Christmas Eve Traditional Booze Cruise 2013

Every Christmas Eve for the past 4 (possibly 5) years, I've been able to keep a dams ride to the bars a rolling tradition. We usually hit up Swing Station & Long Branch in LaPorte, then rip the dams over to Canyon Grill, before heading somewhere to warm up. Some years we go as a group, other years I've cranked it solo. This year l rode solo and decided to add in the Bison's Breath in Ault where I played Jeopardy and watched the original Grinch with a few colorful locals.

Merry XMAS XTREAM!

-zness

Sunday (No Booze) Cruise

Lately, I've been sitting around too much because it's -12 degrees out day-after-day and this Sunday was finally nice enough to throw a road ride together. Since I can't do my favorite road ride, I tried a different loop. Once again, due to the flood damage, the road just south of Sunrise Ranch is completely gone. I managed to hike along the cliff side with my bike and complete the loop, but I was probably trespassing and I wouldn't recommend it!

The county road between Hwy 34 & Sunrise ranch is completely gone.

Bridge is still there but the road on both sides is washed away.

Enjoy the balmy 40 degree weather!

Zness

Rist to Buckhorn 2013: "R̶o̶a̶d̶ ̶C̶l̶o̶s̶e̶d̶ " rather "Road Gone"

Today's loop goes in the books as the gnarliest road ride I've ever done. Not necessarily due to difficulty, but the fact that there was NO ROAD. Honestly, if the county would've put "Road Gone" signs up instead of "Road Closed", I wouldn't have climbed over all of them and kept plugging along. I didn't realize how extensive the damage to Buckhorn Rd (NoCo Rd 27) was. Well... *Newsflash*, that shit ain't there. Once I found myself way back there I decided to finish the loop no matter what, I had to tote my bike up and down rocky embankments and ford white-water snow melt 3 times to get through this ride. And due to the cold temps and time of year and all that it was:

1. Socks off
2. Shoes off
3. Roll up Long Johns
4. Carry bike barefoot through the river
5. Get Dressed on the other side
6. Repeat
   

Also, when the road was there, the asphalt was all bubbled up and laying all over the place and in some places hollow underneath and barely hanging over the edge of the sinkholes. Also, there was asphalt, rebar, roadsigns, and guardrails all laying about. It was pretty gnarly. I'm super stoked I coincidentally remembered a camera. (Here's what it used to look like!)

--------

Adiós, camino.

That is the road way up there...

...and there

Get set to get wet

 And... To top it all off....

RATTLESNAKE

Rist-Buckhorn Elevation

Rist-Buckhorn Trax

Well, it was a crazy-ass ride and a crazy-ass week for the BCS (Auburn, Vandy, Minnesota, etc). Next Saturday is Big Red time again.

Til next time!
-Zness

Killpecker Trail Review / Maps

Todd tha Godd and I wanted to do a little exploring last week and I needed a new NoCo trail to add to this blog. So we rallied up to Killpecker trail off of Deadman Road at Red Feather Lakes.

Official Story: 
Trailhead Location:

From Fort Collins take Highway 287 north to Ted’s place (corner of Hwy 14 and US287). Continue north on US287 for 11 miles. Turn left onto CR74E at the Forks. Follow CR74E for 31.5 miles (the road becomes gravel just past the village of Redfeather Lakes). The trailhead is on the south side of road right across from the North Fork of the Poudre Campground.

Trail Information:

The trail ascends steep and rocky from the trailhead. The trail can be more enjoyable to ride back 2 miles Deadman Road to FR300 for a moderate climb. miles. Turn left onto CR74E at the Forks. Follow CR74E for 31.5 miles (the road becomes gravel just past the village of Redfeather Lakes). The trailhead is on the south side of road right across from the North Fork of the Poudre Campground.

Trail Information:

The trail ascends steep and rocky from the trailhead. The trail can be more enjoyable to ride back 2 miles Deadman Road to FR300 for a moderate climb.

Todd & Zee's Story:

We parked at the bottom of the trail on Deadman Road and backtracked, pedaling up Deadman Rd to FS 300 to FS 517 to the single track trail head (Trail 956). There are a couple of single track trailheads right in the same area, so make sure you start climbing up 956, it's marked on the trees. After a short hike-a-bike to a scenic meadow, it's time to point em downhill. Todd and I agreed this was real backcountry bushwackin. It's not a developed trail, there are unpredictable root and rock gardens and surprising creek crossings. It's a blast to be way back in the middle of nowhere in the thick forest, but the downhill tech is a challenging workout. My handlebars clipped a trimmed stump on the side of the trail and I slammed harder than I have in years. This trail is a goddamn adventure. Although the climb is easy, in my opinion the descent is not for beginners!

The Climb:

 

 The Trailhead:

The Hike-a-Bike:

 

The Meadow:

 The Descent:

I was blasting the rider's right line and clipped my handlebar on that trimmed log. OTB slam into the rock garden.

