Review by Greg Truitt
Recreation – March 1995 – Colorado Central Magazine
The Mountain Biker’s Guide to Colorado
Linda Gong and Greg Bromka
Menasha Ridge Press
ISBN 1-56044-258-1
THE MOUNTAIN BIKERS’ GUIDE to Colorado offers more than 60 maps and detailed trail descriptions, done so well that the user would have trouble getting lost, even by intention. The authors allow for that mischance and others, providing enough examples of good outdoor sense that even hormone-crazed Front Strange extreme bikers might catch on that the idea is to enjoy the countryside, not to show off your large-muscle prowess.
The book was a little gonzo in places (shoulder-hopping rattlesnakes?), but generally it was solid, sometimes even inspiring.
So inspiring that as I read, I started planning a trip to a nearby nevermind mentioned therein, excited by the book’s warning that provincial throwbacks here might have removed some trail markers in the interest of keeping the good stuff to themselves.
But then it hit me. This was January. As good as this book is from a practical standpoint, it does not give proper emphasis to the cold and hostile nature of our environment.
Perhaps the authors were misled by the local promotional term “Banana Belt.” We have never produced grapefruit sufficient for export, our lemons come on four wheels, and there’s nobody around to harvest anyway after the INS sweeps through. The plantaño does not grow next to the bristlecone.
Until quite recently, it was possible to ditch our modest civilization with a few minutes of pedaling into the network of cattle trails, railroad grades, and mining roads that lace the valley.
But about two years ago, we started seeing the results of advertising. Not just local promotions, but also those TV ads that sell reckless driving in the mountains as a perk that comes as standard equipment with every four-wheel-drive product. We are starting to see a turf conflict between those who come to the mountains to appreciate the civilized vacuum, and those who come for the lack of adult supervision.
To reduce personal liberty voluntarily before it turns into license requires a discipline that even we mountain-bikers are reluctant to impose on ourselves.
Not all that long ago, the ski rack atop a passing auto warned you that the driver was most likely an incipient kamikaze about to find out, the hard way, that there’s more canyon than there is road. Now the mountain bike rack often provides that warning.
While cycling our trails, I’ve often seen bikers who didn’t seem to be aware of their location in respect to other creatures (like me). And what of those wearing earphones, perhaps grooving on the latest rendition of the old ballad that begins “When a body meets a body…”
This lack of common sense and common courtesy isn’t just a phenomenon of the back country. My mountain-bike mentor Dave (he traded me a Diamondback for three squares of shingles in the good old days about five years ago) was verbally assaulted by youngsters in a beige compact car, then menaced with an open car door on First Street the other day as he made his two-wheel rounds.
They didn’t nail him with the sudden door lunge — Dave has developed excellent cycling skills at the expense of cracked ribs and contusions — but he was outraged at their behavior, and would have given the boys a sound thrashing if he’d had the opportunity. But they cut and ran.
ALL THIS MUSING, I suppose, is a warning, a warning that should go in such guidebooks, even for two-wheeled visitors: If you’re coming to the mountains to find Mayberry, you’re about three promotions too late. We’re looking more like the Dukes of Hazzard on bad acid, choreographed by Ladd Devine.
Come enjoy our tiring and tire-eating trails if you’ve got the saddle for it. We’ve always welcomed people who have the good sense to get themselves out of whatever they got themselves into, and this book, despite its rather mindless optimism about our winter weather, does provide some good sense and prudent guidance about cycling here.
Just remember that it’s up to all of us to help keep that great “lost trail” truly lost.
— Greg Truitt