May Long Weekend - Golden Bike Trip

It's bike season again! To kick it off in style, I went out to Golden for the long weekend to camp and ride at Mt. 7 with Nick, Matt, Devin and Mikayla. We joined the traffic snake leaving Calgary on Friday afternoon but were able to get to the Cedar Lake Rec Site just in time to snag ourselves a campsite for the weekend. Matt and I went for a quick Moonraker loop after dinner to check out the trails, then we joined the crew around the campfire to celebrate 3 days of freedom.

Early morning calm at Cedar Lake

Saturday was a shuttle day. It was overcast and threatened to rain all day but it was comfortably warm and we only saw a few sprinkles of rain. The trails were in awesome shape, dry and fast! We were able to drive all the way to 10 K, only hitting snow in two places. There were lots of downed trees just above where 5 K starts, but Bris, 5 K and B12 were all good to go. The bears were out in full force, and we saw a mom with three cubs at the 10 K turn around. The cubs were all climbing around in the trees being super cute while their mom guarded the bottom. We did Mt. 7 laps all afternoon with Mikayla as our awesome shuttle driver and Nick got to finally try out his new carbon Glory. He gave everyone a try on it, what a fun bike, although Matt and I were able to keep up pretty well even on our little bikes. That evening, beers were enjoyed and good times were had all around.

Loading up the bikes at the bottom of Mt. 7

Going up for another lap 

Bear cubs in the trees at the top of 10 K

We were ready for rain but didn't have to worry about it

Sunday was another cloudy day, but again, we managed to avoid getting rained on. We decided to go and check out LSD, a black downhill trail above the Moonraker trails. After a few wrong turns on the logging road spurs, we found the trail head at the top of a ridge. It was pretty spectacular up there but the bugs were brutal! The first bit of the trail was a pedal along the ridge, before it dropped into some steeper, fast corners. There has been some work in there this spring, the berms are buff and there is lots of fun new woodwork through the top section of trail.

Views across the valley from the top of LSD

Enduro bikes rock! Awesome views from the upper part of LSD

The lower section of LSD was a bit more steep, technical and rooty with occasional stunts. It was a super fun trail for my Enduro, especially through the pedally sections. LSD joins up with the Canyon Creek Trail and works its way along a cliff for most of the trail. Some of the trail is quite exposed, but its easy and wide so that never ends up being an issue. The view from some of the more exposed bits were amazing, and we spotted a mountain goat high on the canyon wall.

Alternate entrance to LSD

Canyon Creek trail

Very excited about the canyon. I think this was moments after Devin's helmet tried to roll off the cliff

It's a long way down!

Matt is happy

There was an option to ride back to the campground on the Moonraker trail network but we decided to continue down Canyon Creek to avoid Devin and Nick having to pedal their downhill bikes on cross country trails. We came out at a trail head that was much further east than we had anticipated and had to direct Mikayla through town to come get us. When we went back to ride the trail again on Monday, we took our pedal bikes and rode back through Moonraker, which ended up being a 19 km loop and was lots of fun! It wouldn't have been nearly as enjoyable on downhill bikes though. Sunday afternoon was spent shuttling more 10 K laps on Mt. 7, and was finished off with a very cold dip in the lake before dinner.

More shuttles on Mt. 7

It was a slow start on Monday, but it was definitely the best weather of the weekend. It was hot and sunny and Cedar Lake was full of tourists! Devin and Mikayla went home early but Nick, Matt and I pedaled up to LSD for one last rip. Not a bad way to spend a Monday.

Sunny skies for our final day in Golden