http://community.active.com/blogs/GaleBernhardt Gale Bernhardt's personal blog on triathlon, mountain biking, road cycling, running, "for women only" stuff, running with a dog and other issues in the endurance sports world. Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:34:02 GMT Jive SBS 3.0.8 (http://jivesoftware.com/products/clearspace/) 2008-07-04T00:34:02Z http://community.active.com/blogs/GaleBernhardt/2008/07/03/riding-bikes-around-colorado-part-5-of-7-mountain-bike-at-grand-lake <!-- [DocumentBodyStart:8fa96f04-0585-4d4e-8c5c-7c442b8f425d] --><div class='jive-rendered-content'><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><a class="jive-link-blog-small" href="http://community.active.com/blogs/GaleBernhardt/2008/07/02/riding-bikes-around-colorado-part-4-of-7-mountain-bike-in-winter-park">Yesterday</a> was a great day of dirt in Winter Park. For today, with transportation and optimizing-sag-personnel-time issues, we made a decision to drive everyone to Grand Lake, get an early check-in at the <a class="jive-link-external-small" href="http://www.mountainlakeslodge.com/">Mountain Lakes Lodge</a> and then just mountain bike around the Grand Lake area. </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>Because Grand Lake is not particularly known for mountain bike riding, we figured we'd do a shorter ride today and then drive back to Winter Park or Solvista for a dirt day tomorrow. </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>We ended up being out, wearing chamois and near bicycles, for about 3:30 today. We explored several trails on the west side of Highway 34, near our lodge. While the ATV crowd has some of the trails torn up with very deep ruts and loose rocks, we did stumble on to some sweet single track. We figured out how to do a loop that began via Highway 34 and County Road 4, near the lodge. The loop dropped out on Highway 34 just north of Grand Lake. </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>We decided the trails were sweet enough that didn't have to drive somewhere for Day 6, but do more exploring around Grand Lake.</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>I, again, managed to leave the camera in the lodge. (Body fatigue and brain fade?) So, I'll leave you with the following, non-trail photos: </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><strong><u>Sag team logistics</u></strong></p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>The sag team needed the vehicle-room to rescue cyclists off of high mountain passes, should the weather turn bad. (This has happened before on Trail Ridge Road and other high mountain road rides.) The team also had to have the capability to transport two bikes per rider and a few sag-team bikes as well. The line-up can be seen below:</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8921-4780/Sag-team---web.jpg"><img height="250" src="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-8921-4780/620-250/Sag-team---web.jpg" width="620"/></a> </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><strong><u>Wildlife</u></strong></p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>Other than cyclists, there was plenty of wildlife to enjoy. Del caught this coyote hunting, and scoring, breakfast on the last day of the trip. Cool:</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8921-4781/Coyote1+-+web.jpg"><img height="490" src="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-8921-4781/620-490/Coyote1+-+web.jpg" width="620"/></a> </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8921-4782/Coyote2---web.jpg"><img height="498" src="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-8921-4782/620-498/Coyote2---web.jpg" width="620"/></a> </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/38-8921-4783/Coyote3---web.jpg"><img height="657" src="http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-8921-4783/620-657/Coyote3---web.jpg" width="620"/></a> </p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p>Tomorrow, Day 6...Mountain Bike at Grand Lake</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;"> &nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p><p style="min-height: 8pt; height: 8pt; padding: 0px;">&nbsp;</p></div><!-- [DocumentBodyEnd:8fa96f04-0585-4d4e-8c5c-7c442b8f425d] --> mountain_bike winter_park grand_lake Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:38:40 GMT Gale Bernhardt http://community.active.com/blogs/GaleBernhardt/2008/07/03/riding-bikes-around-colorado-part-5-of-7-mountain-bike-at-grand-lake 2008-07-04T00:38:40Z 1 year, 4 months ago 0 http://community.active.com/blogs/GaleBernhardt/comment/riding-bikes-around-colorado-part-5-of-7-mountain-bike-at-grand-lake http://community.active.com/blogs/GaleBernhardt/feeds/comments?blogPost=8921