Crested Butte Photos and report

[Veronica]

But, of course!!! Do it!

Crested Butte is almost too pretty for words.

Thom's already started researching new bikes. He likes to do research.

I feel like we barely scratched the surface of all the things to do in Crested Butte. There's so much hiking, we could have gone rafting. I'd like to do rock climbing when I'm not so tired. Zach, the guide, said that most people don't mountain bike and THEN go rock climbing. I have a whole book full of mountain bike trails. The Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association does a LOT of trail maintenance. They constructed the Lupine Trail in the last few years. We stopped by and joined the association and bought the book just to give back a little something because the trails were so amazing.

Veronica

[indysteel]

One of our guides for our White Rim Trail ride last year is from Crested Butte, and he goes back each summer to lead rides. He did the WRT on a single speed, which I thought was pretty awesome. I assumed that the riding in Crested Butte--at that elevation and with those climbs--gets you in pretty amazing shape.

Again, thanks for sharing your trip. You and Thom have given me and my husband inspiration in the past for our own trips. You sure know how to vacation!

[SheFly]

Amazing photos, and sounds like an awesome vacation. Are you thinking about a 29er?

SheFly

[Veronica]

Amazing photos, and sounds like an awesome vacation. Are you thinking about a 29er?

SheFly

Thanks!

I'm not really considering a 29er. I really think I'm too short and that was the fitter's opinion too. If one were available to try, I would try it, just to see. Our current mountain bikes are hardtails we bought in 2004. The industry has come a long way since then.

Veronica

[Crankin]

Beautiful pictures, Veronica.
Just wondering how you adjusted to working that hard at elevation. I had *serious* problems in Boulder and especially when I was at 8-11K feet in other places in CO. I adapted to the elevation in Boulder enough to do an easy ride on the trail system. But when we went by car to the Continental Divide I was really feeling terrible. Of course, this was 10 years ago, when I was a beginning cyclist, but I had been exercising for many years. Last year, we did do some hiking in Grand Junction (about the same elevation as Boulder) and I was fine, but I had a headache the whole weekend I was there.
I ask, because we leave for Italy in 10 days. We are going to be visiting friends in the lower Alps, as well as planning to do some hiking and take cable car tour at elevations that are pretty high. I am already freaking out about this.

[Veronica]

The four days we rode were a progression in altitude and I think that really helped. The last morning, we hiked up Mt Crested Butte 12,200, about 1,000 feet higher than we had biked the day before and I got a really bad headache that afternoon.

I just tried to take it really easy and drank LOTS of water. My "sitting" pulse will drop to the 60s pretty quickly, but I could never get it below 90 while we were in Crested Butte.

Veronica

[Tokie]

Crankin- have you spoken with your doctor about your problems with altitude? My friends would take a prescription drug - Diamox - which helped them with the altitude. Worth looking into- altitude sickness can become a serious problem. Tokie