ringthepeak

The 2nd edition of the Ring the Peak 100(ish)k is set for October 6, 2012! This time around, it will likely not overlap with any other large events going on – it is AFTER 24 hour Nationals, so doing both is definitely possible. All rules and limits on liability for the City of Colorado Springs remain the same as of December 2011.

For 2012 the RTP 100(ish)k will be the Colorado State Endurance Championship! So come on out and finish off a season in the Pikes Peak high country, and maybe get snowed on a bit along the way

The route will remain the same (unless more of the trail is ok’ed to be finished before that point).

To register, please visit the 2012 registration page and sign up officially there by putting your full name along with “I’m in”, “Count me in”, etc.

Updates will be posted as necessary.

Quick start shot with around 20 riders lined up at 6:30 for a beautiful start to the ride!

Riders lining up for the start of the Ring the Peak 100(ish)k

Racing through America the Beautiful Park onto the goal of ringing Pikes Peak in the distance

Looks like a high of 81 and low of 49 in Colorado Springs, so the start should be chilly, but warm up quickly. Woodland Park is calling for a high of 70 degrees, so a few hours into the ride it should be a cool, fall day up there around Pikes Peak!

For anyone interested, I finally got around to pulling the times and distances from the recon ride off the file and thought it would be helpful to post splits to various areas based on an 11 hour ride (8 hours ride time, almost 11 total hours) around the peak. This included a very leisurely stop at the KOA for food (we had to wait for them to finish cleaning the bathrooms before opening up the store, so sat around for quite a while). We stopped multiple times to chat with folks on the trail and spent an hour at the KOA, so you can assume a faster time if you keep moving. Here are the splits:

Ruxton to Hwy 24: 45 minutes (3.5 miles)

Hwy 24 to the top of Esther: ~1 hour (6 miles) (with some riding in circles trying to find the trailhead)

Esther to Crags Campground: ~2.5 hours (14 miles) (again with picture taking and stopping to chat along the way – assume faster if you keep moving)

Crags Campground to Horsetheif Park/Hwy 67 junction – 1 hour (5 miles)

Hwy 67 to KOA: <30 min (5 miles)

KOA to FS 376/Gold Camp junction: 35 min almost all downhill (9.5 miles)

FS 376 to Deer Park: 1:45 (6.5 miles)

Deer Park to Colorado Ave: 1:30 (14.5 miles)

Then an easy ride back to town!

The race time is still set for 6:30am from America the Beautiful Park! 

PARKING – please do not take up spots at America the Beautiful Park along the roadway. North and east you can find plenty of on-street parking and this will put you in a good median position to be close to both the start and finish.

Turnaround times – just for safety reasons, I wanted to post some suggested turnaround times or locations in case you find that you are running well behind schedule and are not as comfortable being out in the dark with a long way to go. These are solely based on experience and will vary for every rider. If others have experience doing this ride in the past, please feel free to leave comments for newer riders.

The Crags Campground – if you find yourself at The Crags Campground and you’re 7 or so hours into the ride, it might be worth considering a turn-around. You can follow Highgway 67 back to Divide and then down Ute Pass into Colorado Springs.

FS 376 – if you’re coming down Gold Camp Road and the sun is setting or the weather is changing significantly, you can continue to ride Gold Camp back to town without having to go up and over Almagre. This may be faster than continuing to climb another 2,000+ feet to 11,500′.

Start route – see maps section for info.

Additional updates will be posted as necessary!

The start time has changed to 6:30am to account for the cooler conditions and light. Sunrise is around 6:55, so pedaling up the bike path to Ruxton should be manageable and the sun should be coming up by the time you hit the Ute Pass Trail. Lights are still highly recommended for the descent off Mount Baldy if you expect to be in the 10+ hour finishing time frame.

Average temperatures in COS for the past 10 years on October 1st have been right around 60 in general. Highs have varied from the 50s to low 80′s, but more recently 70s to 80s. Lows have been generally in the low to mid 40s, so expect a chilly start. As long as the sun is shining, the temperatures should be ok, but still a bit chilly from The Crags Campground all the way to the [almost] top of Baldy since it’s 10,000+ feet except for a quick section on Gold Camp Road where you drop to 9,400 feet. Warm clothing in the pack would be prudent.

The finish will officially be at McCabe’s Tavern in downtown Colorado Springs. The owners are excited to open up their tavern to weary riders looking for good food and good beer. This is a great local establishment that is very cycling friendly! If you check on the map/gps, you will see the finish shown on the map.

The start will be (99% sure at this point) at America the Beautiful Park where riders will travel on the bike path to Manitou Springs. I need to finalize this section of the course, but there may be some road use before reaching Manitou. See the maps section for details in a few weeks.

