2023 Bikepacking Trip Report!

Hello faithful follower! Last week I took a few days off and rode my gravel bike on a great loop around Colorado. This ride had it all - gravel! highways! trespassing! hiking! 

Full Map of Ride

This is the fourth year for this ride and this time I was joined by 4 friends. Here is the day by day breakdown:

Day 1: Copper Mountain to Leadville - 40 miles - 3,400' vert - Strava Activity

Day 1 started out climbing out of Copper Mountain to the Climax Mine site where we hooked West over to Camp Hale. We then climbed (literally) up to what we thought was a road but was actually train tracks. After that we hooked up with the highway again into Leadville. 

Hiking up to the next 'road'

A Tunnel on the way to Leadville

Day 2: Leadville to Basalt - 64 miles - 3,000' vert - Strava Activity

The second day of the ride was the most remote! Starting in Leadville we headed west past Turquoise Lake over Hagerman pass, peaking at 11,925 feet. Even crossed a snowfield. Once we got down a somewhat technical descent, we stopped at the Meredith general store for a snack, passed Ruedi Reservoir, and then rolled into Basalt for dinner at the Tipsy Trout.

Crossing snow on Hagerman

The top of the Pass

Resting the legs in The Roaring Fork River

Day 3: Basalt to Vail - 68 miles - 4,500' vert - Strava Activity

Surely this whole ride wasn't all snow fields and hiking! Day 3 was much more mild, taking us over Cottonwood Pass, which was beautiful. After that climb, we started our Euro Tour, which included stopping at several places to hydrate. The Wolcott Yacht Club is open again!

I met a dog in Eagle

Wolcott Yacht Club

Beers in Edwards

Day 4: Vail to Copper Mountain - 33 miles - 5,700' vert - Strava Activity

The last day of the ride was the most adventurous. We started off with a pretty burly climb into the back bowls of Vail ski resort. From there we connected the Easternmost Vail road with the Westernmost forest road leading to the top of Vail pass. This was a true adventure and provided the most beautiful views of the ride. The whole thing wrapped up on the Ten Mile Canyon National Recreation Trail into Copper.

Climbing up the Service Road

Connecting the ski resort and Vail pass

Some hike-a-bike

All in all, it was an amazing trip! Around 200 miles total, saw some really cool parts of the state and we're already talking about next year.

Taking a Break from Enduro to... Bikepack?

 For the fourth year in a row I am headed deep into the Colorado back roads to ride my gravel bike and explore some new roads with some friends. Starting in 2020, we started riding a multi-day trip focused on dirt roads, back roads, and beautiful views. 

Top of Old Fall River Road in 2020

For this year, I wanted to share my set up and how it's evolved. This year I am riding a new frame with some time tested bags. Here is my set up:

Let's go through the bike! I have been refining this set up over the years and I'm really happy with it.

Bike setup:

• Unicorn Ti gravel frame
• Replacing my Cannondale Topstone
• DT Swiss c1800 wheels
• 21mm internal width, not a wide as some but perfectly functional
• 40c WTB Byway tires
• SRAM Rival / GX AXs
• New for this ride, 44t x 11/50t, trying out the 1x
• Cannondale SAVE seat post
• This seat post takes a lot of the buzz out of the road
• Easton EC 70 AX bars
• Nice flat top and complaint carbon flare bar

Hot Sulphur Springs in 2021

On this trip we have riders using a few different kinds of gear storage from panniers to full frame bags. Below is what I'm riding with. I am trying to keep things even over the length of the bike and reasonably accessible.

Storage:

• Tail bag: Revelate Shrew 3L 
• Down jacket, rain gloves, helmet cover, flip flops strapped to outside
• Frame Bag: Revelate Tangle
• Lights, chargers, food, misc
• Top Tube: Revelate Gas Tank
• snacks
• Bar Bag: Revelate Egress
  
• Evening wear, cold weather stuff, rain jacked strapped to back
• ***New this year*** Evoc 1L Hip Pack
• Phone, snacks, misc
• Wolf Tooth Components tool roll
• Tube, multitool, tire lever
• Tool can
• Emergency tools, misc tools

Outside Meeker in 2022

In addition to all that, here are some of the select things I'm bringing.

Notables:

• Ass Savers fenders are light and functional
• Profile Designs fork mounted water bottle cages keep weight low and out of the way
• Custom handlebar bag mount to keep bar bag off hands
• Voile straps are a life saver
• Oversize water bottle cage for Nalgene
• A very bright headlight for emergencies
• Garmin InReach GPS Communication device

Here is a look at the 2023 route:

Once the ride is over I'll share the route debrief!

Now Featured on PinkBike.com: Me!

 Following the recent Revolution Enduro race in Eagle, I found a great photo wrap up of the event on PinkBike. 

Look at that fast guy

Oh you don't think that looks like me? Look again: 

Never miss the orange shorts

I'm famous!

