Yeah dude it’s tru they are the best
I found a street apple tree last year that was groaning and made multiple trips to take them as noone else was, and yeah, seriously the best apples I’ve had. Is it the stolenness that makes them taste better?
Got to have a fat bike pull me at 20mph for a few miles. This guy puts some crazy miles and can really shred it. But also had a tube full of orange seal collect a handful of staples and spray everywhere. Also rode with a guy with some @ergott wheels. Forget his name but from LI, rides a Moots with Ultegra Di2 and owns a fastener company.
This is the final boss of VSalon
Noco Gravelo 2018 edition.
The Gravelo is a big-loop all-terrain ride up above Red Feather Lakes near the Wyoming/Colorado border. This year offered the option of 40 and 70 miles loops. It’s all fire roads so you can ride it on almost anything with decent tires.
Driving up the to Red Feather lakes we ran into thick fog a few miles from the lakes. Some big storms had rolled through the day before and temperatures were in the mid 30’s in the morning. Radar looked clear. Pulling up to the meeting spot it started snowing tiny little frozen fog balls.
This year only 3 people showed up, myself, Evan the organizer, and his coworker Ryan. We decided to follow the 70 mile route which had a couple different shortcuts back to the start in case bodies or weather didn’t cooperate. I hadn’t been riding much and was tired from some work stuff so I figured I would just ride to the first bailout point.
The ride started with a long slow climb up FS 300. For the first half the fog was still thick with a occasional flurries of snow, but as we climbed higher we kept seeing brief patches of blue sky. The air was perfectly still and it was strangely quiet rolling through the foggy spots.
At the summit we had a good view of the Rawahs. Fueling up and putting on some clothes we then headed down the back side, turning off on FS 173. The top of 173 is rocky and a favorite of OHV riders. I’ve done it in previous years on 700x40 slicks but this year I was on my mtb with a suspension fork so it was a lot more fun. Eventually the rocks disappear and it’s a rolling ride road through the forest. The weather couldn’t make up it’s mind - it would be sunny for 5 minutes, then turn grey and snowing for the next 5. On one descent Evan spooked 2 moose but by the time I rolled up they had disappeared down a gully. Eventually you pop out on FS 86, aka Deadman’s Road.
I took the obligatory Deadman’s bike portrait. If this looks familiar this road is also on the Steamboat Ramble ride. This is also the first bailout point, with Deadman’s descending right back to the starting point.
I ate a slice of pizza and was still feeling pretty good. I also knew that the next section had the incredible descent down FS 336, so I decided to keep going. Ryan wasn’t feeling too great so he decided to head back.
As we crossed over to the west side of the range conditions were a little wetter with patches of snow. This section of road had lots of deep puddles that had filled up the day before and then iced over. Unfortunately we were 2 weeks late for the aspens and they had already dropped their leaves. I was really excited to do this descent on the mtb - it’s full of big rolling waterbars and you drop out of the forest into a big open valley. Rolling the third waterbar I hit the brakes on the backside because of a small creek crossing and I felt myself slowly going over the bars. My front brake lever went limp and I realized my front brake had locked up. I pumped the brakes and heard a ‘ping’ and the brakes started working again. I wasn’t sure if my BB-7s had frozen or a muddy rock had gotten stuck somewhere. I took the rest of the descent at a conservative pace.
From the bottom of FS336 we headed back east on LCR 80C. This portion of the ride is wide-open grass valleys. The sun had come out and things started out good as this picture shows.
As we got further the road got worse. On the first half of the ride the major roads had been recently graded by the Forest Service, but over on this road, which is maintained by Larimer County, the washboard was deep. All the sand that had been formerly in the valleys of the washboard had been pushed to the side of the road. So there usually was only a thin strip of reasonably smooth dirt with washboard on one side and deep sand on the other.
The weather also started to turn again. The sun disappeared and stiff headwind started blowing up the valley. Last year’s ride was a sufferfest with strong winds all day and Evan had been excited that it was so calm this year. But of course we were not going to be spared a headwind. At least all the moisture from the sky had been coming down frozen so we didn’t have rain to contend with.
