Awesome, John! Whatever you end up doing will be an amazing adventure. Some things to think about from someone who grew up in Ft. Collins, spend a fair bit of time in Boulder, has lived in Denver, Colorado Springs, and now a wee mountain town a bit to the west:
-- Why not go to a mountain town instead of Ft. Collins or Boulder? They are not in the mountains, and so if you are relocating, you might as well go into the mountains. Grin. Doing this would mean you could bike out your front door and try various routes, at least in many places. It would put you at a higher altitude, however, so you'd need to allow for that. -- Mountain towns easily accessible and within 90 minutes of Denver (at least they were in the early 90's when I was in college): Breckenridge, Fairplay, Cripple Creek/Victor (2 hours away?) Estes Park, and Grand Lake (several other towns in the vicinity as well), each with great Forest Service roads and excellent biking opportunities (check with the local bike store for route ideas. I'm less sure of Estes and Grand Lake and their biking opportunities, because much of their surrounding land in Rocky Mountain National Park, so investigate that if you are going there). Breckenridge and Fairplay both have various dirst roads up mountain passes that are amazing to bike and Boreas Pass out of Breckenridge is old railroad grade so 3-4% grade max I think (others are too, as narrow gauge railroads became dirt roads in many cases. I just don't remember the origins of Mosquito Pass or others. Out of Cripple Creek, loads of old railroad options: Old Stage Coach road, Phantom Cañon Road, Shelf Road (not sure if it was a railroad). -- There is amazing family friendly riding connecting the towns along the tributaries of the N. Platte around Deckers/Buffalo Creek and the other wee towns there, and that is just S.W. of Denver (285 West to Pine, then South, to find it on the map). It's on various paved and dirt roads, wide, with great river (creek by most standards) access (fishing if you want/get a license). Kids love stops at the river. The Colorado Trail goes through here for a good hiking option, and Lost Creek Wilderness is very close as well. Hope that helps. Ask any clarifying questions you have! With abandon, Patrick On Wednesday, July 20, 2016 at 11:57:24 AM UTC-6, John Stowe wrote: > > My family (me, wife and 3 year old) will be visiting my brother in Denver > to for two weeks at the end of August. We're thinking of staying in Denver > for a week and then traveling somewhere else nearby like Boulder or Fort > Collins to access the mountains more easily for a few days. I'd love to > hear from any locals about suggestions for rides (or other "must-do" > activities) we could do out there. As with other recent riding-with-others > threads, we have one reasonably strong rider and one eager but a bit less > ambitious rider, with the added bonus/weight of a toddler and higher > altitude (we're at sea level here in Alexandria VA), so I think we would > skew toward shorter routes with good scenery or other interesting places. > Breaking up a longer outing with lunch/museum/fossils/frogs/whatever would > help keep the toddler happy! > > The other question I hope list members can help me with is about > equipment: it looks like if we want to do more than about 4 days of riding, > it's cheaper to ship our bikes than to rent. When we've traveled with our > bikes before we've driven, so flying and shipping is an unknown to us. Any > tips or perils to watch out for would be appreciated. > > I'm especially unsure about what to do with the rear child seat, as it's > pretty bulky and likely won't fit in a box with one of the bikes. I think > my preferred solution, if I can make a connection with somebody, would be > to leave the seat at home and borrow a WeeHoo or other trailer bike. My son > is reaching the age where we are thinking about getting one of these and > this seems like a good opportunity to the one out. If anyone has one we > could borrow, or knows someone who does, I'd appreciate speaking with you > off-list. The rental places around us are loath to rent trailers unless > they're connected to one of their bikes and I imagine I'll run into a > similar issue out there. > > Thanks in advance, I appreciate any suggestions! > John > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
