Mountain Biking in Colorado

One of the things I wanted to do on the Trip, was to mountain bike in the mountains. On Friday, Josh and I saddled up the bikes and rode out to Elk Meadow open park. He led me up a trail, over some rocks and stumps, around some switchbacks and over a ridge. There’s nothing like the burn of oxygen at 7,500 + feet of elevation when you are pedaling with all your might up the side of a mountain, going about 1 mile an hour. Yee-Haw! We came down (the reward for going up) at a much greater rate of speed. You almost have to pay more attention to the trail coming down, because you are going faster. Those rocks and stumps and roots and gullies and dips come at you pretty darn quick. I was focused on the downhill, and caught up to Josh, who shot me a quick grin and pointed. “How ‘bout those elk?” I hadn’t seen any elk, and when I turned around, I realized we had nearly run right through a herd of them. Big ones, little ones, baby ones, eating, sitting, drinking, running. I had nearly missed about 50 elk.

A little later on, one the trail back to their house, we spooked a couple of really big ones right on the trail. Up close, those elks is big!

Thanks, Josh. That ride is one of my highlights of the trip so far!