At FS 169 we stopped to eat again and Evan filtered some water from the creek. This is technically the next bailout by distance and the return of the shorter loop. However this road is full of mindfucky climbs making the longer loop option not as big a leap mentally.
However, since it was just Evan and I, and we were both on mtbs, we also had the option to take this road and then turn off on some burlier trails to take a shortcut back to Evan’s house.
FS 169 is a horrible road. It should take you from one valley to another, and it seems like one should be able to design a road that stays at a constant grade and minimizes climbing. But in this case it has to avoid some inholdings so it always goes the wrong direction. Every climb has several false summits. Each successive climb gets longer than the last and you’re always convinced you’ve gotten over the summit only to be greeted with another climb. It’s not super steep but at this point I was really happy I was on the mtb with a 32x46 low gear.
After climbing an hour we hit FS 195 and stopped for the last food break. Mounting up I gave my brakes a good squeeze and the front brake locked up again leaving the cable totally slack. I couldn’t see anything going on with the lever so I looked at the caliper and spotted the problem. The pads had worn enough that the little cable ramp had rotated up to the cable stop and was getting stuck on the rubber exit boot. I adjusted the pads in to put the throw in a safer range.
Brakes fixed, we started descending the road and then turned off onto an old logging spur that had been blocked with some big dozer holes to keep cars out. A little further, another turn onto another spur which turned into a crazy rocky trail that we had to walk up. This was an old prospector’s road and we passed all sorts of crazy abandoned artifacts - a huge pile of half-milled lumber, the remains of a tractor, piles of industrial metal no longer recognizable. The old road headed downhill and turned into one the best descents I’ve done in a long time. Super chunky with rocks everywhere, what I imagine the East coast trails are like. I suppose this was more “Moto Gravelo”. In one chute Evan swerved around a big rock and went over the bars but executed a nice roll and landed unscathed. The rocky trail kept going down through the trees and then popped out on a creekside trail and we turned to follow the creek further downhill. It was wet and lush and took me back to riding in Santa Cruz as a teenager.
The trail popped out into the subdivision where Evan lived so we rode back up to his house to get some food. As soon as we we settled in around the woodstove it started snowing pretty hard. Overall a super awesome day and one of the best rides I’ve had in years.
Bikes:
me: custom 29er mtb, “semi progressive” with 100mm fork and dropper, 32x11-46
Evan: Karate Monkey rigid with 29+ front wheel and frame bag, 2x front, 11-32/36 ish
Ryan: Krampus rigid with big front rack, one pannier, 1x but more like 11-32/36
So magestic.
Sup.
It was so nice today.
Got out for the first time since heart weirdness. Kept it seriously mellow and flat for an hour. Just cruised 17-18mph and highish cadence. Took my vitals directly after.
First ride I’ve been on, other than basketbike rides, where I didn’t even sweat. Checked my pulse frequently, and it never exceeded the high 90’s. Snooze fest.
Did a XC-loop built near my work this summer and finished of the ride with a lap of “my” trail, well I helped dig/make it happen and do work on it regularly. 15km of mtb:ing
Someday I hope to have a hardtail as cool as yours.
Thanks mang, it’s actually not that hard. I’ll curate your build for a small fee
I’m considering a used sweep for mine. Just following vigs footsteps
It’s a hella nice fork, the only small faff is the 15mm axle which is a bit of a downer to work with. But it’s not like you remove your front wheel every other day.
If you can score a used one with the HLR damper you have a fork with the muscles/tuneability of the finest 34mm fork of the Big Two™ for maybe a third of their price. I don’t have that one, so I’m rolling the RL2 damper which doesn’t have low- and high speed rebound dials. But it’s a great fork none the less, buttery smooth and sooo supple! As most of tarck knows (I think?) I’ve run legit WC DH track with it (on a hard tail none the less) and it came out two thumbs up, upgrading mine with a MRP Ramp control cartridge to have better control over the end stroke/more ramp in the final parts of the travel. It’s gonna be soooo nice to be able to run a correct pressure and have that smooth top stroke without the fork diving through all it’s travel on this bigger hits!
Another day, another 10km mtb ride with +500 meter of vert climbed. Also did a “thing” when I reached my coffee spot <3
Clipless heels?
Please tell me that those have cleats bolted to them!