[narlus]

ok...since myself and some friends are gonnna turn 40 this year, we are looking to plan a 4-5 day trip to a fun riding spot. we used to do this on a regular basis until several of us starting having kids. we are spread out but mostly in the east (OH, DE, MA, CA) so that is a consideration. riding good trails is definitely key, but ease of getting there and social amenities also rate highly. i am figuring on something like travelling thur-mon, which would yield 3 days of riding and burn only 3 vacation days. criteria:

- fun singletrack
- should be able to get to the destination via direct flights from the various states
- after-ride entertainment options

with that in mind, i was thinking of Phoenix or Denver. initially i was also considering slatyfork WV or the pisgah/tsali area of NC, but that may not be so easy to get to in a fast, direct manner. any obvious ones i'm missing? this particular group has been to Bend, Brian Head, and Sedona already so someplace new would be nice.

 

[N8 v2.0]

ok...since myself and some friends are gonnna turn 40 this year, we are looking to plan a 4-5 day trip to a fun riding spot. we used to do this on a regular basis until several of us starting having kids. we are spread out but mostly in the east (OH, DE, MA, CA) so that is a consideration. riding good trails is definitely key, but ease of getting there and social amenities also rate highly. i am figuring on something like travelling thur-mon, which would yield 3 days of riding and burn only 3 vacation days. criteria:

- fun singletrack
- should be able to get to the destination via direct flights from the various states
- after-ride entertainment options

with that in mind, i was thinking of Phoenix or Denver. initially i was also considering slatyfork WV or the pisgah/tsali area of NC, but that may not be so easy to get to in a fast, direct manner. any obvious ones i'm missing? this particular group has been to Bend, Brian Head, and Sedona already so someplace new would be nice.

Basing yourself out of Denver would be a great idea... tons of great riding (Frutia etc) and you are about, what,3 hours? from Moab?

 

[stinkyboy]

If ya hit PHX, lemme know. This 39er is in.

 

[narlus]

N8, have you been to Denver? if i wanted to ride Fruita, Grand Junction would be the place to stay. it's probably a 7 hr drive from Denver to GJ, and if i remember it's at least 90 min from GJ to Moab.

if we were in Denver, we'd do the Front Range stuff.

 

[N8 v2.0]

N8, have you been to Denver? if i wanted to ride Fruita, Grand Junction would be the place to stay. it's probably a 7 hr drive from Denver to GJ, and if i remember it's at least 90 min from GJ to Moab.

if we were in Denver, we'd do the Front Range stuff.

Yes I've been to Denver but haven't been to Frutia nor Moab from there but I have friends who live there who do weekend runs Moab/Fruita and back. But as a base of operations it looks like a great place to be. How about hitting Crested Butte... all my western ride buds LOVE it there.

 

[profro]

Pisgah!

 

[SkaredShtles]

N8, have you been to Denver? if i wanted to ride Fruita, Grand Junction would be the place to stay. it's probably a 7 hr drive from Denver to GJ, and if i remember it's at least 90 min from GJ to Moab.

if we were in Denver, we'd do the Front Range stuff.

Come to Denver! I'll get some free time to ride with you guys. GJ is ~3-1/2 hours from Denver. Fruita is another 15 minutes past that, and Moab is about an hour from GJ.

When are you guys thinking? Summer?

 

[Heidi]

Salida could be fun. You could fly to Denver, ride in Boulder a day, ride in Winter Park a day, ride Monarch Crest one or two days. That would involve a bit of driving in between, but not bad at all.

 

[DRB]

Denver would be good for that length trip. Buffalo Creek, Captain Jacks in Colorado Springs, and Salida for Monarch Crest.

 

[narlus]

it would be best if we could have one central place to stay, so we wouldn't have to pick up our stuff and trudge from one hotel room to the next (keep in mind we'll have bike boxes to deal w/ too). we are not averse to doing some travel to get to good trailheads; when we were @ Bend, we did most of the rides outside (mac river, lava/sparks/edison, and one ride in the cascade lakes region).

 

[SkaredShtles]

Denver would be good for that length trip. Buffalo Creek, Captain Jacks in Colorado Springs, and Salida for Monarch Crest.

Good suggestions. I'd replace Capt. Jacks with the Commando Run in Vail, though. Topped off by the greatest XC descent I've ever been on.

 

[N8 v2.0]

it would be best if we could have one central place to stay, so we wouldn't have to pick up our stuff and trudge from one hotel room to the next (keep in mind we'll have bike boxes to deal w/ too). we are not averse to doing some travel to get to good trailheads; when we were @ Bend, we did most of the rides outside (mac river, lava/sparks/edison, and one ride in the cascade lakes region).

SS has some space at his place....

 

[SkaredShtles]

it would be best if we could have one central place to stay, so we wouldn't have to pick up our stuff and trudge from one hotel room to the next (keep in mind we'll have bike boxes to deal w/ too). we are not averse to doing some travel to get to good trailheads; when we were @ Bend, we did most of the rides outside (mac river, lava/sparks/edison, and one ride in the cascade lakes region).

