Grams Light Bikes - Trip report

This was my 2nd ride of the year on the trail and I was really looking forward to it. With the uncertainty of the trail being closed to mountain bikes (looks like it will stay open for now) I wanted to get perhaps my last ride in ever on the trail. Winter is coming soon to the high country and I have a lot of busy weekends so this was going to be the one shot time I could squeeze a free weekend in with permission from the boss.

When I booked the reservation there were only 5 people on the trip so I was surprised when I get there and it was going to be a pretty booked out group. All the bikes got loaded onto the trailers and we loaded all the bodies into the vans and up the pass we went. As we were going up we saw this Hummer H1 that looked like someone had chopped off the top half of the vehicle, sort of like in the movies when something goes under a semi truck an gets it topped wacked off. Very weird.

So we get to the top and unloaded all the bikes and everyone seems to be just milling around. I jump on my bike and just start motoring up the trail. For some reason I get into a spinning mode and just start flying along. I stop here and there to take pictures since the last time out I didn't get as many as I wanted. Every time I stop to take a picture I expect to be over taken by the usual group of faster bikers. I can do anything technical up or down but I am not a XC racer type and when it comes to downhill I am slower then most anyone. One of the reasons I got a 180 mm brake was so that I could feather the brake and go real slow downhill and not for slowing myself from going extremely fast speeds.


So pretty much all day long I was taking pictures and motoring along like a mad man with the entire trail to myself. I never saw a soul except for a motorcyclist at the very beginning of the trail.

I am not going to go to far in depth with the various portions of the trail and I will just give some brief thoughts.

The first part of the trail is pretty mellow singletrack and is mostly a fast middle chainring cruiser. Then the trail breaks out onto a brief section of doubletrack and it gets very steep and loose. Back to little gears for us mortals. Due to the altitude its a lung buster. It goes back to singletrack and still stays about the same until rolling back in steepness and going back to the middle chainring again.



The trail is mostly on the side of the hill and just traverses along with some occasional forays onto the top of the hills. It spend most of its time in tree line but towards the start of the ride you get to be above tree line for quite a long time. Thats where the trail is magically. The beauty and immenseness when you are above tree line is incredible. Its mostly packed dirt with rock and sometimes loose rock. Here and there and depending on what the weather has done of late the trail can get muddy in spots, especially in the forested sections.


After riding along some great singletrack that uses all sort of gearing combinations you drop down a short loose downhill. This section to me seems to have gotten more then its share of use and seems much looser and more chopped since I was on it earlier in the year.



Towards the bottom it is a fun fast downhill section rolling through the trees. A total blast. Then out of the blue it starts a slow grind up again and then heart rate goes screaming up. This one always seems to me to be one of the harder climbs cause you starting to get tired and its just plain steep and long at high altitude. More mini gears for me.


Then it rolls around a corner and does some more fun singletrack rolling through the gears. Next thing yah know it time to start the downhill to Marshall Pass.

This is a great super fast blast through the trees, bouncing over roots and rocks.



Part way through is a nasty talas field. Its a short technical romp and you got to be careful cause a crash would hurt. Pretty fun.




Then some more roots and rocks and then the whoop de dos when you get to the doubletrack. They are pretty fun to fly off. Last time I was coming down that were a lot of hikers so I had to be careful, this time I saw no one at all.

At the very bottom of the road by the bathrooms I saw a bunch of ATV types, there were 2 brothers who looked just like Larry the Cable Guy and it made me laugh of those two riding a mountain bike instead of an ATV.

NOTE: Work In Progress, More to be added