Hey Everyone, welcome back! In today's episode we're doing an epic ride. We left our car at the CT trailhead, and took a shuttle to Kenosha Pass. From Kenosha Pass we rode 33 miles of unbelievable singletrack on Segment 6 of the Colorado Trail, eventually ending back at the same parking lot we caught our shuttle from, crossing along the way a variety of beautiful terrain, the highest of which was georgia pass.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:39 Starting the climb
03:31 At the top: Georgia Pass
04:08 Descent: High Alpine
05:53 Eternal rock garden
09:06 The second climb
09:55 Sunset warp speed
15:15 Conclusion

CT Segment 6 (Kenosha Pass to Breckenridge) on Trailforks: https://www.trailforks.com/route/keno...

When you start this ride it lures you into a fall sense of enjoyment early on, by getting into descents pretty quickly. However, be warned, that this is a tough day on the bike, all that elevantion that you're losing at the start, you'll have to regain and then from around 9.5k, make it all the way up to a few hundred feet shy of 12k ft. It's not the highest ride in the area by far, but if like us, you're from sea level, its hard on the lungs on day 2 of a CO trip.

but majestic scenery aside, I know you're here because you want to see the descent. So the obvious question is, is it worth all that climbing. Short answer is yes, long answer is... this video.

One of my favorite aspects of this ride is how much time you're spending on singletrack. While you do cross some fire roads, you don't ride on a single from start to end of the segment. That's 33 continous miles of world class singletrack. Additionally its spans through high alpine and lush forest, changing as you go up and down, both in the vegation and the type of riding. The top is mostly smooth, singletrack, with only a few rooty pockets along the way. As you'll see later on this video, that changes quickly once you're below the treeline. One thing is a constant though, this is one of the highest sustained speed trails I've ever ridden, you're constantly going super fast with very little effort. There's a continous gradient which is right at that point, at least for me, to get you up to speed quickly, but never to feel steep and scary.

As I mentioned before, once you're below the treeline, the trail starts to change its character, roots across the trail and rocks hiding in the dirt start to pop up, not so slowly. It only takes a couple of minutes to progress from smoothness where you can hear the tires gripping the dirt, to the noise being your bike bouncing around. Obviously this section is slower, at least at my skill level, but, one of the amazing things, its that its not slow slow either, there's enough steepness to keep you plowing through the chunk. If I only could keep my speed up in the switchbacks...

It's hard to tell how long this section really is, but when you're out there, your hands will feel like your operating a jackhammer for hours. This section of the trail feels like its one perfectly sculpted continous eternal rockgarden. As with everything, unforutunately it does eventually end; whether you consider it bearer of good or bad news, this bridge will let you know you've hit the bottom of the descent.

This fire road goes along the middle fork of the swan river, while there's a tiny bit of up and down, this section will feel like its all uphill totaling another 1200 ft of vert; at this stage, that feels like a huge climb. Thankfully we were able to push and felt that we had made it to the top with good time to spare, we'd be able to enjoy the sunset on the ride down, without risking being caught by night since we didn't have lights with us.

The beautiful lighting of golden hour became immediately noticeable as we crested the ridge and began our descent down the other face, however, even without this the reward for that climb is what bring the whole experience of this segment of the CT together, with a completely distinct feel, this section is much smoother, with long stretches that carve across the mountain in what can only be described as ripping fast singletrack.

Just like that chunky section off Georgia Pass, this fast flowy part will feel like its hours long too. And that's one the things that I find captivating of the CT. Endless singletrack covering enourmous distances and, its all so good!

You were probably thinking it was over, so was I, but no, its not, there's still tons more phenomenal desceding to go before getting to Breck. I gave this speed a bit prematurely, but I don't want to cut it out from the video since I think it captures well how much I enjoyed the sufferfest that was this ride.

As you get to the end, there's one small climb I didn't record, its nothing major and it will lead you to the final switchbacks to get back on the road just north of Breckenridge and close to the spot we had left our car at.