Summit County. Stay in Frisco and ride Keystone, Breck, Vail, Winter Park - even Monarch Crest would be an easy day trip from Summit. Hell - Fruita would be a not-too-hard day trip from there.

 

[SkaredShtles]

SS has some space at his place....

Hell - they could camp in my yard.

 

[narlus]

SS has some space at his place....

nice. please make a big batch of black bean chili so us 5 neanderthals can fumigate the place.

 

[DRB]

Good suggestions. I'd replace Capt. Jacks with the Commando Run in Vail, though. Topped off by the greatest XC descent I've ever been on.

Never been to Vail. We were going to go for the World Championships in 2001 but getting there got impossible.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Seriously, I have a really great friend, Paul (SS met him while I was in Denver), who owns a condo at Breckenridge. He leases it out all year long. It's located at the base of Peak 9 (200 yd walk to lift and to downtown).

If you lease it directly from him you can save some $'s.

I'm not sure if Breck is too out of the way for what you want to do though...

 

[SkaredShtles]

Never been to Vail. We were going to go for the World Championships in 2001 but getting there got impossible.

Vail. Oh how I love thee....................

http://home.comcast.net/~elan_mbx/Vail04/

 

[SkaredShtles]

Seriously, I have a really great friend, Paul (SS met him while I was in Denver), who owns a condo at Breckenridge. He leases it out all year long. It's located at the base of Peak 9 (200 yd walk to lift and to downtown).

If you lease it directly from him you can save some $'s.

I'm not sure if Breck is too out of the way for what you want to do though...

Frisco would be a better "central" option, but only by about 15 minutes. Breck would be a good place to stay.

 

[SkaredShtles]

nice. please make a big batch of black bean chili so us 5 neanderthals can fumigate the place.

My wife made chili two nights ago.

I :love: her chili.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Frisco would be a better "central" option, but only by about 15 minutes. Breck would be a good place to stay.

How is Breck for skiing? Paul said his condo fills up fast during the season...

 

[SkaredShtles]

How is Breck for skiing? Paul said his condo fills up fast during the season...

Breck's pretty nice. This guy lives up there every weekend:

http://powderday.us/

I like A-Basin, Copper, and Winter Park better, but won't pass up an opportunity to ski Breck.

 

[axlvid23]

N8, have you been to Denver? if i wanted to ride Fruita, Grand Junction would be the place to stay. it's probably a 7 hr drive from Denver to GJ, and if i remember it's at least 90 min from GJ to Moab.

if we were in Denver, we'd do the Front Range stuff.

More realistically (as I have made this drive many times) is that the denver to GJ route is about 5 hours assuming you can cruise at at least the speed limit and Moab is 'round 6.5....very doable. The southern end is where it's at though...Durango, Gunnison, and Crested Butte are among my personal favorites for bike riding and you can fly directly into Durango and base yourself from here. Silverton, Fruita, Crested Butte and all the southern favorites are within a 3 hours drive (actually, I think Fruita is closer to 4...but I've never made it from there. From Denver, Durango is about 5-6 hours...So that's feasible too.

Hope that helps and If there's anymore info I can help you with regarding Colorado bike riding hit me up.

 

[narlus]

Good suggestions. I'd replace Capt. Jacks with the Commando Run in Vail, though. Topped off by the greatest XC descent I've ever been on.

give me some ideas as to travel distances to these rides, if we are based in Denver.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Breck's pretty nice. This guy lives up there every weekend:

http://powderday.us/

I like A-Basin, Copper, and Winter Park better, but won't pass up an opportunity to ski Breck.

How is the biking there in the summer?

 

[narlus]

More realistically (as I have made this drive many times) is that the denver to GJ route is about 5 hours assuming you can cruise at at least the speed limit and Moab is 'round 6.5....very doable. The southern end is where it's at though...Durango, Gunnison, and Crested Butte are among my personal favorites for bike riding and you can fly directly into Durango and base yourself from here. Silverton, Fruita, Crested Butte and all the southern favorites are within a 3 hours drive (actually, I think Fruita is closer to 4...but I've never made it from there. From Denver, Durango is about 5-6 hours...So that's feasible too.

Hope that helps and If there's anymore info I can help you with regarding Colorado bike riding hit me up.

i've spent a week riding in Durango and it's probably my favorite xc place i've been to yet, but i'd really like to limit plane changes, esp if small aircraft is involved. when we rode Moab, we flew to SLC and then a small craft to Grand Junction so we ended up ground frieghting our bikes to a shop in Moab becuase there's no way 5 bike boxes could fit in the small plane which took us to GJ. there are pros and cons to travelling w/ and w/o yr bikes, and that decision hasn't been made yet.

 

[Heidi]

I really liked our Winter Park ride last summer. Good singletrack and views...some nice rocks and roots.

 

[Jeremy R]

the pisgah/tsali area of NC,.

