Have I got Epic for you!

Ahh, the beautiful Fourth of July weekend...nice and long! Squirrells made the drive all the way from Tejas for a month of playing in the mountains, and needless to stay we started it off right!
I had gone running just before he arrived and had explored the Ring the Peak Trail as it comes out of Bear Creek Canyon and I thought that it would be a wonderful bike ride! So, I knew where it came out and we took some peeks at some maps and found the start. Now, for the record, I thought out loud...that's a long ride to make a loop out of this, like 25 miles of dirt with 5,000+ feet of climbing...a little too much for a kid who only rides half an hour to school everyday. But after 13 hours of driving for the old Squirrelmaster he was havin' nothing to do with getting in a car...so he convinced me that it wouldn't be too bad, we'd just cruise it.

So noon rolls around and we hit the dirt road to start our ride...High Pass...3 miles of steep climbing with no warmup in 90+ degree heat...here's Adam comin' over the top.

We continued on for what seemed like hours, and was. My legs basically crapped out on the steady 4% grade that went on forever, only an hour in...but never willing to admit that I can't hang with the other dos amigos I continued on in silent pain and torture as my legs tightened and ached pedal stroke after pedal stroke.
The road was amazing though, cruising through these amazing tunnels built back at the turn of the century for access to mining areas. And it climbed and climbed up above Colorado Springs...always in sight, but lower and lower as we ascended.

Now at this point, after riding for about 4 hours with little more than a bagel and a Clif Bar in our stomachs (I don't know why every time I ever go out with Squirrels and Scrat we always run on the bleakest of food and we never bring anything with us?), with thunderstorms moving in while we're at 9,000 ft we should have realized the bleakness of our situation and potentially turned back. But the hell with that, I'd been climbing up into the mountains for four hours and I wanted my sick singletrack descent...not to mention the lack of blood sugar in our veins was probably skewing our judgment. Needless to say we pedaled on upward and into the ever darkening clouds. Finally, we reached our singletrack trailhead!!! Ahhh, we thought...by 4pm we could be down at the car...in an hour...just 10 miles of singletrack sickness lies in front of us. We headed into the woods with grins on our faces and yips in the air. These were, however, short lived as the trail turned upward again. We grunted our way on foot for over an hour up a steep trail and reconvened at the top to descend. That next mile was some of the most intense single track I've experienced...the tightest switchbacks, the loosest rock, and some screamin' speed...And then all of the sudden the trail dead ended into a old logging road! We were totally flabergasted and roamed both directions on the road only to find it dead end!!! At this point the rain starts to come down and we huddle under a tree having run out of water and lacking the most important piece of equipment in the mountains..a raincoat.

We could see the Springs and were pretty sure of where we were, but didn't really know how to get out. There was one random road that I thought led us way back to our highpoint on our climb...and we called Camille to see if she could verify it on a map, but the road wasn't on the maps. So, we decided to trust our intuition and our prayers and headed down the road (although it was the last thing I wanted to do cause I really wanted that descent). It did kick us back out on a dirt road and we started pedaling back to the Springs...and that's when the rain and the wind really started, not to mention we were barrelling down the road at 30mph. Slowly the cold seeped deep down to the bones.

We pulled over and huddled under a tree shivering mad hugging each other to stay warm (only I was squishing all the water out of Adam's jersey and onto his skin). We swallowed our pride and called Cami to come pick us up...and being the giver she is she drove up the nasty dirt road in the rain and found us like this huddled under the tree.

Now you might say to yourself that we look really happy...well, we're not. We were happy only in the sense that we knew we were going to be getting in a warm car really soon. We hopped in getting mud everywhere and made it home where Cami helped us warm up with some food.

Now the lessons: Bring a raincape, armwarmers, a map, and some waterproof matches (especially when you don't think it's going to be a big ride!), charge your cell phone battery and eat some food for breakfast for cryin' out loud! Man does not live on bread alone...you need some eggs and bacon, fruit and yoghurt too!

The Redemption

Two days later we headed back out on the bikes and pounded for two hours, with legs that felt like they had a ton of bricks tied to them, and found ourselves on this fantastic singletrack just above the Springs. Huge bermed turns and perma-grins plastered on our faces. Best ride I've done since high school!!!