Week #2

We have been away from home for 2 weeks now, and I am a little homesick. I miss my friends, family, and my cats. We have been camping right outside of Frisco, CO for exactly 1 week. We had thought about moving on to Steamboat, but this place has so much going on that we have decided to stay here until we make our way to Leadville on Sunday.

                                                         Downtown Frisco

                                                      Our home for the week!

There are recpaths that connect almost all of the cities in Summit County, and each town has miles of trails and gravel roads. I would guess there are over 100 miles of paved recpaths. We can leave from our campground and ride to Vail, Breckenridge, or Keystone on one of these paths. Each town also has its own bike park and skatepark, and they are free and open to the public. This area is a little touristy, especially Breckenridge.......but without tourism $$$'s there would be no recpaths and bike parks. This place is road bike nirvana. Cookie rides every weekend, and tons of epic climbs. Colorado even has it's own hillclimb series, for those of you that are into going uphill.

                            Peaks Trail goes from Breck to Frisco. We made a loop
                                by taking the recpath up to Breck and riding the trail back.


We have ridden some great trails in Breckenridge, but my favorite so far was the Lenawee Trail near Keystone. We started off riding 6 miles of road up the Loveland pass and continued to climb another 3 miles up a gravel road to the top of A-Basin ski area. This road was steep (22% in some places), and the gravel was big and loose. The Columbine climb in Leadville should be similar to this (I think so anyway). We were at over 12,000' of elevation when we reached the top.

                                   The top of A-Basin. The area behind us down in
                                      the valley is called Montezuma Bowl.

From there, we took a thin ribbon of singletrack back down to the Keystone. The first 400yds of this trail were narrow and very exposed. It was at least a 300ft drop down to the boulders below, and there was nothing to break your fall. Needless to say, Jon and I walked this section. The remainder of the trail was technical, but rideable. This was one of the more technical trails we have ridden on this trip.

                                Above treeline, the singletrack was buttery smooth
                                                              (and cold)

                            Things got a little more dicey once you were in the trees

I still notice the affects of altitude when we are above 11,000', but not like I did when we first arrived. Jon, who is not quite as fit as he usually is, is struggling more with the altitude. It is so hard to stay hydrated here. The air is super dry, even though we have a rain shower every afternoon. Two more days here and then we're off to Leadville! I am starting to get a little nervous........:-)