Dan Murphy's Blog

I cannot remember the last time I road up into Waterton Canyon it has been many years!  I think it was my Sophomore year of Highschool (1997!)  When I was told last weekend though from some guys on the Mount Falcon Trail that this was a great mountain bike ride I was a little confused because my first response was ‘Well isn’t that a dirt road?’  Yes, for the first 6.5 miles that is true.  But if you keep riding past the dam and follow the road it eventually turns into the Colorado Trail and has some awesome biking.

Total ride for this was about 16 miles, I didn’t make it too far on the Colorado Trail but I did get a good workout especially after riding up 6.5 miles to start the trail.  I made it to the dam in about 35 minutes so not too bad and then all of a sudden it was a drastic change in vertical.  Over 6.5 miles the trail only rises about 600 feet but then goes up quite a bit after that.  The trail was beautiful with lots of wild life and a ton of spring run off.  I did this ride on the day I played hookie from work on Friday so there were very few people on the trail considering what it is like on the weekends.  After this ride I decided I must start bringing my camera more on my rides.

The Colorado Trail part of this ride was great.  Actually probably my favorite ride to date.  The switchbacks are tight and the hill is up but nothing too steep and no big waterlogs to navigate.  There are some rocky sections but nothing too bad and the nice solitude of the mountains is always a welcome gift.  This is a great cardio workout ride as it has the easy 6.5 miles before and then a great mountain bike ride after that.  I plan on doing this one again and making the loop that the book suggests.

Wow, sorry a little behind in the blogging game due to the craziness of life.  Figured I would first start with the two bike rides I have done since I last updated.

Last weekend I went up to MT Falcon.  This is a foothill that is right behind Red Rocks and very close to Bandimere Speedway as I could hear the cars racing.  This trail is 1800 Vertical foot gain in about 1.8 miles.  So yes basically straight up.  I don’t think the vert of the trail was the killer but more the waterlogs that are on the trail.  Coming down they are easy to go around but going up at a slow rate of speed they are a little tough to jump.  I made it about 1.4 miles and decided to turn around.  This is a historical site because I guess this is where they were going to build the summer White House for the President but decided not to, but not after pouring a large foundation at the top of the peak.

This is definitely a great training for hill climbing and a good technical workout.  I am just trying to make it a little farther each time I do these rides.

After riding only 3 miles I decided I needed to add something to make it a little longer, I drove down the street a little to Deer Creek Canyon and did a ride on the Coyote Song Trail.  This trail was great rolling hills, no rocks, and a great view.  Only issue was it is only 3.5 miles and then you turn around.  However it was a great confidence booster.

So I finally got enough courage to try an actual mountain bike ride.  So I logged into my trail website and looked around for a trail to try.  One thing I really like about this site is it tells you what the temperature is at the trailhead.  After seeing that most Boulder trails were about 36 degrees I decided to go to Deer Creek Canyon which was about 52 degrees.  Of course when I got there, there was a bunch of people there because there was a mountain bike demo going on.  Either way I got all my stuff on and jumped on my bike and road up the mountain.

As the elevation chart above shows its a little uphill…yea a little!  I fell about 4 times because I couldn’t pull my feet out from my clips in time.  TrailCentral.com describes this trail as: Multi-user trail, lush sections, rocky in spots, steep climb west of Meadowlark junction.  Yea Meadowlark Junction is at the trailhead so it’s straight up from there.  Also the trail had a whole bunch of big loose rocks and stuff to navigate.  I made it about 2/3 of the way up the hill and turned around as I wasn’t sure I could ride down.  But I did manage to make it back down no problem.  I then took another trail that went down the hill you park on, across Deer Creek Canyon Road and then up the other side.  From there it just does a big loop on the top.  This was a nice easy trail with a decent up and a big drop-off on one side.

Needless to say after only 6.5 miles I was dead tired and really sore today.  I did however have a blast and learned that I need to work on going up steep rocky hills.  I will just have to keep practicing but the first ride was successful and a blast!  It is pretty rewarding to ride up a hill and then ride down it.  It takes 2 different skill sets to ride up and ride down.  I have the going downhill part alright but going uphill is a little different.  You have to keep your legs moving at all times and you have to stay low on your bike.  I sat there for a while on the trail watching other people do it so I could get an idea of what they were doing.

Trails Ridden: Rattle Snake Trail, Elk Grazing Trail, and the killer Plymouth Creek Trail

‘TrailCentral is the hub for high quality, free, trail information for Colorado and beyond.’

From the title of the site its pretty easy to see what this post is about.  This site has some great trail information as well as some great reviews and rants about local trails in Colorado.  It is nice to see a visual layout of where these trails are and it is also nice to see some pictures along the trail as I often wonder what the trails really look like compared to the difficulty rating.  I have just gotten into biking again in the past year so a year after trying to remember how to ride and getting comfortable on a bike I think I am ready to go off trail a little bit.

TrailCentral.com

As the weather starts to get a little warmer I am able to get my bike tuned and ready for another season of riding.  This season I decided to purchase some new bike tires so I figured I would write down the information somewhere so I wouldn’t forget it…

For paved trails I picked up the Nimbus Armadillo 26′ 1.5′ tires

For mountain biking I still have the stock (2007 Rock Hoper) Fast Track LK 26′ 2.0′ tires

Last summer I picked up 480 miles on the trails around my house so figured I should pick up some paved trail tires along with the mountain tires.  I hope this year to get into some more mountain bike riding as I feel a little more secure on my bike as well as being in better shape.

Today was my first big ride with the new tires (20 miles) and there is a huge difference.  The first thing I noticed is the tires coast a lot better and let me hit higher speeds.  I also noticed the tires are a little quieter then the bigger ones.  There is a big difference to be riding on 60psi rather than 35psi.  One thing I forgot to do was re-calibrate my bike computer for the new tires, I noticed the mileage seemed a little high when I got home as I have done the exact same ride many times.  After making a quick change to the circumference settings all should be good now.  Looking forward to a nice long bike riding season.

A friend from work suggested this book for some good trails around the Front Range, so it has some good bike trails in Boulder and Golden area.  There is also a second book that is suggested by Amazon as a good buy that would complement this one very well.  I have started using the 14er books which are great because they give you a run down of every mountain, directions to each trailhead and difficulty rating of the trail.  I think something for mountain bikes would be awesome so that I can start riding the singletrack trails rather than just the bike paths around my neighborhood.