Once a year, just as the aspen leaves are changing, C Lazy U Ranch opens up their network of trails to a small group of mountain bikers, or as it were in this case, a Traildonkey.
www.clazyu.com
First Descent
Buff Bourguignon
A quick trip to Buff Creek. Photos by Jered gruber et Stephen Fitzgerald.
Rodeo Rally // Rampart Range // Video
Rampart Rally was one of the most difficult, most incredible rides we’ve ever done. Patrick, Chris, Peder, Jacob, Tim, Michael, myself. All the usuals were there, the guys who show up time and again for the biggest things that we do as a team. It strikes me that, when boiled down, this is the group that casts the mold for Rodeo. Not everyone will ride bikes the way we do or do the things we do and that is okay, but at the end of the day when it comes to telling the story of who we are as a team, you couldn’t ask for a better crew.
Rampart Rally covered 80-100 miles each of the two days, but through conditions that we ourselves would admit were often over the top. We were each equipped with bikes that had fairly skinny, fairly slick tires, but that is where the similarities ended. Steel, carbon, road, MTB, CX, everything was represented. We aren’t biased towards Traildonkeys and Flaanimals, we love each of the bikes that showed up to tackle the course. At the end of the day on a ride like this, just showing up and pedaling until you arrive at your destination is the most important requirement. Everything else is gravy.
I couldn’t be more happy to call these men team mates. It is an honor to call them friends as well.
-Stephen
Rodeo In The Buff
It was an excellent weekend of camping, trail riding, unicorn hunting, and s’more roasting in Buffalo Creek, Colorado.
White Rim in a Day
“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.” – Sir Edmund Hillary
An epic adventure has equal parts pain, suffering, and elation. It is easy to classify an adventure of epic proportions. If the pain, suffering, and elation of an epic adventure are not enough of a clear indicator, the constant thoughts and smiles of said adventure many days and weeks after the fact solidify the experience. The White Rim Trial in Moab is one such ride that easily falls into this category. More than a week has gone by since we finished the ride, and I am still thinking about it.Continue reading
Moab Rodeotrip 1/2: Donkey Does Slickrock
Sometimes as a cyclist there is a particular ride that calls your name relentlessly. For some it’s an almost mythic European climb like Le Alpe D’huez, for others it could be a right turn onto a dirt road that they’ve never had the chance to take. Over the last year one ride has been calling my name like a record stuck on repeat. That ride is Slickrock Trail in Moab, Utah. I had ridden it once a number of years back and the experience left me laughing at the hysteria and fun of the place. It was unlike any ride I had ever done. Slickrock Trail is almost completely without peer on planet Earth. The frozen dunes of sandstone take on forms that seem drawn by Dr. Seuss. The way it undulates up and down begs you to explore every nook and cranny. The traction of the rock surface is like velcro, and it would seem that there is no grade too steep to climb so long as your legs can spin the cranks. If you aren’t up to the challenge you can just as easily stall out and tumble back down the hill (or cliff) to whence you started.
Lost Park Rodeo Rally
Photos by Brett Rindt, Patrick Charles, Peder Horner, Nick Gilroy, and Stephen Fitzgerald
Fall is in the air in Colorado. The leaves are putting on their yearly show as they turn from green to gold to fiery red before drifting away on gusts of wind. If you live in this state you wait for this time of year with anticipation. Maybe you feel the morning air getting more crisp by the day. Maybe you’ve noticed that the tomatoes in your garden have stopped turning from green to red. Whatever the case, you know that the window to catch nature’s leaf peeping display is small, only a few weeks at most. The Rodeo crew decided to organize a last minute rally to coincide with the season. Many of us had seen an obscure gravel road heading due east into unknown hills off of Highway 285, and it was decided that we would create a route exploring this wild section of Colorado that had hitherto not been explored by any of us. It didn’t hurt that said road plunged straight into rich bouquets of red and yellow aspen, and beneath those bouquets waited trails and roads carpeted in gold and ripe for exploring.
Backcountry Adventure on Pearl Pass
Photos and words by Samer Khodor
Day 1: Marble to Crested Butte
Like most rides in Colorado, there’s no warm up. The trails start by going straight uphill. And the 4×4 road leaving the small mountain town of Marble toward Crested Butte was no different. Except that it was steeper than most with some grades over 20%! It felt more difficult than I recalled from my first time riding it in 2007 and I had apparently forgotten the road climbed 800 feet in the first mile! As my legs and body ached I began to wonder if we should have driven to Crested Butte and saved our legs for the challenge of Pearl Pass the following day. Of course I did not reveal these weak unBelgian thoughts to my poker-faced riding buddies: Sean Malone, Jeff Sillik, Nick Sherwood, and Andrew Sterner.
Magic: Last minute 401 adventure.
Rodeo went out and road tripped most of last week at the Pro Cycling Challenge and we had a blast riding our bikes, cheering the pros, handing out nuggets, and generally turning the adventure dial up to “11”.
