever with Wheeler Pass. Be sure to checkout the post on MTBR.