July 2025
During my final training days on the technical trails that surround Lake Tahoe which are my home trails, I remember having the discussion with myself. "Can I push this hard on a loaded bike for 16 days straight?" Spoiler alert, I didn't.
The Colorado trail was unforgettable. Hard, slow, spectacular, annoying and joyous. For me it started off rough and got better with each passing day. My final day going over Georgia Pass and dropping into Breckenridge was an incredible day. I felt great but I was way behind my self imposed schedule. I didn't finish for a number of reason's that seemed important at the time. I can truthfully say that the moment I committed to getting off the trail I had second thoughts. Here it is a months later and I am obsessed with doing better next season.
Even though I DNF'd I had an awesome time and am already plotting how to get back to finish the trail.
Food Strategy:
I carried 6 days of food at the beginning. Most of that was freeze dried that I supplemented with dehydrated mashed potatoes. I re-packaged all my food to take up less space in my usual long distance fashion. I carried my usual lunch/snack fare of crackers, nuts, bars, jerky, trail mix etc. I was however missing my cheese which I left in my hotel room mini fridge at the start. Typical.
I also carried 2 days of heavy packaged meals like Dinty More stew. My 1st planned resupply was to be Copper Mtn store or if needed make the detour to Breckenridge market or Frisco. As the days stretched out I locked into getting a resupply in Frisco.
Bike set up:
My plan was to carry gear, a little water and most of the food on the bike. I planned to carry most of my water and whatever carryover wouldn't fit on the bike in my hydration pack. I also wanted to keep the front as light as possible due to the expected amount of pushing and lifting up rock steps and roots.
Bike was my 2019
Spot Rollik 150 full suspension. 150mm travel rear, 160 front. Probably more
travel than I really needed but it's the bike I have and it was Spot on. (See what I did there?) My 67 year old body would have definitely suffered on a hardtail even
though it is common with CT riders. There are many very technical - chunky -
rooty parts of the trail. I increased my front fork pressure from ~80
to ~105 PSI. Increased rear from 215 to ~240. All to compensate for the
added weight of bikepacking. I carried a shock pump to tweak if necessary. It would have been had I continued past Breck. I don't know if I have a small leak in my rear shock or didn't add enough to begin with but I was bottoming out coming down into Breckinridge.
Totally
new mutt drive train. I went from 10 speed with 32-50 chainring/cassette combo to an 11 speed with 28-52 which is my go to bikepacking drivetrain and gives me additional low range. I
already had most of the components which consist of Race Face 28 tooth
direct mount chain ring, Microshift 11 spd shifter, Shimano Deore RD
M-5100 derailleur, ZTTO 11spd 11/52 SLR ultralight cassette (which I
have lots of experience with on 2 other bikes and has proven reliable for me)
and a new KMC 11 spd chain. The crank remained the same, Sram GX Eagle
170mm. The rear derailluer was a new purchase and I highly recommend it if you have an ultra-wide range 11speed cassette. (Just remember your shifter and derailluer must have compatible shift ratios.) As an aside, I did run into a guy that couldn't shift his bike
because he was running an electronic drive train and all his batteries
died or failed.
I changed
my One Up carbon handlebar that was cut to 780 (from 800) with 8* sweep
and 20mm rise to SQ Labs 30x aluminum 780 mm handlebar with 16* sweep and 30mm rise. Elbow and wrist pain are a known issue for me and having
additional sweep and a bit of additional rise works well to alleviate
that issue. Along with that I switched out my grips (from one of my other bikes) from ESI Chunky to
generic grips with small palm paddle in the style of Ergon GA3 grips.
The combo worked perfectly.
I
ran my hand built by me BTLOS carbon wheel set that already had around
2000 hard miles on them but changed the tires to Maxxis Rekon 27.5 x 2.4 on the rear and Bontrager XR4 Team Issue 27.5 x 2.4 on the front. I had
no issues with wheels or tires.
Changed my saddle out. I took my Infinity AX1 saddle from my primary bikepacking bike and installed it on the Spot. This saddle has proven to be all that is claimed about it. I have a Bike Yoke Revive 150mm dropper that came with the bike. Best dropper out there IMO but to buy one is pricey.
And finally, I covered potential bag wear areas on the frame with this stuff I already had from another project: Vinyl Tape. Note that is NOT carbon fiber it's vinyl with a CF look. I had covered my frame in most places from the time I purchased the bike with helicopter tape but I used this stuff inside of frame triangles, head tube etc. In my opinion it worked very well. I used Gorilla double sided taped (leaving one side covered) to alleviate any potential damage from vibration such as where my pump could bang against my frame. I'm sure I could have used something like a foam tape but the Gorilla tape is what I had on hand.
Bag set up: I already owned most of my bikepacking bags but I needed a semi-rush order for a frame bag for my Spot since I had originally planned to use my Binary Kinetik hardtail. Rogue Panda was able to accommodate me with a custom 2 piece frame bag. I ran a Wayward Riders Louise dropper compatible rear harness paired with a Restrap 8 liter tapered dry bag. Up front was a Revelate Harness coupled with a Restrap 14 liter double opening dry bag. A J-Paks footlong snakpak served as top tube bag along with a 10 yr old Rogue Panda Alamo top tube bag that I ran backwards from the seat post. I also had a Widefoot cage under my downtube. All gear functioned well. I had to keep in mind not dropping my saddle completely or it could rub on my seat bag in technical terrain with suspension movement.
Future changes I'll make:
Food. Carry less until the big 200 mile stretch of no resupply. (Although the Cathedral Cabins resupply cuts that down to about 145 mi.) Pay more attention to caloric intake. I'm lazy with food. It's always been a problem with me, even in my big mountain days. Electrolytes. The first few days out of Littleton were hot with and some tough hike a bike. It wasn't until climbing up toward Kenosha Pass that things cooled off some. I generally hadn't used electrolyte tablets before but found they helped when I was sweating excessively.
Water capacity.
Unless you are racing I recommend carrying a little more water than you
might think. I had 4 liter capacity and ran out once and nearly ran out
a couple additional times. There is not always water where marked and I
bypassed some refills thinking there was more water ahead. Not wanting
to stop and filter cost me more than the time it would have taken. 4 liters would have been plenty had I filled more often.
Shoes. With deeper lug soles for the hike a bike - but remain with flat pedals. Take that last part FWIW, I only ride flats.Rain gear that protects you from the rain, if there is such a thing. Mine is old and I got quite wet. This was a big factor in my DNF. Maybe I'll just try a poncho, or a trash bag.
Misc. Mosquitos were never a problem. I had heard horse flies on the Lost Creek Wilderness bypass could be a problem but I didn't experience that. Bears were never a problem. Tragedy only struck once when the Stagestop Saloon was closed as I went by...
That's about it. I won't go into trail experiences because it's an unfinished book. The wonderland of rock on the Lost Creek Wilderness bypass, the beautiful aspen forests on the way to Kenosha Pass, the high alpine single track going over Georgia Pass.
I'm looking forward to more...
Scenes from the route.
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| Leaving my hotel in Highlands Ranch en route to the trailhead |
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| Along the bike path. It was 11 miles to the trailhead from the hotel |
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| Beginning of the singletrack |
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Refilling water at the fire station at mile 25.5                Geogia Pass with Mt. Guyot      |
