Gold Hill, 9am. Let's get this on bitches! Felt that Cheese-O woulda been there if he could so dedicated the ride to him. Also channeled some core Vermont cussin' haiku on the tough bits.
Started by climbing out of Gold Hill even slower than with Dash at the end of the 5 hour Tickler 5. Whoah, easy boy...time to taper off, get lost, build a mud-hut in the woods, find the trail again, eat half the food I brought, squeal down the old Rock Shock test trail (which didn't look like it had been ridden since Paul sold out) and re-aggravate the skier's-thumb injury. Sweet, first 30 minutes down. Then hit the climb out of Rowena, which is always a sweet ride, nobody in sight, great trail, morning still cool...no problem.
Topped out at Sunshine Canyon (here's the old Sunshine School House) and into the devastation of the fire. Torched, left right and center rolling S to Sunshine and it only got worse from there.
Climbed up to the Church Tr only to find Beelzebub's Armpit. Church Trail, at least as I knew it is GONE, like erased along with every house site for the next couple miles. Bushwhacking ensued straight down the fall line, dry straw on blasted black rocks, tree branches like charcoal drawing sticks. Million $ houses now 2 bricks and a melted mailbox. With views like these let's get that sucka rebuilt pronto!
Divine intervention rolled me onto the trail again 100 yards above the church of "Church Tr". Seems to have helped the church too, note the crispy trunk about 6' from the wooden tinderbox of a 100 year old steeple. Neighbors, not so lucky...
Down Four Mile to bang an up onto Logan Mill. When was the last time you rode up Logan Mill higher than Santa Cruz? Like 34 years ago? Yeah, me too. Let me reaquaint you, it goes up the whole way and it's hot as hell by now. Also looked like hell with nary a pine in sight across the valley. Got lost for the third time, but you can't go wrong if you keep climbing right? Hit Sugarloaf and blasted down to Betasso for a frustrating lap with 127 hikers over the 3 mile loop. Fark, man. I've been riding at Betasso since 1992 when there was no "there" there, usage eventually starts to get heavy, compromise is reached in which the mtbers give up 50% access on the weekends and hikers chip in by sacrificing...? Nada. Zip. Bupkiss. Honestly, get the fuck off the trail and hike ANY OTHER TRAIL in Boulder County on Sundays.
Seen about 3 bikers (and the aforementioned 272 ambling hikers) to this point so I rolled down the connector, hit every little bit of singletrack down the canyon and slalomed thru 497 bikers, dog walkers, fishermen, free-range toddlers, climbing parties, hippies and trail runners en route to the sweet, sweet nirvana of Eben G. Fine Park where this whole shebang began. Took about 25 hours of adventuring, over, shit, 7 years and 6 outings. Did we bite off more than we could chew? NOPE, just took a little extra mastication to get that morsel to slide down the gullet. Mmmm, mmm good! What's next?
