Long Rides – Rocky Mountain Biker

Over the Mountains

In 2018, I wrote an article about riding the Colorado Trail for Elevation Outdoors. You can find it here.

Holy cow, where has the summer gone to? Seems like Memorial Day was just a couple days ago. Wanna know what I’ve done this summer? (I know. I’m sooo self-involved. Many apologies.) Well, I: Hung out at a literary festival, saw a moose, watched my girls play a lot of awesome tennis, went camping, almostContinue reading “Early Summer, In Images”

There Have Been Years

Every year I get to spend a week up in Grand Lake, Colorado, on the edge of Rocky Mountain National Park. And every year I sojourn back to two trails I like very much: the Grand Lake Metropolitan trail network, and the Gilsonite to Wolverine Trail, which courses through the remote Arapaho National forest. OneContinue reading “There Have Been Years”

Chains

Yesterday, while riding up a trail called Mayhem Gulch at Centennial Cone (great names, aren’t they?—but that’s another story), I think I (brilliantly, amazingly) developed a new kind of essay: a chain. Riding is good for such deep, creative musing. Anyway, a chain essay is a linked series (duh), connected by an idea, image, orContinue reading “Chains”

Why I Should Never Go Food Shopping After a Long Ride

I seem to gravitate toward the spicy and the chocolatey. And the kielbasa-ey (which I find mildly odd, and embarrassing). Also notice how one needs a few buffalo-bleu chips in order to have the energy to take such a picture.

Acrophopbia

(Note: This dispatch was originally written in April 2012, during a trip to Grand Junction.) It wasn’t easy, but I’d conquered my fear—mostly—of Zippety-Do-Da, one of the more exposed trails in Grand Junction/Fruita area. I’d ridden all of the spine of Zippety—a very narrow singletrack that runs along the Bookcliffs, undaunted by the long drop-offsContinue reading “Acrophopbia”

Three-Day Trip to Summit County

(Note: I’m on a three-day solo trip up to Summit County to check out some of the riding there, and to do lots of writing. I hope to get three rides in, depending on weather, and to camp. All by my lonesome.) It’s around 5 PM, and I’m sitting in a denuded campground along RouteContinue reading “Three-Day Trip to Summit County”

Raging River

Last year during a visit to the high country in Grand Lake, Colorado, I rode some really fun new trails created by the Grand Lake Metropolitan Recreation District, just a short jog from the western entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park. (On the way there, I saw a moose, just off the road. Such isContinue reading “Raging River”