Sunday morning I had to be in in Crested Butte to help my brother with
his Triathlon. He's the race director for the Crested Butte Bank Tails
Triathlon, which is now in it's fourth year. The race has become known
on the XTerra (off road) triathlon circuit as a well-run race in a
beautiful setting with a technical course. This has made it very popular
and they now cap the entrants to 170 (or so - I think). I'm in charge of
music and I'm the lead boat (kayak) for the swim to show the leaders
where to go and offer support if anyone gets into trouble. The race went
well, and my sis-in-law got second overall (to another local, Janae who
always wins), which is pretty good fer her. This is her second race as a
pro triathlete. Our friend Brian won it by several minutes, so the
locals were well-represented. At one point I saw a woman who looked very
familiar. This being a small community, I was just thinking it was
someone I had interacted with at some point and didn't give it another
thought. Then my wife points her out saying "Do you know who that is?" I
say no and she tells me it's the Bachlorette from that reality show. She
is apparently still married to the guy who "won" her and he was
competing in the triathlon. Interesting.
Anyway, I got done a little before noon and brought my bike in case we
had a nice afternoon. As luck would have it the weather, although a
little warm, was beautiful. I headed out to the Snodgrass trailhead. My
plan was to ride Snodgrass and if I still felt good and the weather was
holding when I hit Washington Gulch, I'd do 403 too. Well, Snodgrass
although a little sloppy in a couple of spots, was nice. I did it in
something like a half hour, which is pretty good for me and I was
feeling strong. So I turned tight and headed up Washington Gulch. It's a
pretty big climb, and the top half Mile or so is very steep. I powered
up most of the climb in my middle/middle combo, which is a similar ratio
to my single speed (1:1+1). I had to drop into the little ring at the
top but still felt like I was spinning well. I passed a whole bunch of
folks on the way up, and I was glad to get them behind me for the
upcoming DH. At the top of the road there were a bunch of people hanging
out at the usual stopping spot so I just kept going on to the
singletrack, which continued to climb. Once I topped out I finally
decided to make my first stop since the start of the ride, 1:45 earlier.
I had a power bar and a little bit of beef jerky before continuing on to
the DH.
403 has a more technical (steep) DH than many of the surrounding trails.
Recent torrential rains have rutted a very exposed steep section near
the top to the point where I had to dab several times to get through it.
I thought I might have been able to clean it but without any friends
along to haul me out if things went wrong I decided to err on the side
of caution. I saw a total of one other rider the whole way down and he
was talking a rest when I passed. I had a a really nice descent all the
way to Gothic road without any other trail traffic to contend with. The
middle section of the 403 DH is always great, and there's a couple of
strategically placed roots and rocks over small drops that are just a
blast to work into the flow, in an on-trail freeride kind of way. After
the flowing mid section the trails gets very steep again, and the skunk
cabbage and wildflowers were towering over me, almost forming a tunnel
over the trail. It makes it fun to navigate and always reminds me of the
old Atari Grand Prix driving game when you go to night mode and can only
see a little pie slice of road right in front of the car. Soon enough I
reached the bottom of the trail and was very tempted to turn left to get
401 into the loop as well. If I had gotten an earlier start I would have
done it for sure, I just felt really string. But since it was mid
afternoon, I could see some clouds building, and I'd eaten all my food I
thought I'd better turn right and spin Gothic Rd. back to the car at the
Snodgrass trailhead.
The loop took about 2.5 Hours, which for me is a great time. Everything
just flowed and it was much nicer than I expected after getting such a
late start. This makes me really want to extend this same loop to
include 401 - maybe next time.
Matt