One of the highlights from the summer of 2010 was our trip to Grand Junction, Colorado to attend the Ranchstyle Grass Roots slopestyle put on by Grassroots Cycles. When we weren’t hanging out at the private bikepark, we were a few miles away having a blast on the local trails.

Moab, Utah, and now Fruita, Colorado are two major mountain bike destinations in the Southwest. Grand Junction, a mere 40 minute drive away has been gearing itself up to become the next contender for to make your must-ride list. With one of the best single track networks around, it is high on my spots to return to. The highlight of the Grand Junction riding experience are the Lunch Loop Trails. Located just outside of town, the trails are close enough to ride to, and close enough to ride during your lunch break, earning its moniker. Like Moab, there are incredible views and vistas to be found. Unlike Moab’s trails, which are for the most part slick rock and rock strew jeep roads, there is single track here- and jumps. The trails and routes are clearly put together by mountain bikers that understand flow, and they utilize local features well. Even better, there are several DH specific shuttle trails, which completely made our week.

Loading up for the shuttle up

The Ribbon Trail Head

The first section of trail we hit is known as the Ribbon. One of the highlights of the Ribbon is rolling down a gi-normous rock slab at speed.

Cory Tepper rolls down a section of slickrock on the Ribbon Trail

The view of where we were on the Ribbon, on the way to Free Lunch.

As you can see from the photos, there were plenty of epic views to be had. After we finished up the Ribbon Trail, we pushed our bikes up to the start of Free Lunch and got ready for an even more epic descent. Free Lunch is a purpose built DH trail, and features both Black Diamond and double black diamond level sections, some with some serious exposure. There were plenty of rock waterfalls, drops and even a rock step up.

Start of sweet FR goodness: the Free Lunch trail head.

Dylan takes his dirt jumping steeze to his approach on the trail.

Hitting up a rock wall ride while Dylan watches. Photo by Cory Tepper.

Cory and Dylan train through a fun, feature-filled flowy section further down.

Cory gets up on a rock wall ride.

da shit be epic up in here.

The Lunch Loop Trails even became that much more sweet this year with the addition of the Lunch Loop Bike Park.

Local resources

Next time you’re in town check out Grassroots Cycles. Tell them we sent ya. Not only do they provide shuttles, but they are the trail builders behind the bulk of the DH/ Gravity goodness. Not only that, the private bike park the Ranch is their baby, and you’ll need to sign wavers there as well as get the directions.

Related posts:

1. Grassroots Ranchstyle Step-up Jam
2. Subaru/ IMBA Trail Care Crew Visits Part III: Carlsbad, NM
3. Tunnel Trail- Santa Barbara, California

We finally received a taste of Colorado single track last week when we rode the Hall Ranch Trails. Once we had picked up our Subaru supplied IMBA car and our new Fisher Roscoe trail bikes, (and customized them with some key spec changes for getting rad), we were anxious to get them out on a shake down ride. The Roscoe is billed as a trail bike, and features the Trek ABT Suspension Design, with about 5.5″ inches of travel in both front and rear. Once we put the short stem, Race Face DH bars, and flat pedals on, we felt a lot more at home.

One of our new Fisher Roscoe III Trail bikes set up Ihatebikes style

The best part was that my buddy Jon C and his roommate Evan were coming up to Boulder to meet us. Jon is a good friend from the university days, and It’s always a treat to get a ride in with him, as he’s always a busy guy once the riding season kicks in.

Jon has an awesome job. He’s a product manager for SRAM, and is one of the guys involved in the Black Box program. He makes limited runs of the cool Gucci stuff for the best riders in the world. This of course means Jon rides the best stuff as well.. if you were making cool one off parts for the likes of Sam Hill, wouldn’t you want to put it on your bike and make sure it works? Yep. Me too!

Since it was our first time out on the new rigs, we decided to meet up at the Gun Barrel Jumps in Boulder’s Eaton Park to get warmed up. The guys were driving up from Colorado Springs, and as they took a wrong turn on the way, it worked out perfectly. We had a fun mini session at the jumps that served as a great warm up before heading off to hit the trail.

Jon leads Evan and Inga through the warm up line at Eaton Park.

The Hall Ranch Trails are located near Lyons, Colorado. The Bitterbrush Trail can be combined with the Nelson Loop Trail to form a 9.4 mile “lollipop loop”.  Both trails are multi-use trails and see moderate-to-heavy use year round. Our original plan was to park at the top of Hall Ranch and ride it downhill. We were then going to use the new IMBA constructed Picture Rock Trail to connect it to the Heil Ranch Trails, making our day sort of a Super-D style Epic. Unfortunately, lack of local trail knowledge shut this plan down, and the maps and sites we referenced weren’t clear enough to decide the top drop off point. As we were burning day light, we ended up parking at Hall Ranch and doing the ride as an out and back, (not quite completing the Nelson Loop) starting on the Bitterbrush Trailhead.

the group takes a rest break while I cough up some blood and snap a few pictures.

We weren’t disappointed. It was a great trail, with two distinctive flavors at both ends. The bottom was fairly chill, just a winding singletrack leading steadily up. We passed a number of younger riders on full-blown DH bikes, which surprised us until we reached a technical rock section. We had to put some work in to get through the stuff, and as Inga and I are both unaccustomed to riding at elevation, we were hurting.

Taking a break and enjoying the view halfway up the rocky climb.

The top half of the trail presented us with a completely different riding experience. Unlike the rocky sections, it was fairly smooth, with bermed corners. Coming back down the trail, it flowed so well that we just kept it wide open and pinned it. The bermed corners were super nice, and until I came to one of the last turns where the trail changed up abruptly, I was railing the new ride all the way down. That is, until the said turn, where I was traveling way too hot, and subsequently shot off line. I managed to run it out between two trees, so it was no harm, no foul. That changed though, when we reached the downhill rock garden section. The rocks we had struggled with on the climb up, were a blast to bang over on the way down. The corners here were not so flowy, and, unused to the steeper head angle and the more trail oriented handling, I lost the front end and laid it down. Fortunately, other than the thumb trigger on my rear shifter, (and my pride) it was all good. Inga didn’t fare quite as well- she wasn’t quite used to the steeper head angle of her bike either and went down in a similar fashion, leaving a nice bruise on her thigh where the handlebar struck.

Evan

It was a great ride, and definitely worth hitting up if you are passing through the area. Our 5.5″ travel Roscoe trail bikes worked well on the ride, but if you like to ride bikes the way we do, a solidly built 6″ travel all mountain machine would provide the most fun to weight ratio- especially if you like to pin it, and hold it wide open on the burly rock sections.

the ride was followed up by the traditional beer and burrito.

Resources:

http://www.bouldercounty.org

Related posts:

1. Reviewed: the Gary Fisher Roscoe One Trailbike
2. IMBA National Trails Event: Seattle
3. Trail Review: Black Rock Trails