September 12, 15 and 20 rides, 2020

 We we out on local area trail rides that we've done a lot as of late so I'm not going to put in a big ride report for them!

Sept. 12 Ride: Tiny Chapel at the Rockledge Ranch inside the Garden of the Gods.

Sept. 15 Ride: Just a weekday ride on the Pikes Peak Greenway with a stop at the Good Neighbors Meeting House for iced tea and a banana! :)

On Sunday Sept. 20, we headed north on the Pikes Peak Greenway trail up to Woodman Ave. to hook up with the New Santa Fe Trail which is all DIRT thru the USAF Academy, Monument and Palmer Lake, CO and beyond. Decided to see how our trikes with treaded "ROAD" tires would fare on the short but steep, gravely trail! We decided our destination would be Ice Lake on the USAF Academy ground along the trail. It went good, had a bit of slippage here and there but with a little E-assist and spinning I made all the up hill inclines first try! Alas, Jo was having a bit of trouble on some but she just backed up and got a better run or dialed in a bit more E-assist and we made our way to Ice Lake which is a large fishing pond with a single track trail around it. We rode a short way north on the trail and found a parking area with a nice shade tree and flat large rock and ate our brown bag lunch! 

After accomplishing our goal, we turned around and headed back into down town via the trail to Boulder St., then headed back north to the storage area on the Cascade Ave. bike lane. 23 miles RT, 85 F, a bit hazy and smoky but a enjoyable ride! Might look into a different rear tire, more a dual-purpose type just incase we decide to get "DIRTY" in the future!! ;)

September 7th. 2020-A smoky ride on the Cottonwood Trail, new section scout out

With a new forest fire burning up in northern Colorado, our sky was smoky but we needed to get in a ride as a early season COLD front from Canada would drop our temps from the high 80F's to the high 30F's starting the next day!! We decided to ride the Cottonwood Creek Trail and this time do the "new section" from Austin Bluffs to just east of Powers Blvd. on the eastern side of  Colorado Springs, CO.  The trail starts at the junction of the Pikes Peak Greenway and the CC Trail then heads east up to the Cottonwood Recreation Area Park and beyond. 

 

The trail is very scenic with several low falls along Cottonwood Creek and lot's of little bridge crossings but it's a constant uphill grade all the way to Austin Bluff's and Woodman Ave. were the newer section of concrete trail continues and is more "rolling hills". There is NO shade on the new section so it can get hot! As stated we rode to the end of the new concrete, you can go further up to Tutt Ave. via a dirt trail but LOL, we don't do DIRT! ;) So we turned around and headed for CWR Park to eat our brown bag lunch and take a break. Now the FUN starts as all that uphill grade is now mostly down hill and with the smooth concrete it can be quite fast heading west towards down town! 

 

On the way back on the CCT to the PPGW we decided to stop and take a photo of the "man made" pooling area along Monument Creek along the Greenway.

Sadly the smoky sky was getting worse so we decided to head back to the storage unit and call it a day! Round Trip: 20-25 miles, 88F, very little breeze, a fun ride and JoLynn finally got a chance to ride the new section of the CCT so now the trikes are tucked in and we await the COLD and SNOW on Tue/Wed, arrugh, it's just TOO EARLY for this level of COLD, come back summer!! :)

September 2, 2020-Garden of the Gods, Motorless Mornings ride!

 JoLynn and I rode the Garden of the GODS, "Motorless Mornings" at the park today from 5AM to 8AM, there's no auto traffic allowed and it's only hikers and bike riders! We loaded up the PU truck with the trikes and headed over to the Buffalo Lodge Bicycle Resort between Co. Spgs. and Manitou Springs. The set up a $5 continental breakfast from 7-10 AM. So we headed up to gain access to the park at the Trading Post entry way and headed up hill to ride the Garden Loop Rd. that goes around the whole park. It was great to see the sun rise and get in a great ride! After we finished we headed back to the Buffalo Lodge for the breakfast and then rode around Manitou Springs to get a total of 16 miles RT. Perfect weather, it was a very enjoyable ride, except for the slight malfunction I had with my seat, had to pull out the tools and loosen several bolts so I could move the seat forward to clasp the quick release in tighter!! Seems ok now! :)