Jefferson County's New Northfork Trail

The veritable Mr. Biggity and I were able to ride Jeffco's new trail, and were pleased with the experience. We started at the trailhead in Reynolds Park--which you may pass on your way to Buff Creek if you take S. Foxton Road (County Road 97)--and rode mostly downhill for 10 miles to where the trail ends at County Road 96 and the Platte River. You can download a PDF of Jeffco's trail map on their website. (Note: Jeffco kindly shuttled us from the bottom of the trail back up to the trailhead, thus cutting out a 10-mile climb back to the car).

From the Reynolds Park parking lot, you have to cross S. Foxton Road to find the trail. There are other trails that leave the same parking lot that seemed, to us, more obvious. Don't be fooled. You will know you are on the right trail if you find yourself on one of the steepest climbs you've ever ridden.

Even the bears lighten up for this climb.

You start on the valley floor. After about 1/2 mile, this is where you stop to barf.

A nice fellow from Jeffco named Dave told us they've already had several groups volunteer to build some switchbacks through this section so that you won't have to belay each other straight up the mountain.

There is a little climbing after this initial push, but the rest of the climbs are short and mellow. From the top of this hill onward, it felt like one very fast, winding descent. Once the trail is ridden down and buffed out, it's going to feel like a bobsled run. There's nothing technical here, just lots of fun. You'll also get some pretty great views of the surrounding area, of which I didn't take a single picture because I could not make myself stop riding for even one minute. When we did finally stop, I took a few quick foliage pictures before we rolled on.

It would be easy to link this trail up with the Colorado Trail, and then the trails at Buff Creek for a day as long as you would want to make it. The math here is a little rough, but if you started at Reynolds park, you'd pass the top of Nice Kitty after about 25 miles. You could then ride the (fantastic) Little Scraggy trail as an out-and-back, and by the time you made it back to the car you'd be nearing 65ish miles. This would make a great day with a few friends, but it would be a tough, uphill finish. If you're training for a hundo or otherwise punishing yourself, this might be a good option.

It's pretty awesome that we have so much good mountain biking within an hour's drive. If you have been riding bikes for awhile but have yet to pick up a shovel, please consider doing so. Hundreds of people are moving into Colorado every month, and our trails won't stay nice if we don't help keep them nice. Check out Jeffco's trailbuiding events here if you're interested. The Northfork trail took 8 years to build. The more people who help build trails, the more trails we'll have, and the more trails we have, the more handsome and intelligent we'll be.

First Annual Ghost Ride (and Sale) with Joyride Brewing Company

Maybe you know about our weekly Tuesday night rides with Joyride Brewing Company, and maybe as you read this right now you're hearing about this weekly ride for the first time, and thinking back on all of those wasted Tuesday evenings you've spent this year watching Game of Thrones and drinking a shot every time you see a character's insides. Okay, well, actually that sounds like maybe your Tuesday nights have been okay. However, our weekly rides with Joyride have been pretty darn great. 

Whether you knew about these rides or not, you should consider joining us on Tuesday, October 28th. We may continue to ride on Tuesdays after that, but the potential for clement weather will only decrease, so we want to finish October with a bang. Thus:

Here's what you have to do: put on a costume, put lights on your bike or person, ride to the bike shop, and get free stuff. You might even win a costume contest. Then all you have to do is ride your bike. It'll be great. We'll ride casually around the 'hood and end our ride at Joyride, where we shall commence with the beer drinking.

Cotemporaneously, our Ghost Ride sale will begin on October 28th and run through November 2nd. Many things in the store will be on sale.

See you on the 28th.

Yeah bikes!

Video of the Week

Does Surly's Ice Cream Truck Deliver the Sprinkles?

We've been anticipating the release of Surly's new fatbike for awhile now, and this past week it finally arrived. It was a scary day, because on that day a bicycle that had long been a weightless and flawless imagination was manifest in imperfect reality. Nonetheless, we put the bike together and took it for a ride. And then another ride, and pretty quickly thereafter a third ride.

