Customer Reviews

Mountain Biking Denver and Boulder, 2nd (Regional Mountain Biking Series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A good book to pick up if you are new to the area, but there are some trails in the area that are not mentioned in the book?

It is small enough to stuff in the back of your jersey pocket, or hydration pack.

This book provides a good listing of trails in the Denver/Boulder area. There are maps for each trail and altitude charts to show the elevation gain. The directions to the trail heads are accurate.

The one thing I don't like is that it only gives information about one trail for each system.

I have purchased the FalconGuide books for Moab and Fruita both are great. But this is the one that I use almost daily. It has a ton of rides that are 30 minutes or less from where I live. I ride trails in this book 3 - 4 times weekly. I save the ones that are a little farther away for the weekend. But all in all a great book. Nice size to so you can take it with you when you ride.

I started with the book "Short Bike Rides in Colorado," which was okay, except the majority of the rides involved first driving 200-300 miles from Denver. The ride itself was short, but the entire trip would take sitting in traffic the whole day.

This book fits the bill much better. 49 rides split between Denver and Boulder (appropriate title) of varying difficulty. The author includes not only the level of difficulty (technical and aerobic), but the type of trail (singletrack, doubletrack, ATV road, etc.) and how many miles of each the trail consists of. Extremely helpful, as I'm not a big fan of singletrack so I will probably save those trails for last.

I also appreciated the tiny bits of humor scattered throughout, particularly the definition of doubletrack where he states "the other rut will always look smoother." I biked Barr Lake after 3 days of pouring rain (learned my lesson, believe me) and this was exactly my experience!

I'm looking forward to exploring most of these trails soon. This book provides an excellent starting point to know where to go first.

EDIT: I'm guessing Mr. D'Antonio is assuming more than a basic level of skill in his readers. Waterton Canyon, which is rated a difficulty of 1, was basically a dirt road. Beautiful country and really, really easy. I hit Deer Creek Canyon next based on his rating of 2-3, thinking it couldn't be that much more difficult.

Either there has been some massive erosion since the book was published in 2003, or the author saves his highest rating of 5 for biking around the rim of an active volcano. The trail was INSANELY difficult and I ended up walking most of the first mile up before giving up and turning around. This trail includes the "Wall of Shame" which has several YouTube videos devoted to far more experienced bikers trying (and mostly failing) to navigate it.

I'll still use the book as a starting point to find trails, but will check out YouTube footage before packing up all my gear to head out for another fun-filled hour of pushing my bike uphill over near-impassable conditions.

It has good information about trails, but I cant seem to find any really technical trails near boulder.