401 Again

Paul and Alex headed out yesterday and Ho made it in about 8 pm. We gave him a choice of types of rides and he was a skirt and wanted something easy to start to acclimate to the altitude. Since it is a county mandate that any mountain biker must do trail 401, we decided that would be a good first ride for him. Howie’s wife had bought him a few egg poaching rings for bagel breakfast sandwiches to try to encourage him to stay out even longer on the trip. Seemingly she wants us as comfortable as possible to keep her house free of pigs for as long as possible. Anyways he has used these a few mornings to make eggs for bagel sandwiches and I had come up with the idea of possibly adding some pepper relish to the egg in the ring last evening. It was a matter of space but howie did manage to make it happen and it was quite the addition to the sandwich, along with the bacon and cheese. (howie edit btw). We headed out for Gothic, just past Crested Butte to start the ride. Even without Alex as a foil, David did quite well keeping us laughing. The parking area had a lot less vehicles than last week, but we chocked it up to us being there a bit earlier. The weather was perfect, mid 50’s to start and just a few clouds over the mountain peaks. We started up the 5 mile road climb, Ho staying right with us, even leading at times, that 101 mile bike race training really shining. At Schofiled Pass we headed up the single track climb. It had not rained up there for a couple days so the climb was much less slippery, david making one stupid dab and I cleaned it for the first time ever and Ho staying right with us as well. The pictures at the initial meadow are probably the best yet with the great weather/ lighting.

The trip down the incredibly beautiful exposed bench cut single track above the valley was a tich slower as the trail had dried out a bit and was not quite as tacky as last week, requiring a bit more caution in the corners. I had also replace David’s rear brakes so he was breaking in the brake pads. The lack of any mud more than made up for the minor inconvenience of staying on the brakes a bit longer this time.

We gave Ho the option of some additional mileage but he said he had enough for the first day. We went into Crested Butte, a quick stop at one of the shops got me another couple sets of brake pads. We headed back up to the Brick Oven for another pizza before heading back to camp.

Back in Gunnison, Ho and I headed into town to see if he could track down a shorter, steeper step for the bike I was letting him borrow (Ho is a very small animal). We actually found what he needed as well as the Gunnison Brewery that our waitress in Crested Butte recommended. After twisting my arm, we stopped for a quick IPA. It was a very good brew and the bar staff, including a perfect Ginger specimen (see the previous posts) was really great.