Revolution Series #2 Eagle Race Report - Snow, Rain, Mud, Suffering

Whew, round 2 of this series was a real challenge. This race took me to Eagle, Colorado. The trails there were really cool, proving that many communities in Colorado have put time and effort into building out local trail systems. 

Course Format:

This course was set up as a van shuttle up to the top, 3 stages down, and then a 4th stage where we had to self shuttle. The weather changed a few things, resulting in a bit more climbing at the beginning and some variable conditions throughout the day.

Race Profile

Preride:

I showed up Saturday to preride, and the drive up was not promising:

Vail pass

Things got worse from there - there was an overturned truck that was blocking the road up to the start, but I was able to get around it and start my preride. In the snow. 

 Stage 1 and 2 were a muddy mess, and my bike was nearly unridable after. Stage 3 was not marked so i got lost and ended up taking the wrong trail. I didn't attempt stage 4 due to the weather and lateness. All my preride notes were: "Look for tape at sharp corners, try not to crash in a puddle and drown."

Sorry, bike

After retrieving the car on a combination of Natalie's ebike, hiking, and getting a ride, I washed both bikes, I was done for the day. Shower, hamburger, bed. 

Total ride time: 3:30 

Total ride: 28 miles

Total Vertical: 4800'

Race Day:

The weather couldn't have been more different. Still wet spots on the upper trail, but everything else was remarkable dry. 

Stage 1:

I was scheduled to get on a shuttle at 8a and start racing about 9. Due to the overturned truck, the shuttles could not make it to the planed start and we ended up riding an additional 4 miles starting about 1130a. Wasn't terrible at the time, but I paid for it on stage 4. 

View from the first pedal transfer

Stage 1 was still pretty wet, and I dumped on a stream crossing, but felt ok. 

Stage place: 14/22

Stage 2:

Stage 2 was all dry and a ton of fun. Having preridden it, I felt pretty confident, especially with this 1/4 mile flat push at the end. The middle 1/3 was this steep, heavily covered by bushes descent that just left you smiling. Nice short transfer to stage 3.

Waiting to Start Stage 2

Stage place: 12/22

Stage 3:

Stage 3 was interesting because during preride I got off course and never rode the bottom half. During the race, I got a decent start, caught a guy on one of the short punchy climbs and went into the lower, very flowy and dusty section feeling great! ... until I got passed by a 30+ category rider. The benefit was that since I was riding that part blind, I was able to just follow him at a faster pace to the finish. I finished this section thinking I'd certainly be in the top group. I was not. I was 30 seconds out of the top 5. 

Stage place: 12/22 (see the trend here?)

Stage 4:

If you'd told me that I finished this stage mid-pack, I would have called you a liar. I felt like hell on this stage, and expected that this stage would be significantly worse than any other stage, not my best finish. It started with a 5 min flowy pedal interspersed with mild rough sections and some small drops that totally drained what I had left. The last 3 min or so were really fun corners and jumps (I assume, I was cursing the sport at this point). With fresh legs I suspect I could have trimmed 30 seconds off my time

Stage place: 11/22

Total ride time:  5:15

Total ride: 28 miles

Total Vertical: 3500'

I finished feeling bad about a 12th place, out of the top ten by over a minute and out of the top 5 by 2:30. After looking at the stage breakout, seeing how consistent I have been I don't feel as bad, and the course was really a fun one. I think some time to normalize emotions is probably normal. I want to have a top 5 finish this year, and to do that I'm going to have to both focus on longer downhill endurance and overall fitness, so I don't get caught sucking wind in the last stage again. 

Revolution Series #1 Glorietta Race Report

Last weekend I was off to the first race of the Revolution series in New Mexico! It was the first race of this type I've ever done, so I learned a lot.

Saturday, May 27 - Preriding and race prep

Got up about 530a and drove to Glorietta, New Mexico for a preview of the course. It ended up being a lot longer and more climbing than I realized and I was pretty spent by the end of it. I would NOT have wanted to ride the course blind.

Start of Stage 1

These are the notes I took after each stage (through I wish I'd taken more)

• Stage 1: lots of pedaling, flowy, look out for mid trail tree, no super technical stuff
• Stage 2: fast at the top, chunky in the middle, hop off for the one feature, everything below that is hard but rideable
• Stage 3: the first feature is rideable, but don't come out with too much speed. take all b lines after that, at the bottom just get over the line don't worry about that drop. Look ahead for the 2 jumps to avoid them
• Stage 4: take all b lines, real chunky thing near the end that's like the one spot at Valmont, try to stay light over rocks, seems like the left line is usually the best, maybe a touch more tire pressure for this one

I was disappointed that the A lines were out of my comfort level, so I was expecting to lose time at each of those (which I did). 

Sunday, May 28 - Race day

The start was really casual, everyone meandering up the transfer to the stage 1 start. I chatted with a few guys and that passed the time nicely. At the top was a huge log jam and ended up waiting for almost an hour for the other groups to start. 

