Freshies

MC#6. My bikes are so balanced, they stand up on their own!

Friday afternoon forecast called for a high of 41 and a 20% chance of rain/snow.  It was dumping by 4pm. It's pretty common for the 20%'s to dump and the 70%'s to be clear here.  Funny since NOAA is in Boulder and there are likely more weather forecasters here than any other 20 mile radius in the US! Anyway, it snowed just over an inch and although bluebird skies, it didn't go about 30 degrees all day.

 

Hayride corners

 We met at doubleAranch where a surprise guest rider, SupaDupaTupa, had arrived a half-hour early since Hayride and myself thought we were riding alone! But good to have company to get fresh tracks out on the trails. We did almost the same ride as on Tofurkey Day but with the addition of Lost World.  Well...nobody but elk hike there so we walked much of that 5 miles.  Not a car to be seen all day, it was like the eastern Mongolia area was devoid of all human life...strange...i knew I wasn't going to be called up during the Rapture but wasn't that supposed to be months ago...?

Tupa climbs with Eldora and the Indian Peaks in the background.

 Once we finally got our way over to the other side of the road, the trails were just stellar with that inch of snow over dirt or packed snow.  Super tacky and soft, it felt like we were floating most of the day. I almost ate it several times from those icy puddles with snow on top but didn't hit the floor thankfully.  I've shed enough blood this year already.

Steel*Wooler tracking up some trail

 Even though we didn't leave doubleAranch until 11:15am or so, we got fresh tracks almost the entire ride! Except for a coyote, bobcat and some elk...but they don't count.  None of these trails are even secret, they're all on the map! Even at a popular trailhead for the locals, the trails were devoid of any bike or even foot tracks! It's strange to me how many put their bikes away at the first sign of cold weather and snow.  This is my favorite time to ride!

 We did two laps up at the rainbow dots just to track it up real nice, followed by a sip of whiskey of course to warm the inners. 

Back on Black Coffee, we headed over to the ridge for a quick loop and then back to the ranch to warm up.  I hate to sound like one of those stupid surf movies where they interview all the surfers and they're telling you how cool surfing is but they can't explain it because "there's nothing like it"...but riding on snowy singletrack is kinda like that...sorry.