Mountain Biking around Vail

After I dropped Christine off at PT this morning, I hopped on my mountain bike and rode up to the top of the Gondola at Vail. It was about a 50 minute climb on a service road, so not too exciting. I've ridden around by the condo too, and so far I've only seen one other person riding up the mountain (instead of taking the lift). I guess I can see the draw in that, but it makes me worry about people bombing down the hill not figuring that people actually do ride uphill. The nice part about riding in the morning before the Gondola starts running, though, is that you have the downhill all to yourself.

From the top of the Gondola, I took a "trail" called Lions Down. It was marked as a blue square on the trail map, but it was totally disappointing. For almost the whole way down it was another service road. At one point, I saw another trail nearby, so I rode over to it. It looks like they were just starting to build this trail because it abruptly ended without fanfare. I also tumbled over a log on this short section. It was a slow motion over the handlebars type of ordeal. On my way over I scraped my leg on the log's stump, so that tree got me twice.

Yesterday I took a ride up the mountain with Kuzca. At the beginning, she was all excited and was running all over the place. It didn't take long before she got good and tired, and on the way down she couldn't even keep up. I love it when she gets all tired like that.

The game plan tomorrow is to ride the Copper Triangle while Christine's mom is here to help out. I'll ride from Vail, to Copper Mountain, To Leadville, and back to Vail via Minturn. Right now, my legs feel tired from the long climb up the mountain, so hopefully they feel better tomorrow.