Colorado in July

[Firebolter]

Yeah, I do remember that place along the highway. Lots of riding in that area, but if you do want to ride up around CB, there is legal camping on Cement Creek road and you have tons of single track there. I liked TP but there are a bunch of ATV's over that way and you will have to ride some jeep roads to connect. We ended up passing a group of 10 or so ATV's and were with them for a while.

In all of the riding we did for 5 days in and around CB, we only saw a handful of mountain bikers and 2 other groups of dirt bikers, so it was pretty much ours all week. There is a fresh water springs up by the camping area on Cement Creek road. Might not be a bad place to go for a night or two. I'll mark up a map and show you where it is.

[Boom Boom]

We are just starting to work on these details. Looks like we have 8 guys going. Two trucks. Four of us will leave from my house here in MD, the other 4 will leave from Blacksburg VA. The group leaving from the south wants to stay in cabins the entire time. My gang from MD is a little more flexible, we will be pulling a decent sized enclosed and are willing to camp out in it a few nights but staying in a cabin to get some good rest and showers a couple nights is something we plan on as well. Do you have any suggestions?

Here is one place that I have found. I guess what I really need to do is map out what trails I want to run and pick lodging as close as possible. I plan to have a sit down with Boom Boom to get some ideas. I am going to Colorado to ride single track, not truck roads or atv trails, so I need to figure out where the most central location to the most single track would be.

Here is one place that looks pretty good.


http://www.tomichicreektradingpost.com/

The 4 of you that want to ride single track and don't mind camping I suggest you go direct to Cement Creek road and camp.
Ride Pearl Pass for the warm up day, Firebolter can show you the route over Block & Tackle to Pearl Pass, then on the way back you have options to come home via Double Top or many others.
Bum a shower from the DAMN crew and work in a second day of all the great single track just off Cement Creek, at end of this day I would pack up and move over to Taylor to your other 4 with cabin rented and ride Timberline / Fossil / Star / Doc Park from that location (2 days minimum or 3 if you want to fit more in). Then assuming you have one day remaining stop at Sargents on the way out for a day of riding and catch a shower at the camp before hitting the road home.

[Firebolter]

Here's a pic. The camping site is right across from one of the single track trails (#406) or you just ride up the county road (740) and have trails all over the place off the road. You spend no more than 5-10 minutes on dirt road depending on which trails you want to go to. If you want to ride more towards Taylor Pass, Doctor's etc., go up the road to the top and start from there or jump on 406 and start working your way north via all single track. The below pic is a grab from the MVUM map you can get and that has all of the trails on it all the way over to Taylor Park.

The best ride we did was the last day. 69 miles of almost all single track with some pretty gnarly stuff but easily make able for most but this is not BIG BIKE friendly unless you are a Graham Jarvis kinda guy. And there was one really vicious downhill! All of the stuff up Cement Creek area is really nice single track. Alot of it is Dual Sport friendly, but you will have the best time on a good 250-300 size bike with good suspension. Not that a Big Dual Sport wouldn't have a good time up there, just wouldn't take them on alot of what we rode up there.

Note Trail 420 is a One Way only (Downhill) trail so that is one we usually run to come home and drop back down to 740 the county road.

[Boom Boom]

One word of caution to anyone with a non plated bike. The short section of Cement Creek is public road and I have watched the local PoPo sit across from the fuel pumps waiting for non plated bikes to ride in for fuel. If you are not legal, do your best to look legal.

[Stinson]

Man thank you guys so much!!! This is great information. I need to get some maps and do some planning.

[Firebolter]

Man thank you guys so much!!! This is great information. I need to get some maps and do some planning.

Go here and download from the man!

http://staythetrail.org/mvum/

Scroll down the page and there are 2 maps for Gunnison. The above pic is from the "Gunnison Ranger District North" map which covers all of Crested Butte/Taylor Park trails. All of the other maps for the rest of the state are there as well.

[Stinson]

Ok, here is what I am thinking.

My head is spinning with all this info. I started to call around about cabins. The two places I have in mind are Almont Cabin, and Taylor Park trading post.

Here is what I am thinking for a schedule. I need to sit down with my buddies and hash this out. I hope to build a frame work from where we are staying and map out what trails we want to run each day. This would give us 2 nights with beds and showers.

[Boom Boom]

Go with Taylor if they are available, much more central location.
Almont is to the southwest of all the trails, Fossil is the only close trail you will run slab to get to all the other good stuff.

[Firebolter]

Go with Taylor if they are available

It would be a pretty easy to "meet at Taylor Pass" for lunch one day with the guys from CBS if you are staying at TP. I mean you can ride from CBS to TP if you carry some small of extra fuel, so a "meet in the middle" kinda gig could be had! Might be fun to each ride 30ish miles to a meet point up high. eat a brought lunch, hydrate then Ride some good stuff for 15 or so miles, split up and go back to whence we came!!!!!!

[Firebolter]

Went to the MAVT trials event yesterday. Was talking to one of my R&T buds who goes to Colorado every year. Him and his group of 4 will be there the same week we are going. They are staying in Almont! So there will be a bunch of "locals" out there during that week between us, Stinson's group and the R&T guys.