Stage 1

We left the parking lot of Waterton Canyon at 6:45 A.M. on Saturday 8/9/14.  My self and Kyle Quinn were planning to ride the 2012 Colorado Trail Race course and our goal was to make it in 10 days although realistically we knew it could take 11.  Kyle's wife Jenna was going to pick us up down there.  We had some set goals for where to camp every night in order to get to known good water sources and not be too exposed.

The first 10 miles were very easy up the road and gave me a chance to get my legs warmed up and used to the heaviest xc bike I'd ever ridden (alright maybe my old Big Hit or Balfa I used to freeride with may have been heavier).  The top of the first segment was a great view.

I slammed the rest of my water and filled up at  the bottom of the descent since Kyle mentioned we were going to be crossing through a burn area.  The burn area was hot, in some spots I found myself walking even though the grade wasn't too steep.  At one point I looked at my watch and it said 98 F.  I was glad when we got back into the woods.  One of my favorite descents on the whole trip was on segment 2 just after the burn area.  The buffalo creek section was fun.  We filled up again and saw we were in big cat country.
We ran into a fat biker who was going for an ITT solo.  It started hailing soon after we got the road near Wellington Lake but we waited it out under a tree.  The climb to town was rough as we were both getting hungry.
We stopped at the Rustic Station in Bailey for dinner and a beer.  We stopped by a gas station and filled our bags with some more food to get us through the next day.  Also we stopped at Coney Island and I got a shake and some Chili Cheese Fries as I was still hungry.  We tried to decide where to camp and had found a hiking trail we could camp near the bottom of but I saw we were only 30 minutes from Grant and the road was quite so I suggested we get some of our road riding going while it was getting dark and the road was quite so we could try and be off it before it got busy in the morning.  We found a rv campground and after realizing there was no other options in the immediate area we rode in and found a good spot next to a creek in the back of the campground. We expected someone to come by to collect our fees but no one showed so we figured we would find them in the morning.
I ended up drinking ~10 L of water this day.

Mileage: 60.9 mi
Climbing:8,781 ft
Moving Time: 8:20
Camping Elevation: 8,640 ft