Colorado in April

Find a bike. Ride the bike. Drink the beers. Look at big rocks, and maybe stand on them.

I found an old, red, Univega mountain bike.  Rigid, with a drivetrain that would serve my purposes for the week, but I replaced the saddle and grips.  I added some Revelate Designs bags and an Arkel handlebar bag to avoid carrying a backpack, and off I went.



I set out on my second morning in town to find the end of the Poudre Trail in Bellvue, and I found Watson Lake.  At the literal "end of the trail" sign, I didn't feel like stopping, so I turned right onto the dirt road that happily led me to the lake.  I didn't look at a map of the end of the trail before I left my friend's apartment, so I really had no idea that this lake existed.  I brought my host back here later in the week, because she also didn't know that this lake existed.

I spent another day riding around Fort Collins, sticking to the trails and doing a bit of reading in the afternoon.  On Friday however, my host's only commitment was teaching in the afternoon, so we left her apartment early in the morning to hike up to Horsetooth Rock.  Strangely, although she has hiked in the park multiple times, she had never been to the top.  It was my second time to the top, and it turned out to be much nicer than my first trip, which was in February 2012, and a bit sketchy due to snow and ice in a few places.

Completely unrelated, but this photo layout is terrible, and I can't figure out how to make it all normal again. BOOOO!

Look at how ridiculous this is!  Positioning things within a giant text box is suboptimal.

Upon reaching the top, I snapped a few more photos and became even more frustrated with Blogger.

The cell towers in the background provided us with perfect 4G service, strange after scrambling up the side of the rock.

We walked back down the multi-use road/trail rather than the foot only trail that we had hiked up, passing a few cyclists near the bottom, one struggling straight up the mountain on a single speed.  He didn't look like he was having a great morning.  These deer, however, looked quite pleased with themselves, although they wouldn't look at the camera.

There were other adventures via bicycle and car that were not photographed, including a nice drive around the Horsetooth Reservoir, and up CO 14.  We returned over Mount Ethel on Rist Canyon Rd, which was pretty fantastic as far as mountain/canyon drives go. I left the bike and the key to it's lock with my wonderful host, hoping to retrieve it in the future. I want to redo the drivetrain and maybe find some Schwalbe Big Apples to replace the no-name knobbies currently gracing its wheels. It handles very well, and I'd like to turn it into my everyday transportation bike when I next move to a city or town.

Hey it's a post!  I declare that the trip was a victory, because I participated in bike riding, drank a few beers, made my host feel like puking during one bike ride, climbed up the side of and stood on top of a large rock, and had pizza from Beaujo's twice.