I’ve often said that I decide a lot of my vacations around whether there’s an excuse (no matter how insignificant) for me to travel there.

24 hours of driving in 4 days for about 5-6 hours of riding?

Sounds good to me.

The singlespeed USA championships were in Boulder, Colorado this year, and the fine gents in boulder put on a great event.

I decided to make a solid attempt to divy up the driving over two days, so thursday night I rolled out with Cerissa and MJ and we headed north with visions of riding Grand Junction pushing us into the night. We ended up sleeping near the kokopelli trailhead in fruita and then busted out the last few miles to the Lunch Loops in Grand Junction the next morning. We weren’t looking for a huge ride, just something to get the legs moving, so we ended up riding for about an hour and a half.

It was the first time I had ridden in GJ before, and it was AMAZING. The trails are super flowy, with a really nice heaping helping of technical. It kinda reminded me of what gooseberry mesa would be if there was about 2-3 times the acreage. If you’re in the area, it’s well worth it, even for a quick ride.

After the morning shred, we rolled up to boulder, and got there just in time for the pre-race festivities and the first couple rounds of the hosting competition. Everyone met up at a park in boulder, and then cruised up the footpath in boulder canyon to the first hosting challenge.

For those who aren’t familiar, the hosting competition decides who gets to host the race the next year. The current locale gets to put together a contest (or series of contests) to see which location is most deserving for the next year. Nobody knows what they are until you arrive, so it levels out the playing field nicely.

In true form, we got to another park right next to boulder creek. The fine folks from boulder then showed up with a mess of tubes, and some assorted pairs of shorts from the local thrift store and instructed whomever wanted to host next year to strip down and get ready for a tubing race down the creek.

Arizona Represents

And with that, they were off down the creek for what promised to be a cold and exciting journey.

After the first round was over, with a decisive with by Kaolin (from cave creek, I believe), everyone dried off and headed downtown to shooters bar for packet pickup. The packet consisted mainly of a bunch of stickers and a map to the high school parking lot in Nederland (which is about 40 minutes up Boulder Canyon), so the course was still a mystery.

We had a few drinks at shooters, and then decided to go find some dinner (and more drinks) after that.

The next morning was greeted by f-ing roadie (whom you may remember from his moab shenanigans). He showed up with a flat tire and what amounted to about a half gallon of coffee (which he didn’t share).

We fixed his tire up and then headed to Nederland to meet up with the rest of the crew. I would estimate there were 40-50 people who showed up for the event, and as expected, folks came dressed to the nines.

Will and the ever-stunning Sadow.

A closer view of will and his custom painted pugsley along with Kerry and her sweet ref outfit.

At this point nobody really had any idea (still) what or where the course was, so there was much debate as to the amount of food, water, and beers to throw in the pack. Finally, Jake jumped in his land rover to lead the way and we all headed down the road for a 6 mile ride to the ‘start’.

We eventually turned onto a dirt road for the last mile, and when we turned the final corner to the race start venue, we were greeted by the fine folks at Oskar Blues and their giant Dale’s Pale Ale RV. Some folks cracked another beer, some threw one in their backpack for later, but I think everyone was pretty excited to get this thing underway.

There was a lemans start, which everyone pretty much just walked to, and then the course turned uphill immediately, straight uphill. We all got nice and comfy hiking and pushing for the next 10-15 minutes until we finally hit singletrack and threw a leg over the bike (although hiking seemed to be the theme of the day).

The course ended up being an amazing network of super fun singletrack. To say it was twisty was a bit of an understatement. In fact, the GPS track didn’t do it justice, as the resolution wasn’t nearly fine enough to get all the back-and-forth on it.

View Larger Map

There were stream crossings, snowfield crossings, dusty singletrack, technical rock gardens and a whole lot of climbing.

Like a LOT of climbing.

I estimate about 20 miles for the full course length (the GPS clocked around 16) and about 3500 feet of climbing.

Unfortunately, somebody got wind of the race the night before and decided it would be a good idea to take down the course markings, so the fine folks from boulder had to go out the morning of the race and re-mark the course. I think, because of this, there was some confusion as to route in a few places and as a result, and the lead group got a little off-course.

Imagine how surprised I was with a top-10 finish due to my navigation skills. I swear there were another 5-10 people who were in front of me and probably still out there wandering around when I came in (at around 2 hours and 15 minutes, give or take).

6th place, I’ll take it.

After the race, everyone rolled back down to the oskar blues basecamp, cracked some beers and shared stories of navigational mishaps. A good time was had by all.

In an effort to extend the ride a bit, f-ing roadie, rotten rob and I decided it would be fun to descend boulder canyon on the mountain bikes. So we gave Cerissa the keys to the car and rolled out for about 20 more miles (about 15 of which was downhill). It was a ton of fun, and I would love to go do that on a road bike at some point. We were easily hitting 35 on the knobby tires, so I can only imagine what speeds you would achieve on some nice little road slicks at 100 psi.

Anywho…. We went home, got some showers and snacks, and chilled for an hour or two before rolling down to the post-party.

The post party was hosted by the folks at the 303 distillery. It was really a cool venue, and my only regret is that I didn’t track somebody down to give me the quick tour of the place. It was in a warehouse complex right next to Green Guru (I have one of their wallets, and highly recommend any of their gear, it’s really well made and quite durable). All of the distilling equipment was made in house, and it’s really impressive to see. It’s a mess of tubing, pvc pipe, stainless kegs, and all sorts of other fun stuff. I wish I had gotten a picture of it, but, well, I had a couple of their whiskeys and several more beers from Oskar Blues…..

After several drinks, and just as the sun was setting, the ‘final’ for the real SSUSA winner was held. It was a giant game of footdown with the crowd slowly closing in on the contestants to make it even harder. I honestly have no idea who ended up with the giant SSUSA champion belt in the end, but I’m sure everyone involved had a good time.

They also held the final round of the hosting competition, which ended up being a skid contest. Deejay decided to help the fine folks from Vermont out, and laid down a couple healthy 40-50 foot skids (on broken pavement) to help seal the deal on where we’re gonna be next year.

As was expected, it was a great weekend. The drive back on sunday was long and boring, but then again, I expected nothing less. Thanks again to the guys in boulder for putting on such a fun event, and a good excuse for me to drive up there and ride some new trails, and thanks to rob for loaning your couch out for the weekend.

We’ll see ya’ll next year in vermont. It’s gonna be a fun one, I’ll bet.

That’s right, vermont. It’s gonna be fun. be there.