Greets peepz.
For whatever reason I'm bored, did a local gravel baby mountain bike ride with my brother today in the heat, and can't think of anything better to do, so I'm sharing some pics with you!
I had a camping trip in the beginning part of May to open up my mountain bike season. Colorado had seen an incredibly rainy year, with over 9 inches of rain by May; more than we got in all of last year for those of us along the Front Range - the mountains and the Western Slope are unfortunately in mega drought and several fires have already started, and we're moving into a very hot week. As a result, I hadn't gotten any of my riding in around Boulder, so I headed north!
While going north, I got caught in a massive thunderstorrm, and I ended up with a lot of grime in my bike from the road, so now my bike sounds creeky and deathly again.
In these first two pics, you can see that I camped really close to the trail, and this is just a fun little casual trail that encircles the camping areas along the cliff [second picture]. In the summer, this is great because you can bathe in the lake, but at this time of the year the water is exceptionally cold.
This is also from the same trail system.
Most of these trails are not terribly crazy for vert, some of them are somewhat technical where I have to dismount for certain obstacle route navigations. One thing that is a little concerning about this area, is almost no one rides it. while this sounds like a great thing, if you were to get hurt it could be more concerning. Outside of my party, I only saw 1 other person on the trails in two days.
I walked this section, no way I can generate enough power nor technique to go up this, just thought it looked cool.
I went a bit ahead of my group and ended up on a pretty technical trail. I captured this frame because it was about my stopping point, as I kept coming to too many obstacles I couldn't navigate well [this was not one of those obstacles].
You probably wouldn't guess it from this first picture, but this was the scariest part of the trip. My hands were sweating from being nervous here. Just behind that tree line is a large fall, and there is exposure to it for several minutes. Thankfully this trail was very mild, but I couldn't look that direction at all for fear of directing my bike that way.
This picture is just a little bit later, and can explain my nervousness!
I then got lost on the way back down, and ended up on a seperate loop I hadn't taken before. Got a cool picture from it and a nice view of the water.