Also, there may be one change to the course. I will update the maps, but where you come to the 666 trail, instead of continuing down to High Drive riders may go right and do a short hike-a-bike to attain the top of Buckhorn Trail. From there they can take Buckhorn and Captain Jack’s to 26th Street, meeting up with the original trail. If the weather is poor or you are wrecked, by all means continue straight down 666 and descend High Drive. There is very little, if any, pedaling left at that point and it is a safe, quick way down. Maps will be updated to reflect this in the coming weeks. So the main route will now consist of the Buckhorn hike-a-bike and descent to/down Jack’s in order to maintain property/land use requirements. However, plan ‘B’ is a straight shot down 666 to the road. Not doing the hike-a-bike will likely cut about 15 minutes off your time, so not much in the big picture.

Saturday July 9th was the planned recon day to set the course, check out everything, and just have a great ride with some fellow MTB’ers. The day looked great as I was driving over to Manitou before sunrise.

It started off at 5:30am on Ruxton Ave with a train of people heading up to the Incline. I was really surprised to see how many people were out at this hour on a Saturday. Usually you see the early morning Incline people out there on weekdays, but this was a surprise. I was going to meet PJ, Rob, and possibly a couple others at the start of the Ute Pass Trail (UPT) for a 5:30 start to the Ring the Peak. A few people also under-estimated the amount of Incline and Barr Trail users at that hour and had to go find different parking spots. We waited until 5:45 and then took off, not wanting to put off the suffering any longer!

PJ and I started up UPT and rode our bikes for about 90 seconds until we reached the first hike-a-bike. This isn’t a long hike-a-bike, but it definitely wakes the legs up that early. After reaching the top, there is a great section of singletrack that breaks off to the left and starts with a washed-out messy climb but rewards you with sweet, buff singletrack to the right. This eliminates fire road climbing, of which we will have plenty of later.

We finished the UPT, turned right, descended to Highway 24, crossed, and began pedaling up the paved pass to Cascade. The gate proved to be a difficult crossing before we even reached the highway. PJ got a little stuck coming through it

Traffic wasn’t bad at this hour and motorists were generally aware of us and courteous. This is the view up the pass as we were pedaling up the highway.

Upon reaching Cascade, we ran into Teri, who came down from Woodland Park to meet us for a portion of the ride. We pedaled up the main road and past the Pikes Peak Toll Road until we reached the turnoff for Picabo Road. Now, coming into this, I always knew the roads up here were steep, but this was crazy! We were able to pedal the entire road, but it was hard, still being early in the ride! After reaching the top and not finding a marked road for Mountain Road, we rode around for a minute before finding the left turn onto dirt. We took that and immediately found the right hand entrance for the Mount Esther Trail. Notice the RTP sign hiding uphill in the brush.

We knew this was a hike-a-bike, so we picked up the bikes and started going. Straight up the mountain side for about 30 minutes and we reached the top. What a view back to Cascade and Hwy 24!

So we were finally back on some nice singletrack that rolled and climbed through the forest as we made our way to Catamount Reservoir. PJ was enjoying the singletrack through the forest.

A few more steep powerline hills and we were there. The Res was beautiful as the sun was now visible in the sky. Oh, I almost forgot. The descent to Crystal Reservoir after that climb was great! It seemed like for every climb we did we were given a descent that was just as good, if not better, than the previous climb. This paid big dividends later on when the suffer-fest really began.

The descent off the top of Esther and Crow Gulch was so much fun. Unfortunately the phone was a little damp and it looks like it was raining then, but it wasn’t. It was nice and sunny as we came out of there.

Next up, the pedal (with a long descent and punchy climb) to North Catamount Reservoir. I don’t have photos from that because I don’t want to show off that climb we did to get back up. Not long, just not fun. Once we arrived though, we had a great view!

Shortly after riding the road for just a few minutes, there is a great section of trail that takes you around the North Reservoir. This is highly recommended because it’s just all flow and eliminates a boring section of road. Not technically part of the RTP system, but it should be!

More fire road climbing and we were on our way to the Crags Campground. This was a nice section as it was a good mixture of climbing and descending. Eventually we rolled into the Crags Campground where bathrooms and a stream awaited. We seemed to be doing well with hydration, and decided to fill up there. Along the way we ran into 2 other riders who were bikepacking and originally planning a 2.5 day trip on the route. They were fixing a cable when we ran into them, so we chatted and all headed off around the same time.

