2018 Rockstar VA: The Stuff Legends Are Made Of

Preface

I’ve been on a long-distance off-road adventure kick the last few yeas (exhibit A, exhibit B,exhibit C, etc).  When I heard about the Rockstar VA bikepacking race, I decided not only did I have to ride it, I was all-in it to win it.  The course seemed to be right up my alley: long backcountry trails, rocks, ridge, suffering, hardship, or other words everything that makes an epic event.  At first I thought “hey it’s just a really long ride” but the more I dove into it I found it’s actually a whole different sport.  It’s actually a combination of land navigation, lightweight camping, nutrition planning, time management, hiking, and with some bike riding in there as well.

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Risk / Reward: Black Bear Pass

The summit post of Imogene Pass.

I stared up the rusty colored scree field and strained to make out the solitary post just barely peaking above the ridge line that topped it. That was the prize. That was the summit of Imogene pass, the second summit of the day, the crux of the ride. The post was not far as the crow flies, maybe only a couple hundred feet away. It felt much further, infinitely far all things considered. Our progress was painstakingly slow. The fatigue and altitude had quietly stolen away all of our spit and venom all day long leaving us with dry mouths and heavy legs. The 4×4 road surface was generously strewn with wet, coarse rock. We shuffled on our feet.

The summit post of Imogene Pass.

I swiveled left nervously, my eyes following the ridge line west until they found their target about a mile away. A dark wall of clouds was quickly approaching us. Only ten minutes earlier they had seemed twice as far away. The clouds didn’t move if you stared at them but if you turned away they darted closer at an astonishing pace. Now they were nearly on top of us, thumb and index finger shaped like an O, ready to flick us off the mountain.

The summit post of Imogene Pass.

A quick mental calculus painted an obvious picture: We weren’t going to make it. We were only a half mile from the summit, a distance that we could cover in a few minutes on a normal ride, but at 12,600 feet with steep gradients ahead of us it would take us more than fifteen minutes to cover the ground.

“What do you think?” I asked Peder, hoping he would contradict what I knew to be true.

“It’s going to hit us.” he said. So much for that. “But I really don’t want to high tail it back down to Telluride.”

A strong gust of wind hit us, a light rain along with it. If we turned around now we would fail to complete our planned loop but if we went for the summit we’d get t-boned by the storm; completely exposed on a ridgeline at 13,114 feet.

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Mount Evans in November

Words by @kaizergilroy, Photos by @denvercx & @kaizergilroy

I was pulled out of my morning reverie by a text from Peder – “Evans today. Interested?”

After a week of Thanksgiving gluttony, some singletrack shred, soaking in hot springs and live music, my palette was satiated, but I felt guilty at my weekly mileage total of 15.5. With no group ride intel for Sunday, I figured maybe I’d do some solo adventure. I would find more singletrack and laugh while descending something that would greatly benefit from a dropper post.

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Better than shopping – The Black Friday Rally – GA edition

Black Friday Rodeo Rally

Hosted by: Rodeo Adventure Labs – https://www.rodeo-labs.com/

11/24/17 @ 8:30am

Start/Parking Location: Jake Mountain Parking Lot

Ride:

Black Friday Rodeo Rally welcomes you to ride 47.3 miles with us amid North Georgia’s Blue Ridge WMA dirt roads, forests, streams and mountains instead of hordes of pushy shoppers, fake mall Santa’s and cheeseballs and summer sausages. The route is a good mix of gravel/pave (70/30) ranging from flat and smooth to remote forest service roads. Oh, and don’t mind the little climbs up Nimblewill and Noontoola they will give you plenty of time to look within….

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Every ride is a good ride.

We’re always looking for another reason to throw around the word “epic”.

But most rides are not epic. Some rides are merely good, or great, or fun, or “I’m glad I got outside today”.

If everything is exceptional then nothing is exceptional.

So three cheers for good rides with friends both old and new, on roads both old and new.

Hat tip to Rocky Mountain Road Club. They know how to put together a good ride.

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Best adventure bike? Run what ya brung!

It is happening.

The adventue bike segment is getting bigger, exploding. The offerings are more vast with each passing week.

You know how they say that the universe isn’t just expanding, but that the rate of expansion is accelerating? Well, that’s “Adventure” bikes too.

When we build Traildonkey 1.0 in 2014 the pickings were slim, and in our opinion nobody had really nailed the sweet spot for a multi surface, multi terrain bike capable of properly ignoring traditional bike categories – which is why we decided to go for it ourselves. Now almost four years later the industry has caught up. Almost every major brand (with a few notable exceptions) has a super legit gravel adventure bike. And here’s the thing: They are pretty much all great bikes. I can’t think of a single company that has made something awful and my money says that the genre is going to keep getting more interesting, more capable, and more fun.

Centennial Cone Adventure Biking

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This is absurd. Cycling Imogen Pass.

It’s 10am on a Thursday morning in late August, I’m getting ready for a bike ride and thinking about the year so far. It’s the time of year when people start asking themselves where the summer went and why didn’t they get that thing done that they wanted to do this year.

I’ve asked that question more then once this year myself and the answer is always the same: You can never get it all done, you can only try your best.

Ouray overhead

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World’s Worst Climb™

Shrine Mountain Road, Georgetown, CO

I’d heard of The World’s Worst Climb™ in passing comment and conversation.

There were rumors of a dirt switchbacking climb snaking up the near vertical mountain slopes that wall in the historic town of Georgetown, CO. Rumors they were though. Nobody I knew had ever done it. I think the first photo evidence of its existence may have come from Matt Deviney on Instagram. Or maybe it was a photo linked on Strava? I can’t remember.

Saxon Mountain Road, Georgetown, CO. The World's Worst Climb™

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ALPHARD – Or well Le tour de Grandes Alpes

NOTE: This writeup and photos were kindly submitted by Alex Munz. Alex hails from Amsertam, Netherlands

In a region far, far away (imagine Star Wars music), two lycra padawan’s were heading out to conquer the mountains… okok i stop.

Anyways Cyril and me (Alex) we went out on a big bikepacking adventure. We had the crazy and of course awesome idea to do the Tour de Grandes Alpes on our bikes. With panniers and our tents, cooking gear, cloth, shoes, rainjackets… bikes were way to heavy :D

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