Well, since you mentioned it,
You can fly directly into Asheville, stay there the whole time, and ride for three days straight and hit a ton of fun stuff with hardly any driving at all. Now, if you want to hit up Tsali, it is about an hour and twenty minutes or so north of Asheville. If you have never ridden it, I would recommend it for sure. Its fun and the views are awesome.
Asheville has a cool downtown to keep your occupied, just don't sniff the hippies.
I could come to Pisgah and show you guys around.
The only reason I can think of for you not to come here is simply that you are already on the East Coast. And EC singletrack, as wonderful as it is, is the same from here to Canada, so the riding may not be that different for you. But yeah, Pisgah has the goods.

 

[narlus]

I really liked our Winter Park ride last summer. Good singletrack and views...some nice rocks and roots.

where did you guys stay? if a CO native or person in the know can give some relative distances between Denver and places like Winter Park, Salida, Vail, etc?

 

[johnbryanpeters]

Pisgah!

Fly into SC, rent a car.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Well, since you mentioned it,
You can fly directly into Asheville, stay there the whole time, and ride for three days straight and hit a ton of fun stuff with hardly any driving at all. Now, if you want to hit up Tsali, it is about an hour and twenty minutes or so north of Asheville. If you have never ridden it, I would recommend it for sure. Its fun and the views are awesome.
Asheville has a cool downtown to keep your occupied, just don't sniff the hippies.
I could come to Pisgah and show you guys around.
The only reason I can think of for you not to come here is simply that you are already on the East Coast. And EC singletrack, as wonderful as it is, is the same from here to Canada, so the riding may not be that different for you. But yeah, Pisgah has the goods.

Not to mention you can bring your white water kayaks and hit the Nantahala and Ocoee for some paddle fun!

 

[justsomeguy]

In the Summer?

I would scratch Phoenix and Fruita/Moab off the list due to the high temps and Bend off the list due to the quality of the riding.

Denver would be great, Sedona is pretty easy flying into PHX, and Tahoe (flying into Reno) would be a good choice as well.

 

[Heidi]

We stayed at the resort - it was pretty cheap relative to everything else. It was only a couple hour drive from Boulder - all depends on construction. It seems they are reconstructing every highway in Colorado. It was another 4 or 5 hours it seems to Salida. Again...traffic due to construction. We stopped in Leadville for lunch. In Then the drive up to the top of Monarch was under an hour I believe. Some locals should verify all this..I was on vacation time

where did you guys stay? if a CO native or person in the know can give some relative distances between Denver and places like Winter Park, Salida, Vail, etc?

 

[narlus]

Not to mention you can bring your white water kayaks and hit the Nantahala and Ocoee for some paddle fun!

you are full of useless suggestions, aren't you?

this from a guy who couldn't manage to bring a bike to CO, but is recommending that i bring a kayak along too.

 

[SkaredShtles]

give me some ideas as to travel distances to these rides, if we are based in Denver.

Commando Run - 1:45 to trailhead. Needs to be done as a shuttle.

Captain Jacks is probably slightly closer.

Monarch Crest is about 2-1/2 hours to the pass. Needs to be done as a shuttle.

Winter Park - 1:30 to the area.

Summit County - around 1:30 to trailheads.

Come to Denver....................

 

[narlus]

In the Summer?

I would scratch Phoenix and Fruita/Moab off the list due to the high temps and Bend off the list due to the quality of the riding.

Denver would be great, Sedona is pretty easy flying into PHX, and Tahoe (flying into Reno) would be a good choice as well.

the actual timing hasn't been nailed down, so yr PHX warning is a good one. i'm gonna see what flights to G-Ville or Asheville are like, and also get a read into Denver flights.

 

[SkaredShtles]

How is the biking there in the summer?

At the resort it's pretty good. Around that general area: stellar.

 

[narlus]

Commando Run - 1:45 to trailhead. Needs to be done as a shuttle.

Captain Jacks is probably slightly closer.

Monarch Crest is about 2-1/2 hours to the pass. Needs to be done as a shuttle.

Winter Park - 1:30 to the area.

Summit County - around 1:30 to trailheads.

Come to Denver....................

is there any local shuttle service? or would we need two vehicles?

 

[SkaredShtles]

the actual timing hasn't been nailed down, so yr PHX warning is a good one. i'm gonna see what flights to G-Ville or Asheville are like, and also get a read into Denver flights.

Remember - Southwest now flies into DIA. Although I don't think a ton of their flights are direct yet. Most go through PHX or Midway.

 

[SkaredShtles]

is there any local shuttle service? or would we need two vehicles?

Salida - several shuttles, I'm fairly certain.

Commando - I'm sure there are shuttles, but my minivan would make an excellent shuttle vehicle. Or Morryjg's Subaru, or Ascentrek's Saab.

You have to do the Commando run. The grand finale of this ride is a big , mighty, kickass XC DH. If there is such a thing as a XC DH.