After reaching the Crags and continuing to the end of the road, we began a tough climb to get to Horsetheif Park. The first climb was about 500 feet, nice terrain, but a little punchy in spots. This led to a great little descent, and was followed by another 500 foot climb. We were starting to feel the effects of the climbing so far by this point, so it was slow going on the uphills. The descent down to Horsetheif though, was again, very worth the effort!

Looking down towards Horsetheif.

Looking back up from the descent.

Some clouds were rolling in, but they were providing very nice shade as it was getting warmer. After reaching the junction for Horsetheif and Pancake Rocks, we descended to Highway 67. While Pancake Rocks is still part of the RTP trail, it dead-ends, so the only option is to descend to 67 and ride the highway towards Victor/Cripple Creek. The road to Gold Camp climbs a bit to right around 10,000 feet before splitting off at the junction of Highway 67 and 81. Right before that point, there is a spring on the right side of the road that is great for filtering. Shortly after taking the left to 81, you will see a KOA campground on your left. It’s about 500 yards off the road, but well worth the ride if you need extra fuel. I spoke with one of the owners and he said that October 1st is their last day and they will be there as long as the weather is good. So if they are open that day, you’ll be in luck for the actual Ring the Peak ride to pick up a few items. I ended up leaving with 2 Cokes, which proved very helpful later on. I also took a 5 Hour Energy and that was perfect timing for what was coming up.

So we left the KOA on full stomachs and with renewed energy, just as some dark clouds were rolling in from the west. The 2 other guys we ran into definitely thought we would get wet, and I agreed after seeing how far they stretched to the west. Off we go, down 81 and eventually to the turn-off for Gold Camp Road. This turned back into dirt and was a fast trip as it dropped us eventually to about 9400 feet. Very refreshing and it gave us time to stand up and stretch out before the toughest climbs of the day. About 15 minutes later we reached the dreaded FS 376. I say dreaded because I’ve looked at the elevation profile and have seen some photos. Personally, I was dreading it. It’s this long, undulating, steep climb that never seems to end. On top of that, the 2 other guys we ran into were telling us all about it and how long it is. So that was it, we started up on FS 376.

Not long into it, the road pitched up and we were in our easiest gears grinding away. A few pitches up, we ran into Rob, who started about 15 min after us, but must have passed us while we were waiting for the KOA to open up. So that was nice to have someone else to ride with for a while and we started up together. This is when we heard the well-known rumble in the mountains. It was drizzling on us and darkness moved in. We stopped to get layered up, but barely in time. Just after I pulled the rain cover over my pack and was still putting my jacket on, the sky opened up. We saw it rushing up the road toward us – a wall of rain and hail. Luckily this only lasted about 5 minutes, but everything was soaked. The sun came back out and warmed us back up, so we continued the climb.

The next photo is from Scott Morris’ blog to show the turn. After getting a little wet, the camera decided to stop working, so no more photos of the return trip. We again ran into the 2 other guys who were bikepacking and talked about the storm that rolled through. They made it through and were putting away the tarp they used to stay dry.

Off we went, on another hike-a-bike.  This was a mixture of hiking and very slow pedaling by this point. I definitely had a second wind and made great time up this mountainside, figuring that if the energy was available, might as well get it over with. The descent down revealed some great views of Almagre and the towers on top. We rode through a few open fields, climbed a bit more, and finally descended down the east side of Almagre to the turn-off for the Jones Park descent.

We stopped to regroup quickly at that trail junction, but saw another round of storms moving in, so decided to keep hauling. The ensuing descent down Pipeline and eventually 666 was probably the fastest I’ve ever descended that trail. The storm was moving in quickly and was producing very loud thunder, some rain, and some lightning that was clearly in view across the canyon. I definitely pushed it here and paid for it later, not drinking or eating at all on this descent. I was more concerned with getting down the mountain. At the bottom, the body was definitely letting me know that what I did was going to cost me that evening!

So we rolled out on High Drive and descended down to 26th Street to cross Hwy 24 before riding slowly back into Manitou to get our vehicles.

The Ring the Peak trail system is truly an epic ride and provides climbs that make you wish you could order a new pair of climbing legs halfway through, but also gives you descents that make you forget about all of the hard work you had to do to get there…until the next climb

Thanks for the great ride everyone, and it was great seeing so many other trail users out there enjoying it too!

See the maps section for updated route information and the current GPS file for the course. The only part that is missing is the start information and finishing route. The file shows the start of segment 1 through to the finish of the actual RTP trail and the ride back into Old Colorado City.

We have reached the registration limit for the Ring the Peak!! Thank you to everyone who has signed up! If you find that you can no longer do this event, please remove your name from the registration list so other people can add their names.

Thanks, and see you in October!