Tuesday, May 01, 2018

Gold Belt Loop

From my house you can ride all the way up Gold Camp Road to Victor, down Phantom Canyon to Canon City, back up Shelf Road to Cripple Creek, and back down to the Springs.  155 mile loop, at least 90% of it on dirt.  Kircher and I decided to do it, leaving Friday after work and returning on Sunday afternoon.  A much more leisurely version of a similar ride Larry did while prepping for the Tour Divide.


We started at Trails End Taproom, then went across the street to Fossil Brewing.  In that quarter mile, Kircher lost his bike pack and got a flat tire.


From Fossil, we rode ten miles up Gold Camp Road before settling in for the night.


Saturday was an all day grind.  Over ten hours on the bike.  Lots of washboards on Phantom Canyon road and that stretch beat the crap out of us.










We got to Oil Well Flats, our planned stop for the night, and met $100 and the dog.



Left at 7:30AM on Sunday and began the very long climb to Cripple Creek, then some more climbing back up to Victor Pass.







After Victor Pass it was pretty much all downhill back to Trails End.


Fantastic way to spend a weekend, I feel very lucky to be able to do this kind of shit right from my door.

3 comments:

Bob Johnson said...

Nice. That's a lot of miles on tough roads.
Wonder how many pounds of beer you hauled?

brownie said...

A lot of whiskey and a few cans of beer each. We stopped at a bar in Victor and Canon City, and $100 had a well stocked cooler in the van.

Bob Johnson said...

That van was a wise investment.