Well, I finally bit the bullet and bought a new gravel bike. We saved quite a bit of money when we canceled most of our Texas plans due to the coronavirus so I rationalized and bought a Salsa Warbird from Webcyclery. Thanks Webcyclery! It is incredibly different than the cyclocross race bike I’ve had for the past 16 years and been using for gravel rides since then. For the inaugural ride we did 31 miles with 3044′ of climbing from our trailer.
The bike is waay more stable feeling, less race geometry which means better for my back, and is better able to handle rough roads. It has disc brakes, which my last bike couldn’t have without quite a bit of modifying because it was so old. Bottom line, I’m very pleased.
The ride was a mixture of gravel and road…mostly gravel. Most of the riding here is a climb for the first half and then a downhill for the second half. That’s nice because you get the work done with at the start! We road up Echo Basin, explored some side roads, went out to the top of the ramparts (rock cliff), and doubled back. Our highest point was at 9320′ where the road ended at a trail that was still under snow.
The forests get more and more green each day and I’m waiting to see what some of these plants and trees are when they bloom. You’ll see in the pictures, the little green leafy stalks that are growing under the aspens. Are they skunk cabbage?
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