John G and I got out for an early AM mini-epic right from our garage doors, railing Heil and Picture Rock for a few hours. Amazing that we can pedal from our houses and do a 'quick’ loop in fantastic forested land and cover 33 miles and 3200ft of climbing. A great way to start the day.

Heil Ranch and the Picture Rock connector trail (to Hall Ranch in Lyons, CO) is and has been a labor of love by the off road cycling community. From the lobbying to advocate for the use of the land to the volunteerism to create the trails by hand, it’s been a pure labor of passion and love by groups like the BMA here in Boulder.

This said, the trails up at Heil/Picture Rock are beginning to decompose in a way that is exposing some absolutely torrential baby head rocks rendering almost the entire trail system ‘abusive’ to ride. The good news is today we say a boat load of flags marking where new trails are to be cut and a gaggle of heavy equipment getting ready to do some trail retrofitting. But alas, while it’s currently abusive to the  body, it’s even more abusive on equipment….and therefore PERFECT for thrash testing of equipment like the Edge Composite’s 29’er XC Wheels.

Bottom line, the wheels were fantastic over the rough stuff. I wasn’t intentionally trying to bury the wheels into rocks, but even while riding as smoothly as you can, it’s likely you’ll fall out of rhythm and case something, which inevitably happened. The Geax tires, all Stans’d up, hooked up well and when impacted on the rocks, literally hit rim with absolutely no burping or any rim damage. Impressive. Rocks getting flipped up and banged against the rims too, happen frequently, and again, no effect on the carbon hoops.

All-in-all I’m still impressed and satisfied with the product Edge has produced. More field tests to come….