Colorado, a few of my favorite photos

I've been sorting, uploading, sorting, deleting and sorting photos for the past 2 days and I doubt I'll ever get them all right. We took well over 400 photos during our trip to Colorado/Utah, most of them were taken with my iPhone which worked remarkabley well in my opinion. Two days before we left on our trip we realized the LCD screen on the back of our camera bit the dust. The camera still worked but there was no way of viewing what you had shot and all the pics had to be viewed though the crappy little view finder that was full of dust. I got alot of funny looks when I held the camera up to my face to line up the shot. It's crazy the little things in life we take for granted with all the new technology these days.

 The entire time we were out west I was sharing photos and stories on Facebox via my phone, alot were instantly from the trail. Some may say I can't believe you were on Facebox while out riding with all that baeutiful scenery surrounding you. Yeah well, I couldn't help it, I like to share. I actually got a couple of nasty but joking notes from friends who said I was driving them crazy with my photos while they were at work. I apologize for that my friends, please don't delete me form your Facebox friends list. But heads up, I've got 5-6 hors worth of GoPro helmet cam footage to sort through, edit and make into videos. I expect I'll get 5 to 6 videos minimum from the footage. I'm sure it will take at least a month or two to get through it all. More on that later.

I'll not bore you with every photo that I took but below I've put together a few shots, all from Colorado that I shot and or borrwed from our friends who were with us. I'll share more later and keep the pics from Moab seperate. Like I said before most of the photos were taken with my iPhone, we did snap a few with our half broken camera but not many until we reached Utah.

This pic was atop Joe's Ridge just before we decended down the ridge. We were waiting on Andy to fix a flat and we leaned our bikes on this dead tree which made for a cool photo I thought.

This was our first day in Colorado and it was super windy and cold. Luckily this was the only cold day we were there. The first day we rode the 18 Road trails: Joe's Ridge, Prime Cut, & Kessel's Run. I really really wanted to hit Zippty Do Dah but time constraints and scary windy conditions on a high exposed ridge said otherwise.

A view of us decending down Joe's Ridge. I swear I thought I was going to be blown off the trail, it was scary.

This pic was taken on Mary's Loop, a portion of the Kokopelli Trail system. There we rode Mary's Loop, Steve's Loop, Horsethief Branch & Rustler's Loop. This trail system was probably my favorite in Colorado. Some great views and scenery. I got so much footage just in this area in one day I'll probaly have to split it up over 2 or 3 videos

We had a killer house just outside of Grand Junction which was a cool A-frame. The view was perfect from every direction.

The sunrise from our deck.

Sunset from our back porch.

One of my least favorite trails we rode was the Ribbon, part of the Lunch Loop system. Don't get me wrong I loved it but it had alot of rough and steep hike a bike that left blisters on our feet. I did get some of the coolest views from this ride. The 2nd part of this ride was on the Gunny Loop which ran right through the backyard of our house. The Gunny loop reminded me alot of one of my backyard trails, Darwin's Revenge but without all the trees and a couple miles longer. We shuttled to the top of the Ribbon and rode our bikes all the way home. It was a near perfect day.

A cool view from the 18 Road trailhead, after every ride we re-grouped in the trailhead parking lot for post ride beers which seemed to be perfectly acceptable and the norm for all the locals. Every morning we left the house with enough food for the entire day, our bikes, a change of clothes and a cooler full of beer. Nothing completes a long hot ride than an ice cold beer right there in the parking lot of the trailhead while talked about the trails we had just ridden.

We ate at alot of cool places in Colorado, 3 of which were breweries but the Hot Tomato in Fruita was my favorite CO. stop. I'd heard about it prior to going so it was on my list of must stops. They served some of the best pizza and their beer, was all New Belgium brew. I finally got to taste the Cocoa Mole Ale, a spicy choc beer, it was like nothing I've ever tasted.

 The Hot Tomato is a small little joint run by mountain bikers, one of the owners Anne Keller is also a photgrapher for Bike magazine. Check out her stuff, I'm sure you've already seen it if you read Bike, Several times during the rides we did I recognized sections of trails I've seen on the pages of Bike. 

Post ride beers at the 18 Road trails.

A group shot just before we hit the Ribbon.

A gnarly hike a bike section down the entrace to Horsethief Bench, I'd seen several You Tube videos of people riding this section but the trail looked much tamer then. I think alot of the original dirt has eroded leaving nothing but rocks. I saw no one clean this section while we were there. This photo doesn't even begin to do it justice but I did get some good helmet cam footage while we hiked it.

Before we left for Colorado/Utah I'd heard alot of great things about the riding but two of the locals who've visited stated after 2 or 3 days they were ready to get home and that they missed the trees not sounding like they really enjoyed the terrain. To that I say you're crazy, I loved every minute of it and I hated to come back. We rode 8 out of 9 days and I could have easily stayed another week. There are so many trails out there we just barely scratched the sureface. I don't think there was a single trail I disliked and I see a return trip in 2013 for sure.

I'm not really sure what I'll post up next but I'm sure my blog will be pretty active with all the stories, pics and videos.