Tour de Goat - Day I

We arrived in Denver last Tuesday and immediately began to feel the affects of altitude after playing musical arrival pick-up gates at the airport and were picked up by the Goat & Dicky. Rich got a head start to the trip by arriving earlier in the day and getting out to ride a 36" with someone he met on Plenty of Fish who didn't turn out to be a stalker. We would hit the trails the following day, but first we would begin loading our systems with beany burritos which would fuel flattulance fun the entire week.

The Goat's cat Marmalade sleeping in a hypoxic tent.  Apparently we should have done the same to acclimatize.  Pets in Colorado sleep in them all the time.

 

Wednesday morning we were up building and adjusting our bikes before heading over to Golden to pick up Curvy Butt's rental that he would end up beating the living snot out of during the trip.  Curvy Butt's eagerness to ride was preluded by giving a grizzly in downtown Golden a rogering.  

Curvy attempted to give the griz a good donky punch, but was met with great ferocity.

Our first ride right from Golden Bike Shop in downtown Golden proved dizzying and difficult.  At only 6000 feet or so at the beginning of the climb the lungs, legs and head revolted against attempts to pedal my new geared bike upwards.  I figured riding with gears would be easier, but that proved to be wrong. 

View from nearly the top of Chimney Gulch on day one.

My first ride on full suspension in nearly five years.  Blechk.  I knew that it was going to take time to get used to it.  The downs were fun for sure, but uphill pedaling, popping the bike up onto techy bits and figuring out how to shift into proper gears felt foreign and awkward right out of the gate.  I really wanted to like full suspension/gears, but it just ain't for me.

Curvy with his headdown, sucking wind.  He fared far better than I did on day one as I began suffering a nasty cold that would linger for the next three days or so.

It's Thanksgiving this weekend, so I will be too busy stuffing my face making up for all the calories I burned while riding seven days straight. No time for blogging. I will put this out there though, my new 2011 Niner Jet 9 will be officially up for sale next week. It will be a killer deal on a bike that was only ridden seven times. Nothing against the bike - it rocked the trails - it's just full suspension and gears are not for me, at least not until I am too old and fragile to pedal a rigid single speed any longer. I thought that I was ready to make the move back to full suspension/gears, but this trip (even with it's very technical trails) has made me realize how much I love riding SS.  More on the sale of the bike next week. 

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