Gravel riding is the zen of cycling. Mountain biking gives you that hyper-alert, most awake you’ve been in your life, double espresso chased with a Mountain Dew feeling. And road, while it can be meditative if you find a quiet stretch of pavement, generally ends up being done in traffic, which means staying constantly alert to the large metal boxes hurtling past you.
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Back in February I posted this video of a guy bikepacking the Kettle Valley Trail in British Columbia. I thought it was a particularly beautiful, touching look at what it means to ride in the snow.
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I generally like to start these mountain climbing posts with a picture of the subject mountain, just to give you, dear reader, an overview more or less, of what I’m talking about. I usually snap these pictures in the morning during the approach or after the climb on the way out, depending on where I can get the best shot of the entire mountain. For this post, a climb of Mt. Antero, the best photo I have was taken a couple of weeks ago when I was standing next door on Mt. Princeton. It’s a nice shot and I’m not too proud to recycle, so I present to you, once again, Mt. Antero.
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Way back in the 1860’s and 1870’s, back before Colorado even became a state, survey crews from what is now called the U.S. Geological Survey fanned out across the Rocky Mountains to catalogue, measure, map and name the mountains. Imagine that, being given the authority to name mountains! Most of the names we use to this day came from those 19th century surveys.
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Although I officially retired from bike racing in 2020, I find that even now, whenever I catch wind of a race in the area, my ears sort of perk up and next thing I know, I find myself signed up. Can’t help it. Something about you can take the boy out of the race but you can’t take the race out of the boy, I guess.
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I don’t consider myself a particularly obsessive person but if I’m interested in something I do have a tendency to lock onto it like a dog on a bone. From the very first 14er we climbed years ago I’ve found a definite attraction to their challenges. And now that we’ve climbed several of them, I find my interest has only grown. I don’t know if I’ll ever climb them all. Due to their difficulty or remoteness, there are several that are probably out of my reach at this point in life. I’m not 20 years old anymore. But for the time being I’m really interested in pushing myself to climb as many as I can.
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As I mentioned in a previous post, as a kid growing up in Colorado my knowledge of the mountains was pretty limited. The mountains were always there in the background, they just weren’t something my family chose to actively seek out.
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Continuing with my plan to work out a loop linking the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Trail I set out to test ride another segment this week. This time around I started where I left off here, at the narrow-gauge railroad grade above Mt. Princeton Hot Springs.
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