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Bruce
& Betsy Blais |
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Mountain Biking - Special Trails - Red Rocks, Colorado On October 26th, 2014, Bruce rode the Red Rocks Open Space Trail in Colorado Springs, Colorado with his friend and coach, Zoe Nance. They rode up the Red Rocks Canyon Trail to the Roundup Trail, and then took the Sand Canyon Trail back to the trail head. Bruce first made Zoe's acquaintance when doing long duration rides in Nevada and Utah. She has a training and coaching business and provided advice on fueling for long duration events. Check her out at ZoeFitness.com. Below is a map showing the track, profile and statistics for the Red Rocks Open Space ride. You can right-click on the image below and use the "Save Target As" option to down-load a 1MB 11x17" PDF version of the map. You can also click on the image and zoom up to 200% for a detailed view in a separate window. Right click here to down load the GPX file for this ride. The GPX file may want to save as an XML file, so if it does, change the extension to gpx before you save it. The file is a high-resolution track created on the Delorme PN-60W GPS.
The distance ridden was 3.6 miles and the ride time was 38 min. Climbing was 749 feet and was primarily in the first half of the ride. The average grade was 7% and the maximum elevation was 6,615' AMSL. The photo below shows Zoe and Bruce at the trail head at the start of the ride.
Zoe's friend Jon, was supposed to join the ride, but wasn't able to, so it was just Zoe and Bruce.
Not far from the trail head, there was a gorgeous view of Red Rocks with Pike's Peak snow capped in the distance. Zoe posed for the photo below.
All in all, the trail was fairly ordinary. Below is a typical section of the Roundup Trail.
There weren't very many technical sections on the trail. The photo below shows the most technical section encountered on the ride. Needless to say, both Zoe and Bruce walked this one.
While not particularly technical, parts of the trail were rather scenic. Below is one of the views along the Sand Canyon Trail.
There was one other technical section, a drop near the end of the ride. This was a fairly routine drop and easily handled by an experienced, intermediate-level rider.
Red Rocks is a scenic and fun trail, and perfect for a second trail ride in one day.
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Version 0.1, October 28, 2014 |
