To The Plains
The mountains are, by default, the place that I go to for inspiration and replenishment on a bike. The challenge, variety, and beauty of rolling hills and jagged peaks can’t really be matched by anything else.
Or can they?
Rodeo Rally: Rollins Pass
Back in June, Nik Gilroy put out the call for a Rodeo Rally to check out some “roads” up above Rollinsville near the Continental Divide. Scott Downes joined him for the ride. And this is their account.
Scott: “Those are the best days, when the ride is the day,” one of us said to the other over burgers and beers in the late afternoon shade. That was after we’d ventured up near the James Peak Wilderness and Rollins Pass area and spent the bulk of the day riding bikes under the hot June sun, wandering up and down burley jeep roads and dead-end double track. It was a good day.
Nik: It all started with a feeling – you know that feeling – takes hold of you and you have to acknowledge it. I wanted to get out of the normal day to day, to go somewhere I’ve never been before and to try something new. This nagging feeling would not let go. I needed to go into the mountains, to ride unchartered dirt and to get away from roads worn down by a virtual leaderboards.
Scott: Up until this point, I had missed all previous Rodeo Rallies, many of which came down to me chickening out, because of fitness or fortitude. But I’d been uninterested in racing this year, bored with some of the same old riding, and anxious to do something different. And this would be that something.
Photo Essay: The Unspeakable Ride
Some rides haunt you. You see a peak or a road out of the corner of your eye and you know that you must go and find where it goes. Until you do there will be no rest and yet when you decide to go there is also no rest. Fear creeps in, and doubt. Is it do-able? Can you do it? These are the scary rides with unknown outcomes. Yet these are the rides we most love.
At Rodeo failure IS an option. It’s OK to turn around and go home if necessary. But if you manage to press on and push through you accomplish something special. Something outside of the measurements of distance, power, calories, and altitude gained.
Andrew, eh?
The surprising thing about Canadians is that many of them actually do say “eh” a lot. I’m not going to lie, it kind of makes me smile when they do.
Andrew is from Vancouver, BC and he also uses a fair number of phrases that I haven’t heard since moving to Colorado from Washington state. I think there is a mix of Canadian and Northwest Corner factors involved there…
Andrew has been visiting Colorado over the last week. He’s been Rodeo since… well, for a long time, so we saddled up and headed for the hills together looking to see and ride some of our very own stereotypes: Peaks, Buffalo Bill’s Grave, Gravel, and Red Rocks, that sketchy part of town with lots and lots of green buildings…
It’s always great when a Rodeoer visits from far off places. Watching them see our state through fresh eyes gives us an added appreciation for what we have.
I can’t wait to visit BC some day and ride Andrew’s roads.
The Steamboat Ralleye via Kitsbow
197 dirty, epic miles and 19,302 brutal feet of climbing from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs, Colorado with Niner Bikes and the Ralleye Riders.
Our own Timothy Fegel was along for the ride on his beta Flaanimal on what was no doubt an amazing adventure.
Music: Mr. & Mrs. Smith – Dirty Laundry
Rodeo Road Trip: Tulsa Native Lands Classic (Gentlemen’s Race : 22 March 2015)
So, apparently, this is how plans/ideations for road trips for amateur bike racing start these days:
<Facebook> “A good friend is running a new event for the first time that is very much in the spirit of what Rodeo is about. 100+++ miles of Oklahoma’s paved roads, flat roads, gravel roads, back roads, hills, oil fields, open pasture land, long horns and tall grass to challenge you. We’ve been invited. Roadeo trip, anyone? https://nativelandsgr.wordpress.com/about/” </Facebook>
The entire road trip logistics to race this event as a team were hashed out on one long stream of collective consciousness comment thread, which atomic mushroom clouded into over 150 comments (now 200), questions, quips, and retorts. I hadn’t road-tripped like this with friends since college, and I was in.
Rodeo Rally Series: May
The planning for the May Rodeo Rally began serendipitously back in January, when, as you might recall, I took advantage of a warm winter Colorado day and set out on a solo dirt adventure south of Denver. The beautiful route and photos must of stuck in the craw of one Matt Deviney to such a degree that he worked tirelessly on finding a way back to Denver so as to avoid the treacherous no-shoulder/pucker-inducing-death-ride segment of Santa Fe north of Sedalia, between the small town of Louviers and Titan Road. We both recon’d different routes over the ensuing months, but neither could completely pre-ride the route and were skeptical we could find a better way back to Denver.
The Derp Search. Trail Donkeys with Peder
“It’s just a recovery ride”
These are probably the most mis-used words in cycling, they are around here with the Denver Rodeo crew anyway. Yesterday’s ride was supposed to be a pleasant spin to see if “the sensations are good”, but it didn’t take long for Peder and myself to get bored and start looking for silly things to do. Every time we passed a dirt offshoot of the road we’d yell “singletrack!” and see if the trail went anywhere. Most didn’t but some did, and we hit the derping payload when we took a turn onto the North Table mountain trail system. Yes, we were on our road bikes, but more and more that makes our dirt rides more fun and we were up for the challenge of seeing where our wheels would take us.
High Line Iditabike
When not exploring the mountains or on a local group ride in Denver, Colorado, the High Line canal is a go-to route for quick miles. My favorite section is south of Hampden Blvd where the trail turns to gravel and meanders for over twenty miles, south and west, around Chatfield reservoir and to Waterton Canyon.
Mead Roubaix
This is a member repost from a previous season while we boot up 2014. We are reposting certain blog entries that we think represent the Rodeo vibe.
Mead Roubaix: Another one of Colorado’s cobbled classics. Initiated in 2011 as a replacement for Boulder Roubix, but continued in 2012 even though Boulder Roubaix itself returned to the calendar. Every mention of Mead Roubaix I’ve ever heard from the guys and gals that rode it last year included the phrase “that course sucked!”. Tales of bike eating and soul destroying sections of the gravel course abounded. People swore they would never race it again. I searched online for pictures from last year and this is what I found:
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