This year I was encouraged by my wife, and found the time to take off work, to do a long overdue road trip focusing on mountain bike riding outside my normal area.
Originally my thinking was to make a 3 week plan, but in the end I did not feel comfortable taking that much time away from work, so a two week plan evolved which some may argue was a little “nutty.”
- Drive to Salida CO over 2 days (1,700 miles), 3.5 days of trail biking
- Drive to Fayetteville AR over 2 days (800 miles), 2.5 days of trail biking
- Drive to Chattanooga TN (630 miles), 2.5 days of trail biking
- Drive to Roanoke VA (413 miles), 2.5 days of trail biking
- Return home
We all know that esentially no plan survives intact though.
Leaving home very early on a Saturday I drove over a thousand miles to get to Topeka KS for my overnight stay before continuing to Salida CO.
The weather was perfect at the outset, clear and sunny (once the sun rose over VA for me) and I had no problems getting to Topeka and finding my lodging. Sunday continued that trend and while I was a bit road weary I arrived in Salida to a sunny and clear afternoon with apparently perfect trail conditions awaiting me.
For the first time ever the stars had aligned such that me, my bike, and good weather conditions converged on the CO high country. The three days in CO were epically wonderful. The solo exploration of trails on Methodist Mtn (Rd 49, Columbine trail, Rainbow, Pot-O-Gold, Double Rainbow, Lower Rainbow, Lost trail) on Monday, the social tour up the Cottonwood trails side east of Salida with Tony on Tuesday, and the Monarch Pass shuttle day on Wednesday are truly memorable to me. Perfect weather, great trail conditions, fabulous venue, epic views, more beautiful nature than I could take in. The reasons are many why CO is such a draw to those who appreciate trail time, I need to return.
The transit from CO to AR was also without problem. I stayed Thursday night at Cheney State Park in a really nice cabin, sampling the bike trail on arrival and closing down my day at The Outpost for supper. I started Friday at the Doo-Dah Diner to some good waffles, sausage and coffee before cruising across to Bentonville. Arriving early afternoon in gave time for a couple hours lazily exploring the Slaughter Pen trails before heading on to my AirBNB in Fayetteville that was to be my base camp for a few days.
I awoke Saturday to a severe thunderstorm so biking was out of the question. I was thankful to not be camping and took the time to do some “trip” maintenance stuff (laundry, bike tuning, etc). The storm passed by mid day so I was able to take my hiking boots down to Devils Den State Park and enjoy a nice laid back couple hours “a pied” in the woods. It was a very relaxing change of pace, to slow down a bit, to stop more, to enjoy the surroundings, to share picture taking with other hikers. This was when another challenge presented itself .. the soles of my boots literally started to fall off, forefoot first. I was able to finish the hike by re-wrapping the laces around the forefoot and projecting a very positive attitude (mostly the laces). I would not have liked to have many miles to go that way but it got me back to the start without shortening my hike and didn’t actually degrade the experience at the park. This hike also showed me the park hadn’t received as much rain as to the north so I set a plan to get out in the morning to bike there.
Sunday brought bright sun and clear skies so I sojourned out with a Double Header plan. First was to head down to Devils Den and explore the bike trail there using a route that promised “everything good” followed by driving up to Hobbs State Park for a less technically demanding but lakeside trail network.
Devils Den delivered as promised, covering a wide variety of trail from low and gentle to rocky and technical and up and down some non trivial climbs. I was struck by how similar some of the trail was to the central Texas trails near Austin TX, which also reminded me how much I’d heard of people moving from there to NW AR.
After finishing there I drove over to the Monument Trails at Hobbs SP. The drive gave me a bit of time to snack and recover from the first ride, and the trails themselves looked similar to other lakeside trails built largely with IMBA guidance (like the Allegrippis trails at Raystown Lake in PA). The trails did not disappoint, they were fast and flowy, well managed and built to be enjoyed by someone who is comfortable with maintaining speed. I basically explored the trail closes to the start point and then north out of the tunnel, running counter clockwise across the network with my return following the lake shore, mostly. I was about 2/3 my way around the ride when my rear tire whent flat. Argh. But wait, is that thunder I hear? Yes, yes it is. While working to fix my flat the afternoon storm rolled in. I was able to fix my flat and get well under way before the full strength of the storm hit. I was able to get off the trail network and onto the park road, and after a couple wrong turns I was able to wend my way back to the start.
This largely set the tone for the rest of my trip, watching the weather, avoiding getting caught out in storms, and somewhat succeeding.
saw me driving much shorter distances, sampling trails near Wichita KS (Cheney SP, “meh” but nice layover location), NW Arksansas (Slaughter Pen trails, Devils Den SP, Hobbs SP), Chattanooga TN (Cloudland Canyon SP, 5 Points MTB trails), and Spartanburg SC (Croft SP).
These days were punctuated with severe thunderstorms (which I sat out in an AirBNB in Fayetteville AR, and drove through across all of AR), cool and warm weather, hiking boot catastrophic failure (requiring replacement), and just a couple on-the-trail bike mechanicals.
Picture gallery follows at the bottom for those tired of reading.
Post trip thoughts …
- A supportive spouse at home, priceless, for many reasons.
- The mental and emotional reset – also priceless.
- 1,100(+) miles in one day’s drive? Questionable … but doable … and definitely worth getting to Salida with ideal weather for that location.
- Be wary of lodging that’s not known-good / national reputation (e.g. Wanderland camping problem), do more verification before committing / trip departure.
- Cabin-based camping is a big improvement over tent based, both for stuff storage and weather protection. Is it 2x the cost worthy? Maybe, but “depends” – considering icy-rain in Salida one night, yes.
- Comfort Inn & Suites “accessibility” rooms make great single bicyclist lodging with good space and with large tiled area good for bike storage and maintenance, private hot shower, electronics/WiFi support. Don’t overlook the value of fresh made waffles in the morning. Warning: Coffee can be horrible.
- Having full bike repair tools on hand, along with wheel and tire parts, a very good decision.
- Scouting ahead for what are the better location-specific bike shops is probably worth the time, I got lucky with East Ridge Cycles in Chattanooga. Absolute Bikes in Salida was known a-priori as a good shop, could have been a struggle elsewhere to find odd stuff if needed.
- Taking backup activity plan (e.g. hiking boots/gear) – smart. With the multiple days of rain some venues were no good for cycling on a given day, but a nice hike was a great second choice.
- Do more detailed bike check / maintenance post-ride daily, may have prevented the flat tire repair during a thunderstorm, on the trail, in the woods. Maybe not, but couldn’t but improve the safety margin.
- With more advance notice on setting the timeline for the trip it’s possible to have gotten more friends / associates / other people connections lined up. Maybe next year?
