We rode a Colorado Trail/Silver Creek/Rainbow Loop that really has my heart. Our loop was 30.5 miles with 4371′ of climbing. Not a small ride.
The loop starts with a ride out Marshall Pass Road and then we turned left on the gravel/rock Poncha Creek Road. Sure it starts all friendly and wide with a nice smooth surface and then it kicks up, and up, and becomes rough, rocky and then more steep. We took deep breathes at the top around 11,300′ and turned onto the Colorado Trail. Actually, this part climbed up more before we reached the start of a true descent.
Wow. Silver Creek Trail is fun. It’s black diamond as far as technical skills and indeed, it’s steep, rocky, and rooty for large parts. But, the trail is also VERY fast and flowy. We caught up to a group of shuttlers at the top and luckily we passed all of them right away and had the rest of the day to ourselves. At the very bottom we popped out along the creek and wound through pines and aspens before connecting to Rainbow Trail
Rainbow Trail isn’t new to us, we have ridden this section a handful of times and love it. It rained the night before so it was a special treat to have tacky dirt instead of dusty trails. This trail is sheer joy. It too is black diamond but I find it easier than Silver Creek.
I can’t say enough good things about this loop. Sure, the climbing is uber tough to get up to the Colorado Trail, but it’s worth it for all the downhill.
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