EPIC:

EPIC:

Adj.

1.

epic - very imposing or impressive; surpassing the ordinary (especially in size or scale); "an epic voyage"; "of heroic proportions"; "heroic sculpture"

WOW!.... A co-worker/new friend invited me to do this ride with him and his buddy this week. It was a point to point ride, requiring a vehicle at both ends. They picked me up at about 7:30 this a.m. We drove up to drop a truck off in Minturn which would be the end of our ride, then all hopped in with James and drove to the top of Vail Pass, which was about another 15-20 minutes up I-70. The ride was Vail Pass to Minturn via the Boarman shortcut and Two Elks Trail. We parked at the top of Vail Pass and started off on dirt road at about 8:30ish with a temp of 38 degrees and about 10,500 ft in elevation. We climbed about 2 miles on the dirt/rock road until we came to a singletrack (Boarmans Shortcut). After hitting the singletrack we climbed for another 3-4 miles before topping out at TOP OF THE WORLD.

It was so hard to breathe up here. We live at around 6,600 ft, but there is a huge difference between 6,600 ft and 11 or 12,000 ft. There were many short steep hills that just sucked the energy out of ya and left you gasping for air! And after every short steep hill, you transferred to long gradual hills, so there wasn't really much opportunity to recover. But man, the views were incredible! From where we were you could see 60-70 miles in any direction and the colors are absolutely incredible!

From the Top of the World we then had some rolling singletrack and a bit more uphill. The rest of the ride was pretty much rolling, some climbing, some amazing downhills, and lots more beautiful scenery. After we were done climbing, we had a short steep and technical downhill for a bit, out into a beautiful meadow. By this time we were in the backbowls of VAIL.

We had a nice long downhill to navigate through one of the back bowls. James and I were bombing down it, at one point I went through a little dip and thought I had broken my fork. Kinda took me by suprise. Came up on two other bikers, and the guy wouldn't let me pass even after I asked him, so I just went off trail and went around him. We were doing about 20-25 all the way down this 3-4 mile downhill. Just really feeling it and getting in the groove... becoming one with our bikes.... What an amazing feeling until... I must have cased my back tire on a rock cause about a 1/2 mile from the bottom I flatted. I took about 4-5 minutes to change the tire while James went on to the planned stop at ORIENT Express Chairlift (pg 2 of that map). I changed my tire and waited about another 5 minutes for Jeff, the other guy with us. After I had waited so long and he still wasn't coming I knew that something had probably happened. The SLOW guys that I had passed finally came by and told me that my buddy had cracked his frame in half. I thought OH NO! We were about 6-7 miles from any kind of town, so a long hike carrying a broken bike. I went back to check on him and here is what I found....

After helping him load what was left of his "bike" I took off to find James. He had been concerned because at this point it had been about 25 minutes that he had been waiting. After informing him that Jeff was ok, we went to the meeting point to wait for him and take some pics of him hiking while carrying his bike. I know it wasn't funny at the moment, but it was kind of comical looking back on it.
While wondering what we were going to do about this SNAFU, we saw a white VAIL resorts truck go by (a worker getting the lifts ready for operation). Somebody suggested that someone should chase him down, and me being the eager beaver and ready to do some good, I hop on my trusty steed and start bombing down this dirt road at about 30 mph (EMERGENCY HERE PEOPLE!) I caught up with the truck and explained to him the situation and he said sure he would help. He gave me a ride back up to where I had come from and gave Jeff a ride to the ski aid station where someone else gave him a ride back to Vail Village where we would pick him up in a bit. Meanwhile we still had about 5 miles of SWEET and TECHNICAL!!!! downhill to hit on the way to Minturn. This section of downhill was the most TECHNICAL I have ever been on. Lots of large rocks to navigate, (and a beaver dam to cross...) This whole downhill section took us a while and was very challenging, prompting James at one point to "jump" over the handlebars and land on his back to stare at the cloudy sky above. On the left side of the trail was a straight drop to the stream below, and on the right beautiful colors of the Aspens. Several times I tried to sneak a peak to the stream below and almost ran my bike off the cliff straight into the stream (FOCUS NICK!)

James and I made it down in fine shape. It started snowing close to the bottom, we picked up Jeff's truck in Minturn, drove up to Vail to pick up Jeff, then drove up to the top of Vail Pass to get James's truck. Then headed home to a nice warm house where Natalie had informed me that all the work was done and all I had to do was come home and drink a beer with her and the dogs. What a Perfect Day!


I would highly recommend this ride, and will be for sure to take any visitors on it that come out to ride. Although since it is in the high country (all above 10,000 ft) it is only open for about 4-5 months of the year. I would say that now (fall) is by far the best time to do it. It was an awesome and gorgeous ride! An EPIC ride for sure!