Fatbikes can be tough to talk about. When something new comes along, many folks who loved the old can feel threatened by the new ("Snowboards are everything that's wrong with the world," said the early 1990's). This feeling is understandable; we are so lucky to find a few things that we truly love in life that we can become very sensitive any time the thing we love is threatened by even the smallest alteration.

Some people have taken to commuting on fatbikes, which probably seems inefficient to many. The thing that's difficult to remember is that if they like commuting on fatbikes, then the rest of us should just shut up about it. 

This "live and let live" conversation is one I had to sit myself down and have with myself after my first ride on the Ice Cream Truck. What I mean by that is I may start commuting (amongst other things) on the Ice Cream Truck.

Eater of worlds.

As I descended Apex trail in Golden, all I could think about (amidst all the giggling) was how much shame I should feel for loving the Ice Cream Truck as a trail bike. It's easy to have the perception that the best riders or the most knowledgeable bloggers or the people who are best at life would only ride squishy carbon bikes with 650b wheels. Why? If the Ice Cream Truck is an incredible technical climber and makes me giggle like an insane leprechaun all the way down the front side of Apex, then why shouldn't I love it as a trail bike? If Surly's Bud and Lou tires (26 x 4.8, by the way) can corner at mind blowing speeds and float smoothly over rocks the size of quarts of ice cream, then why should I only ride this bike in the snow? Fine, I'm not going to.

So here are our first impressions: unsurprisingly, it does feel a little heavy on climbs. However, when riding with friends, I was in about the same place in the pack that I normally am. I don't ride with a computer, but the Ice Cream Truck didn't turn me into any more of a straggler than I am already. In terms of it's ability as a technical climber, man, it's pretty unparalleled. You can pause halfway up a slippery rock slab to pump your fist triumphantly and then get going again without losing traction. The side-knobs on the Bud are so effective that if you get too near the uphill side of the trail, the knobs will catch and you will end up in the sage, going straight up the mountain. When climbing steep, loose sections covered in moon dust, you'll still have the lungs to sing your favorite Queen song while you pedal. Seriously, you'll be able to dust these guys:

There is no good way to describe how the Ice Cream Truck descends. It's smooth, fast, and frequently airborne. Forget about brakes. Forget your fears. Forget you are anything but a wraithlike figure moving down a hillside at incomprehensible speeds. You will be Scrooge McDuck swimming through your sprinkle vault.

We may have more to say about this bike once we've come down off our sugar high, but for now we are still licking the last bit of chocolate residue out of the crinkly foil packaging. 

Video of the Week

Amazing. Especially the last 3:45 on.

Surly's Ice Cream Truck is Here

The Very Rad Ice Cream Truck Ops

As you may know, there's been some hype about Surly's new fat bike. There's been a lot of hype about fat bikes in general, and you may or may not already have your opinion about them. If you already know what you're looking at, and are of the opinion that you'd like to look at one in the steely flesh, well now you can come to the shop and do just that. As of now, we have Ice Cream Truck Ops (Ops-es?) in stock, and the even slightly more rad Ice Cream Trucks will be showing up tomorrow, Tuesday, September 30th.

The Even Slightly More Rad Ice Cream Truck

If you're unfamiliar with fat bikes, there are 10,000 websites on the internet devoted to them, and you can surly find more information about them than you'd ever care to read. Instead of trolling the internet, though, you should really just ride one. We'll have demos available, so you'll be able to try this thing out on the trails. Then you can form your very own personal opinion about fat bikes, which will be more valuable to you than the opinions of 10,000 others.

If you want to know why Surly made another fat bike, here's a pretty good explanatory video.

If you're wondering if you should buy a fat bike, Surly has a pretty good blog post about that very thing here.

You can also read about our first experience with a Surly Pugsley here.

In a week or two, we'll post our initial thoughts about the ICT on this very blog. Our very limited experience with the Ice Cream Truck Ops has made us feel kind of like this:

And also like Cooper:

Yes, the Ice Cream Truck is on the way. Grab a napkin and wipe the drool off your chin.

Our Hearts are Analog