After my nearly month-long adventures in the Southwest, I was ready to get back to civilization, friends, and the comforts of home back in Boulder. It was the beginning of February. The next couple of months were spent trying to ride as much as the weather allowed, and some exploration on the front range. This time of year any of the good high alpine riding is generally snow-covered, so your options are limited.
I discovered some great riding in Colorado Springs in February/March. I happened to meet a guy on the trails, somewhere off Gold Camp Rd., who informed me that he was doing a group ride the following morning and I was welcome to join. This is why I love mountain biking. The camaraderie is exceptional sometimes, and I never pass up a chance to ride with and learn from locals. As it turns out, our group of 8 riders consisted of 4 singlespeeders! I was already stoked. It turned out to be the biggest ride of the year for me, ascending over 6k feet, ~5 hours, at elevation. I hung on to the locals' wheels all day, impressed with their speed, and not letting on as to the amount of pain I was in. These guys were all racers. One of them was Dan Durland, one of the strongest singlespeeders in the state, I later found out.
There was another trip out to Moab, for the Thaw 2012 event, the beginning of March. Niner bikes (I am a Ninerd), Yeti, and Kona were there with FREE bike demos all weekend. All I had to do was pay for the gas to get there, and I could ride the best bikes on the planet, on some of the best trails on the planet, for free. They were also doing free shuttle rides, which is unheard of! So I had my second go-around on the Mag7 trails, this time on a full-suspension. It still gives me goosebumps.
Other than that, the next month or so was spent riding low-elevation front range trails, trail-running, and hopping on the dreaded trainer when the weather insisted, all the while waiting patiently for some of the good stuff to open up.
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