Rubber Side Down

P.S.: If all goes well, you’ll see my short film, “Saving Cycling From Itself.” Check it!

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When you’re stuck at work on a beautiful day, you might as well watch trials. I promise this is worth watching all the way through. Keep your eyes peeled for the trials-style tailwhip.

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From Rob Love, VBP committe member:

BAM, that number plate just got tagged, Valmont-style!

for those of you lucky enough to be reading this blog from Sea Otter, and for the rest of us that need to live vicariously through pictures showing a little VitaminD, check it out: Mike Eubank of the Valmont Bike Park crew is out at Sea Otter doing his thing along with IMBA getting the word out about the park. Mike is spending his own time and money out there, spreading the gospel! This will definitely get some national attention to the park, and help speed along fundraising and construction.

Alright, that’s about it for right now–so if you or someone you know is out in Monterrey, give’em a text, tweet, e-mail, or smoke signal and tell ‘em to get over to the booth and give Mike and the crew some props!

Rob Love, over&out.

…you can’t say that the folks at VBP aren’t doing enough to spread the word. Or else they just needed an excuse to get to Sea Otter.

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I’m a bit late in posting this, but I got a first-ever ride on Picture Rock last Sunday. Yep — I managed to squeeze in an early-morning trip before the rain came. It was nice, because very few people were out taking their chances with Mother Nature. 

I started on the Lyons end, and cruised along the trail in the cloudy quiet. 

I hadn’t ridden this trail until now, because I hurt my back in September, before it was open, and this has been my first real opportunity due to the healing of my injury and the weather. Weird, I know. A lot of other people have ridden it hundreds of times by now. Believe me, I feel pretty off the back about it. 

However, it’s given me a lot of time to collect opinions of the new trail, and they vary widely. Some people have called it the most fun trail on the Front Range; other people think it has zero flow and isn’t that cool.

So I was certainly curious to ride it for myself, and I tried to set out with on open mind.

The climb has a nice rhythm to it; it was never particularly tiring or difficult. The views of the valley are nice, and as I always comment on, it has a great feeling of being far away from civilization. I saw a lot of deer. And as I got up farther, it became a true, narrow singletrack. (Please, folks, let’s keep it that way!!)

The trail surface starts out as mostly smooth, then gradually becomes a bit more rocky. Not Wapiti/Ponderosa kind of rocky, but just a little bit here and there. It begins in the open and then makes its way into the trees as it climbs toward the Wild Turkey Loop. 

I climbed slowly to take it easy on my back, and was almost to Wild Turkey when it started raining. The trail had been mostly dry when I started, but I didn’t want to slog through the softer areas if they got really wet. I don’t mind getting muddy in the least, but I don’t dig on heavy trail use (by anyone) when the trails are saturated. And the sky looked like it really wanted to cut loose, so I turned around.

I had been looking forward to the descent, but I have to honestly admit that I was disappointed. And I truly hesitate to complain about this trail, because I know it took huge amounts of work to get it built, both on the political side and the manual-labor side. And, I think Pete W,. the trail architect, is a very smart guy. 

But an unfettered assessment of the trail leaves me with this opinion: It rides like a trail built by people already terrified of user conflict. 

And maybe that’s the reality of our situation here in Boulder County. People here love to complain about other users, and hikers still cling to their sense of entitlement about the trails. 

But it makes for a less-than-stellar ride, unfortunately. From a descending standpoint, Picture Rock really does lack flow. It’s jammed full of angled rocks, choke points, grade reversals, erratic-feeling turns, and any other method you can think of to make mountain bikers go slow. There’s never a chance to feel the trail unspooling before you. Instead, it’s a herky-jerky experience that reminds me of the Teacup ride at the county fair. 

Now, I’ve also had people respond to these kinds of comments with a sneer, saying, well, maybe you need to be better rider to enjoy Picture Rock. To that, I say, doubtful. Granted, I’m not the world’s best mountain biker, but I’m also not the worst. I can ride Picture Rock with no problem. I just don’t think it’s that awesome. Hall Ranch, while far more difficult from a technical standpoint, still has more flow than Picture Rock. 

Now, I want to make it clear that under no circumstances am I ungrateful for the many, many hours, days, and years of effort that went into bringing this trail to fruition. I’m grateful, indeed. To the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance for persisting year in and year out to persuade Boulder County that mountain bikers are a worthy and responsible group of trail users. I’m grateful to all the many volunteers who labored over the actual dirt. I tried to do my part (with an injured back) by writing about the progress for the paper. 

