I'm not sure at what point I realized that I had a big ride in the morning. While I was on stage, several cocktails into the evening wailing out Elton John's Rocket Man at Boulder's dive karaoke bar....or watching my wife while on said stage in said bar getting cornered by a gaggle of....well let's just say some ladies playing for the other team. Hilarious.

But it was obviously time to go home....

When my eyes cracked open at 7:30AM....and I surveyed the body for any physical damage...then ensure the evening was 'awesome' by finding my wallet and CrackBerry (those things just tend to get lost on epic evenings...)...I knew I had to hi tail it to get to Amante and meet the crew there. Kiss goodby and car packed, I flew to the meet up point (Amante) and saw that we had a crew...a massive crew....of super fun, super fast dudes.....
Today was going to hurt.

The destination were some of the beautiful county built trails up in Larimer County. Trails like Horsetooth and Devil's backbone would be on the Agenda. It was my first time there but we had some dudes in the mix today who own those trails and would show us a great ride. And yes, it would be epic.

The trail systems are insane in Larimer. Well marked and super well engineered. Very flowy. One section was brutally harsh...traversing a massive multiple mile rock field which rattled the fillings out of our teeth. All else was sick singletrack with miner bits of fire road and pavement to hook stuff up.
It was clear the previous night took a lot of wind out of the sails. I needed to absolutely just be within myself on the massive climbs. Nothing to prove, no goals whatsoever other than burning the hangover out of me....but in this part of the year, just to be fit without being near that scary edge of sickness-fitness.
The Trek Team boys were drilling it hard. Great bunch of dudes with obvious talent. They love the mountain bike. That brings me joy to see.
By mid way through, we split....the young single guys (and Batey) going on for another couple of hours, and Longman, Matty Opp, Birthday Boy Bobby, Boups and I still had another hour or more of technical riding ahead of us. So we split the crew and went our ways.
All said and done, we got back to the car in roughly 4:50 ride time covering lots of extremely technical and cherry ground. I'll be sure to be back. The trail system is a keeper.

More of the day's digital celluloid. Full set found here.