To you mountain bikers

[IDriveAn.:R]

YES O_O. There's some awesome riding to be had in GJ and Fruita. You'll be glad to bring it along.

I would be down for a ride, but I'm gonna be the fatty pushing my bike up the hill... my only trail-worthy bike is my DH bike.

And Bishop -- you're correct. I'm Yosei. Sounds like you have a pretty damn solid bike, it will treat you well. There's nothing on the bike that will be holding you back!

[blefevre]

I am down for a ride. But I did JUST get my bike so I will be the guy falling over all the time.

[Bimmerman325i]

I'm in for sure!

Fatty McBlubber checking in.

[Bishop]

Sounds like were all fat and out of shape. Wonderful, should be an excellent ride.

[Bimmerman325i]

Yosei, you should plan a ride, I bet you know the better places around here more than we would.

[Cloudbase]

I'm keen on riding. I was planning on riding tomorrow afternoon and thursday morning.

Brad a good trail network to get to know your bike on are the Marshall trails. I do a 20 mile loop from my house when I don't have time to ride or drive anywhere else, you can make the loops much shorter too. I can give you some 29er specific pointers if you want. I'm pretty out of shape right now, but motivated to shed the winter fat soon. Hall Ranch is a great place to learn a new bike too. You can go up Antelope in the back and bypass the tech section, although once you get a few rides in the tech section would be a good place to grow your skills.

My other Boulder rides in order of how often I ride / enjoy are Canyon to Link to Betasso (3-5 loops), Walker Ranch or super Walker. Heil Ranch and Picture Rock are my least favorite. Picture Rock had the potential to be such a great trail, but they built all of the natural flow out of it to keep the speed down. That's a disturbing trend in the new trails being built around Boulder. We used to joke that the only thing Picture Rock is good for is sucking riders off the good trails.

You'd be cool riding Chimney / Apex after a few rides, especially with some tips. Walker Ranch is a super fun, but deceivingly technical on a hard tail (I never thought so on my full sus bike). It's not so much the actual obstacles, but their rhythm. Once you get up belcher hill it's fine, but I would get some rides under your belt first.

Mt. Falcon to Lair of the Bear is a great beginner ride too. It's a steep climb, but not terribly long or technical. Lair of the Bear is super fun fast descending. I don't ride it on weekends or evenings because I like to descend at full speed and the closure rates with the afterwork crowd climbing up can get sketch.

Another good beginner ride is the Colorado Trail from Waterton Canyon. You ride 6 miles of dirt road to warm up then climb up sweet but non-technical single track. At the first intersection you can break off into the Roxbury loop or keep climbing on the Colorado Trail into some good solid technical riding. From there it is an out and back that goes all the way to Durango with the exception of a few wilderness areas.

Buffalo Creek is another trail network worth mentioning. It's a great place for newer riders with fast, flowing single track that isn't technical at all. It's closer than the mountains, but removed from the Front Range. There isn't any super elevation gain either unless you take the Colorado Trail up from the South Plate River. When I was training, one of my long training rides was to do an all day 75-90 mile out and back from Waterton Canyon to the Lake Wellington in Buff Creek. Good fun, I miss those days.

Wow that was a lot longer than I intended. Anyway we should do a ride. I'm keen on riding this weekend unless the boys head to the mountains for some gliding.

[Bishop]

I'm coming down this weekend... I'd be keen to meet one or more of you for some learner / beginner rides.

[blefevre]

Good post alex!

I will take your advice and head to some of those trails. I was just at mt. falcon and lair of the bear last weekend and I was thinking, "that looks so fun if you can get your speed up!" I get my pedals in on thursday (going to learn on flats) so I might just head up STM on thursday as it's my back yard.

[blefevre]

A beginner ride would be epic!

[Cloudbase]

Let me talk to my HG buddies. If there is no flying we can do a beginner ride / clinic on Saturday afternoon or Sunday.

[clarkkey594]

I am so in for a ride this weekend.

[Cloudbase]

Looks like Sunday is the better flying day. I'm keen on doing something Saturday. I work until 9:30. If you want to do Marshal we could ride from my house (and then team up and bust out my E30 when we're done - just kidding). It's a shit show on the weekend, but everywhere is.

[Bishop]

So...... We need details and someone to take charge and say when and where and what to bring etc.

[Cloudbase]

Question first. How many miles is everyone up for? I usually keep track of my rides by time instead of distance. The good Marshall stuff is closer to 93 than my house, so if we want to do a shorter ride (like 5-10 miles) then we should meet at the parking lot on 93 and Marshall road. Just not sure what everyone's fitness level is.

[Bishop]

Last year I was doing 15-25 mile road rides with a buddy, but I'm quite out of shape right now and I'm not terribly familiar with actual mountain biking...