But when you think about it, after ten years of struggle to get it approved, and 18 months or so of construction, this trail should be the raddest thing ever built, shouldn’t it? And probably to a lot of people, it really is. Everyone has a different take on how they like trails to feel. 

So I’m not trying to get on some soapbox about this. I’m just saying that the trail doesn’t fully trip my particular trigger. And I think it’s a damn shame that we’re still second-class citizens in a way…that trails have to get built specifically to slow us down at every turn. Maybe there’s still so many inconsiderate riders out there that the hikers have a point. I don’t really have the answer to that. All I know is that Picture Rock made me a little sad. Gorgeous land, great potential — but for whatever myriad reasons that we probably can’t completely tease apart, the trail is not all it could be. I was imagining this beautiful strip of dirt, undulating so perfectly along the contours of the land that a rider or runner would feel like they were flying. They wouldn’t necessarily need to reach high speeds to feel this, either. And while I’m no trail designer and I won’t even pretend to know the details of that art and science, I can tell you that the Buffalo Creek trails are built perfectly to impart that sort of experience. 

Now, I’m also aware that Boulder County trail users have a tendency to love their trails to death, and there had to be some awareness of that to keep Picture Rock sustainable. Especially far out there in the middle, where it will be a pain in the neck to send maintenance crews every summer after the trail surface gets hammered by hundreds of users. I totally get that. But was it absolutely necessary to make the trail feel like it’s fighting against the natural rhythm and flow of gravity?

Anyway, there’s my two cents, for whatever that’s worth. I’m sure I’ll ride it a few more times in the shoulder seasons and be fine with it. It IS badly needed new trail, after all. But once some other trails open up, I’ll probably leave Picture Rock to the riders who have a different take on its character. 

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This Mountain States Cup race is in New Mexico, so fire up the Airstream. It hosts cross-country, short-track, four-cross, downhill, and super descent (no, it’s not super downhill) races at Angel Fire Resort. Not only that, it’s on the National Gravity Mountain Bike Calendar; a UCI Class 2 event for DH and 4X. I’ve never raced this, but it’s reported to be rocky and technical. Sweet.

You need a USA Cycling annual or one-day license to race.

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This Mountain States Cup race in Nathrop includes cross-country (XC), short track (STXC), dual slalom (DS), and four-cross/mountain cross (4X). This XC race is tough — not much traction to be had in places and always a major headwind on this flat section that heads straight into the mountains. It’s gorgeous, though. This series is very popular with the downhill folks, so I suspect the gravity events are cool.

You need a USA Cycling annual or one-day license to race.

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In addition to a cross-country event, this Mountain States Cup race has an off-road time trial, which we don’t to do very often.

The website describes the XC race: “Rabbit Valley is known for the fun nature of its trails- lots of whoops, minor technical sections and fast tracking. This course best suits a well-rounded rider whose skill sets blend both fitness and technical prowess.” Awesome.

One other note specific to this race, due to the fragile nature of desert trails: “If you get caught littering the ground with GU wrappers or others of that sort, it’s an automatic disqualifcation. Period. And if you get caught picking up someone else’s litter. Karma.” Perfect race for a gel flask.

You need a USA Cycling annual or one-day license to race.

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This endurance race, held at Highline Lake State Park, starts at midnight Friday and ends at 6pm Saturday. A shorter, snappier 24-hour race, apparently. You can enjoy New Belgium Brewing and a taco party, as well. It never hurts to combine Mexican food and long hours in the saddle, right?

Sign up soon — it’s limited to the first 70 teams and the deadline is April 27th.

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This popular festival has set the standard for partying, racing your clunker, and enjoying some of Colorado’s best desert singletrack. It’s in its 14th year and sponsored by New Belgium Brewing. What’s not to like?

If you stick around another week, you can hit the 18 Hours of Fruita race.

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Battle the Bear is a fast, non-technical race at Bear Creek Lake State Park (near Morrison/southwest Denver) that rewards the powerhouses. A great place to test your early-season fitness. The Front Range 50, which is held concurrently, marks the first event in the Rocky Mountain Regional Endurance Series. So whether you like to go short and fast or long and slow, there’s something here for you.

There’s more information at the Warriors Cycling page. And here are directions to the venue.

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