Colorado Enduro
FITNESS LEVEL: ADVANCED / TECHNICAL ABILITY: ADVANCED
What to Expect From This Trip: Six days of BIG rides above treeline. Epic descents in the Colorado high country that will blow your mind. One of the toughest trips you’ll ever complete.
We’re going to come right out and say it: we think this is the most bad-ass, toughest guided trip in the US. You’ve likely never put together a combination of six days of rides quite like this; we’re creating this enduro-focused trip to challenge even the best riders out there. All new for 2024, our 6-day Colorado Enduro trip is going to push limits. It’s going to beat you down. Your fitness better be dialed. Your tech skills will be challenged. It’s going to be one of the best mountain bike experiences you’ll ever have, and we can’t wait to show you the goods.
Taking place over the span of a week (6 days of riding), we’re combining the best descents from Crested Butte and the Monarch Crest enduro to create a single trip that will have bucket-list chasers jealous. We’re taking a page from the multi-day, enduro-focused trips you see in the European Alps and bringing that to the United States: with a combination of big pedal days and shuttle-assisted point to points, we can’t think of a combination of rides that we’d rather do in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Each day on this trip is incredible by itself, but combined as a 6-day adventure with most of the riding above 10,000′ in the high alpine… it’s going to be epic.
Most of our rides on this trip will be shuttled with advanced-level, long descents that aren’t for the faint of heart. We’ll have a big pedal day mixed in (Day 5 in Crested Butte), but these descents are some of the biggest in the Rockies and you’ll want to bring your A-game. This trip will be guided by our awesome partners at Colorado Backcountry, who have approved permits from the US Forest Service.
Trip Details at a Glance:
– 6 Days of riding (7 days total)
– Three days in Salida, three days in Crested Butte
– Five days of shuttles, one big pedal day
– R/T transportation included from GUC (Gunnison)
– All other Chasing Epic “inclusions” standard
2024 Expected Ride Itinerary
Day One: Arrival Day! We’ll pick everyone up from the Gunnison airport around 4pm and drive just over an hour east to Salida, which we’ll call home for the next three days. After unpacking and getting our bikes dialed, we’ll have a welcome dinner (and drinks) and do a brief introduction for everyone. Get some sleep, you’re going to need it!
Day Two: Fooses Creek (shuttle) and Methodist Mountain (shuttle). We’re going to kick things off in style: Fooses Creek sits atop the Monarch Crest and offers steeps, tech, and flow all within its 7 miles of downhill. After a lunch stop, we’ll head closer to town and shuttle Methodist Mountain in the afternoon to hit Guts and Lost, both steep forested trails that offer a bit of tech and flow as well.
Day Three: Starvation & Silver Creeks (shuttle) with optional PM shuttle on Cottonwood trails. Once again we’re heading up into the high alpine, this time to sample two big DHs on the far side of Monarch Crest separated by a steady climb in-between so you can rest your forearms! Starvation is 2400′ of chunk and flow, while Silver Creek offers a bit of everything in its ~2000′ of descent. If you have anything left in the tank, we’ll run another shuttle before dinner up the S-Mountain trail system to hit Cottonwood and a couple others down lower.
Day Four: Greens Creek (shuttle). Today is our travel day over to Crested Butte, but we’re still going to get a solid ride in this morning! Greens Creek has a 10-mile, 4000′ descent that’s best described as non-stop chunk. Seriously, it’s unrelenting but it’s so much fun. After the ride this morning, we’ll stop at the top of Monarch Pass for lunch and a post-ride beer, and then head over to Crested Butte to prepare for the second half of the trip.
Day Five: Reno Ridge to Doctor Park (shuttle). Time to sample the goods in Crested Butte! This is one of our favorite high-country rides anywhere on earth, and it’s a great way to kick things off in CB. Today we’ll get three big descents (Flag Creek, Bear Creek and Doctor Park) that offer just about anything you can imagine. This ride will also have an optional loop that adds about 6 miles and 1300′ of climbing/descending, if you’re up for even more awesomeness!
Day Six: 409 to Strand Hill Loop. Our first big pedal day of the trip, all the big climbs today will most definitely be worth it. From the steep, fast track of 409 to the dark woods descent of Strawberry, to the potpourri of everything found on Strand Hill… this is a new ride for Chasing Epic, and we’re absolutely looking forward to it.
Day Seven: Departure Day… and the 804 (shuttle)! The combination of 403 and 401 is tough to beat: Trail 403 offers steep tech over its four miles, dropping in from over 11,000′ down to the Gothic Valley floor. And while 401 isn’t necessarily a traditional “enduro” track, we can’t think of a better way to end an epic trip. Besides, your forearms will be screaming for mercy by now anyways. We’ll wrap up today’s ride around 1:00p and drive everyone back down to the Gunnison airport for their flights home!
