Just before I began all this traveling for work, I was able to get in a good long ride on the aforementioned first leg of the CO Trail. It was fantastic! A bit more climbing than I thought and parts weren't ridable, but it was all definitely worth doing. In all, it was a little over 30 miles round trip and just over 5200 feet of climbing.
Along the way, I encountered one runner training for the Leadville 100 and two riders (guy and girl) from the Czech Republic beginning their attempt to do the whole Trail system one weekend at a time! They'll have to hike parts of it and they're figuring out the logistics along the way. Good luck with that. An admirable undertaking for sure, but a bit ambitious to try to wing it.
Lots of wildlife along the way. There were Elk, lots of deer, Bighorn Sheep and several other critters making sounds in the woods. Most of the snow had melted off, but there were still patches here and there.
In retrospect, I think I would have felt safer doing this with someone else, but I didn't have anyone willing to do this ride with me just yet.