Stage 1 review: Faster, somewhat flowy stage with a lot of pedaling. I felt pretty good on this stage and even caught a couple guys. There was a lot of pedaling, which suited me. It was nice to get the first stage out of the way.

Stage position: 9th

Overall position: 9th

Stage 2 review: The top was very chunky, steep, and loose. It was much worst than pre-ride and rumor was the pros destroyed it. I felt slightly out of control on some of it and was glad when that section was over. I had to hop off and run over one big drop which hurt my pride and my time. At the bottom it was some fun drops and I felt faster than my finish position indicated. 

Stage position: 9th
Overall position: 7th

Hike - a - Bike

Stage 3 review: To be honest, the later stages are already starting to blur. I remember that the top was fast, and I crashed on first A/B line split, but it didn't slow me down a ton, just got me really dirty. Right after that some guy caught me but then I was able to pull away from him. Felt just sloppy at the bottom and lost time picking through features rather than blasting over them. My forearms we're toast at the end.

Stage position: 8th
Overall position: 6th

Stage 4 review: In my notes I wrote, "Better than stage 3!" There were several A/B ride-arounds that were much slower than going over - I have to learn to hit the big features. Most of the stage was just chunky nonsense, and I found it hard to carry speed. I thought I was riding fast but a guy passed me and he was much faster. Got to get better at sending tech sections. 

Stage position: 11th
Overall final position: 7th out of 22

Final mileage: 20.80 mi
Total riding time: 4:33:52
Total elev gain: 4,403'

Elevation Profile

Learnings:

• A ton of walking - will probably use the more walkable shoes in the future
• Need to go faster over rough stuff and not pick and choose lines
• NEED to hit A lines, the B lines were much slower and really breaks up flow
• I was 0:10 from 6th, 0:30 from 5th, 2:00 from 4th

I met this cool dog at the finish

Floyd Hill Course Preview and the Importance of Preriding

I had a great opportunity this last weekend to pre-ride a course that will be featured in the Session Series on Floyd Hill. I've never ridden this course before, so I wanted to get a few laps in to get familiar and see where I was going to be able to go fast - and where to exercise caution.

This trail is a purpose built, downhill only MTB trail with alternate lines that are rocky, steep, fast. 

I was able to take 4 laps on this trail. The climb up was a 650 feet of climbing, 1.8 miles. I did it between 25 and 30 min. The descent was just over a mile back down. The challenge on the climb was to control speed and not burn out. It was tough to keep my ego in check getting passed by a lot of people. 

Course Map from Strava

What struck me was how shitty and not-confident I felt on the first time through, and how good I felt on the last time through. This reinforces what I suspect:

Preriding is key.

I spent the first time down going slow, stopping to look at the obstacles and any dangerous spots. The second and third time I tried to ride everything and see where to push speed. The fourth time I really pushed for time. 

Run 1: 8:02
Run 2: 6:58
Run 3: 6:20
Run 4: 5:22 <- in the top 5 fastest times of the day

Ride Profile

Learnings:

• Hitting every feature is fun, but might not be the fastest
• I gained a lot of speed by focusing on what corners were 180°+
• This course has a lot of splits and options, that caused confusion I likely won't deal with on other courses

Enduro Racing: It's Not All About the Bike

So, we talked about what Enduro racing is and what kinds of courses to expect. Now I'd like to talk about what kind of bike you'd expect to see in this kind of race. Modern Enduro bikes are a combination of the benefits from both downhill bikes and cross country bikes. 

"But Adam, what about Trail bikes?" Trail bikes are like light Enduro bikes. Ok, Fine, here is a better diabram. I mean diagram:

The long reach and steep seat tube angles from cross country combined with slack steer tube angles and low bottom bracket of a downhill bike make for a stable bike that maintains some climbing ability. I think of it as a slightly less convenient trail bike. Here's a bunch of examples (and a comment by some handsome fellow).

What bike am I riding? Let me take you on a journey of bikes: 

2017 Cannondale Scalpel
Travel: 100/100 on Lefty and RockSHOX Monarch 
Group: Sram 2x
Great for racing XC racing, not made for descending

2019 Specialized StumpJumper ST
Travel: 120/130 on Awesome RockSHOX Pike fork, so-so RockSHOX Monarch shock
Group: GX 1x with 50t
Great for front range trails, great in-betweener from CX to trail bike

2023 Trek Fuel EX 9.8 XT*
Travel: 140/150 on FOX suspension, disappointed in the adjustment
Group: XT with 52t
Adjustable everything, great climber, not terribly blown away on descents

*I intended to race Enduro on the Trek, but due to a frame issue I ended up replacing it after 4 rides

2023 Specialized StumpJumper EVO
Travel: 150/160
Group: AXs GX with 52t
Excellent descender, shocks are great

I also looked at the Specialized Enduro, a 170/170 true enduro bike, but that seemed like too much of a compromise for regular use. In the end, the EVO should give me all the travel and handling I need for an Enduro race while still allowing me to ride local trails.