My First Mountain Bike Ride -- Colorado's Routt National Forest

Our family vacation in 1987 was to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a trip that not only returned me to my beloved Colorado Rockies but also introduced me to both backpacking and mountain biking, activities that have dominated my outdoor life for the last three decades.  I had never heard of the Routt National Forest, but I fell in love with it on a 15 mile day hike from Rabbit Ears Pass, along the Continental Divide Trail, and then down to Fish Creek Falls. On this hike, I noticed numerous obvious campsites along the trail, triggering the urge to learn to backpack which we did as a family two years later after outfitting our family of four with the necessary gear. I have subsequently done over 60 backpack trips, some with friends, some with my sons, and many solo, as I've explored over 50 wilderness areas across the country, including a return to the Routt with a 1990 backpack here in its Mt. Zirkel Wilderness.

The next day, we rented mountain bikes at a local outdoor shop, and after asking the store clerk if there was a place to ride in the national forest, he said yes, there was a very nice but strenuous 20 mile bike loop available.  He told us to bike over to the gravel Buffalo Road and head up it. We had to walk the bikes in a couple of really steep sections, but all three of us, my wife, 15 year old son, and I, were all runners and in good shape. The views looking back at the town far below us were awesome. My 10 year old son was not old enough for this experimental ride.

The clerk had told us to watch for a particular set of landmarks, and when we saw them, we then spotted the narrow trail that headed back down the mountain. This was Spring Creek Trail which we began biking down, and had an amazing adventure!  Here's my 15 year old son...

As I look at these 31 year-old photos now, I'm chagrined that we didn't have helmets on. All our biking around home was on residential streets, and helmets were not in vogue back then so the thought had never entered my mind when we rented the bikes. And the fact that the clerk didn't supply them or even mention them indicates to me that the times were very different back in 1987. Nowadays I would never bike without a helmet! Below is a photo of me coming down the Spring Creek Trail (in my Cubs hat)...

Biking through little creeks was new to us, of course, but didn't deter us -- just added to the fun of this new experience.

This stimulated my desire to do more such biking, and a few years later, I bought my first mountain bike, a Specialized Hard Rock, which replaced my 15 year old Sears Deluxe Varsity bike.

We had a forest preserve just three miles from our house, and one of my regular local biking routes travelled the residential street that paralleled the forest preserve for a mile. So one day, with my new mountain bike which I was still getting used to, I ventured into the forest for a mile, but when the trail turned south, I went back out to the road and continued my usual route.  

That joy I’d experienced in the woods remained with me all day and night, so the next day I biked that route once more, veered into the woods again, and was so captivated by the forest ride that I made the turn south and biked the entire six mile loop that followed the perimeter of the preserve.  

The trail had constant twists and turns and was replete with rocks and roots and ruts, and in the western section of the preserve it was like a roller coaster with up and down hills and constant blind turns, providing a challenging workout, wondrous scenery, and wildlife sightings. I was so enthralled that I shunned my normal street rides and solely biked in the woods. Twice I nearly hit deer that were blocking the trail as they browsed the bushes as I came around blind turns. 

But it still wasn’t enough. The preserve continued on the east side of the road that ran through its center.  I was familiar with the woods over there because I had devised my high school's home cross country course there (I was one of the coaches) so I biked over there and explored the east side’s four miles of dirt single track. I loved it too, and added it to my biking route, thus making a 16 mile route which I biked many dozens of times over the next 30 years, and even though I've moved into my retirement townhouse 30 minutes away (which is right next to another preserve) I still return to my old favorite many times each year. I've since replaced the Hard Rock with a Trek mountain bike, but I still have the old bike for friends who wish to join me on a ride.

Though I'm in my mid-70s now, I've biked 2200 miles this year. In 1999, I began a spreadsheet to log my biking, hiking, and paddling mileage, and now after 20 years my totals are biking (39,323), hiking (12,749), and paddling (1930).