If you are looking to get out of town or a techy descent, hit up this trail. Also, the weather up there is much cooler than FC, so it's a damn good way to beat the heat.
Oh yeah....

GBR!
-Zness

Tour de Nebraska

FC to Cbus: 580 miles

After graduating (again) this past semester, I was looking for a way to get out of town, break from the same old, and celebrate life once again. With no school or work, I decided to get gone on another bike tour. In the summer of 2011, in an attempt to learn more about my adopted home state, I did my first Tour de Colorado. I thought next it'd be appropriate for me do learn more about my native home state by attempting the same and biking across Nebraska. The concept was simple, I'd bike from my house (in FC), to my parents house (in Columbus) while taking the scenic route through the sandhills and seeing the parts of the state that I'd never seen before. I figured I'd be hangin out with ranch folks, drinkin at small town taverns, and talkin Husker football. You can bet I did plenty of that.

The other idea of this bike tour was to be completely self-sufficient and to "live on my bike". Last tour, I was burdened by carrying my own water supply endlessly up and down the Rocky Mountains. I got into some pretty dangerous spots back in the mountains where I faced some pretty scary incidents of dehydration. This tour was a little different and I was able to achieve a totally self sustained ride across Nebraska, cooking my own food (JetBoil w/ gas tank), filtering my own water (Katadyn Vario - Thanks Jennifer!), and generating my own electricity (wind up weather radio w/ USB).

On this tour, I only had to stop for scratch tickets, apples, hail, & booze. I pulled all my water out of rain puddles, cattle tanks, windmills, and rivers. I never had more than 2 nalgenes of water to carry at any time (which was great!) and when I saw a windmill on the horizon, I knew I had all the water I would ever need. And there were plenty of windmills. Can't say enough good things about it.

Last but not least, let me just say that I designed this tour to be EASY. Because the wind in Nebraska is out of the NNW 90% of the time, I figured I'd get as far northwest as I wanted and COAST across the state with the wind at my back. Nature had another plan for me. In an unprecedented run of bad luck. I rode every day, every mile, every INCH of this ride into no less than a 20mph headwind. That's right. All day. All night. 6 days in a row. 15mph - 35mph headwinds morning, afternoon, and night. I went back and checked the weather almanac daily history just to make sure. It was a crucible of pain, day in and day out, mentally and physically. So much for coasting back to Columbus. I was averaging 10-12 hour days in the saddle, and just to put things into perspective, one of those days I averaged a whopping 9mph.

Now I'll quit yammering and just get to the photos....

oh, the sights!

One of the countless nuclear missle silos in eastern Wyoming that will bring and end to all mankind!! (Makes for a boring photo though, huh?)

Chimney Rock

CARHENGE! Spooky.

The folks in "Big Red's" in Mullen were happy do drink bourbon in the afternoon.

The Road Ahead

The Road Behind

Taylor's Townsfolk

Tankin' the Cedar River (Alumni!)

Ye Olde Pony Express Station: I figure me and these guys have a lot in common: "Riding" across Nebraska

And of course... The Gehring Skate Park!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 oh, the state lines!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh, the wind!

.

This was my existence. Day and night. The only north wind I had was when I was heading into it from FC to Cheyenne.

Then it switched to ESE when I got to Alliance. Unreal.

Bit of a headwind

This windmill is indicating a bit of a headwind

The windsock is showing a touch of headwind

This Husker weathervane is a lot like me. Chargin headfirst into the wind. GBR.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

oh, the setup!

Fully self-contained

Average dinner with wind-up tunes and water provided by the rain puddle in the background

Wildcat Hills State Park

Spent my evenings here with bourbon and a Rockies game on the wind-up

Once I learned to hang the radio from the ceiling, I was free to drink Coors and play scratch tickets. Who needs TV?

Powering up the Ipod for the next day's GRIND. Thanks to Dan Carlen's Hardcore History for keeping me sane.

Ready for the rain and wind

Typical night's setup. Old truck in a field back there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My version of "Cattle-Tankin'". Grabbin some fresh water.

 

 

 

 

oh, the finish line!

First stop: Bo's West to see Uncle Earl

Dad grilled up a fat Nebraska steak for my homecoming dinner

Mom whupped my ass in golf

Nate & Ryan at Bo's West

Jennifer met me in Cbus and caught us a delicious bass!

Jennifer knows a City of Power & Progress when she sees it!

And as always, time to mount up and keep on truckin...

When I got back to Cbus, the hometown paper even did a cool little write up about my ride in the Sunday paper. 

Well, that far from wraps it up, but it's a long enough post that I gotta leave it at that. It was a helluva a trip. Now I just gotta get back onto some single track and straighten out my slice.

Oh yeah.... GBR!

Keep pedalin' you fools.

Zness out