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When the SG team asked me to share a ride I love, one immediately stood out. It’s a place I’ve grown up as a mountain biker and can test my mettle, whether I’m simply more prepared than the previous year with more suspension, new skills, or just better snacks.

I pushed it away thinking “no, everyone’s already ridden this trail. No one wants to hear about it.” But I think the reason I keep coming back to it year after year is what makes it so special. It’s Doctor Park in Gunnison County, and here’s why I love it the most.

As we were driving down from the summit of Monarch Pass, I came to the realization that I’d never ridden a gravel bike in Salida. I had little to no knowledge of any gravel route in the area and after a weekend of hiking around and sipping bourbon at the Lost Wonder Hut, motivation was feeling a little low.

After poking around online for a bit, I found some appealing looking options and pieced together what I thought would be a decent route. I ignored the one-too-many Old Fashioneds swirling around my frontal lobe and downloaded the haphazard route to my phone.

Call it dumb luck, but what we linked up proved to truly one of the best gravel rides I’d ever found, and nothing short of a hidden gem. Sometimes the odds are in your favor, I’ll cheers to that.

It’s not often I surprise myself on a ride. After years and years of riding in our beloved Rocky Mountains, sometimes it feels like there aren’t any surprises left out there. You know your routes like the back of your hand, you hit the same trails and even the big rides start to feel almost routine. And then every once in a while, you uncover a hidden gem in a place where you least expect it. That’s what our day in Salida was all about, discovering something special. 

These are the days we live for, and these are the Rides We Love.

You might’ve noticed a few differences out on the trails in 2020. When the pandemic hit last spring, people flocked to the outdoors and open spaces in search of fresh air. As a result, trails became packed overnight with all sorts of new trail users of varying experience levels.

The funny thing is, it hasn’t really tapered off. Trails are busier than we’ve ever seen them and this doesn’t feel like it’s going away any time soon. With all the new faces out on the trails comes a learning curve.

Certain practices that might be common knowledge to a veteran are totally foreign to a brand new mountain biker or trail runner. In order to help bridge the gap, we figured it’s a good time to bring everyone up to speed on trail etiquette best practices so we can all enjoy the trails safely together.

From the slightly obvious to the more nuanced, we put together a quick guide to help make your trail experience better and share with new riders as they hit the trails.

The 10 Commandments of Trail Etiquette:

1. Always yield to uphill riders.

Straight from the trail etiquette 101 playbook, the rider traveling uphill always has the right of way. When you’re descending any trail, always slow down and politely move over for the climbing rider unless the climbing rider decides to move out of your way and give you the go ahead.

2. Keep singletrack single. Ride through it, not around it.

It can be tempting to ride off the trail to avoid a mud puddle, especially when tire tracks of riders before you have set the stage, but “ride arounds” ultimately widen the trail and take away from the way the trail was designed to be ridden. Stay on the trail and ride through the mud puddle. Don’t worry, your bike will be fine.

This also applies when passing other riders. Stay on the trail and don’t ride off of it in order to pass. When in doubt, stay on the trail.

4. Ride within your limits and when in doubt, just slow down.

Don’t be a hero out there. We’re all in this for fun, and narrowly flying by a group of hikers or riders can be intimidating and ultimately creates more tension between cyclists and other trail user groups.

Slow down and give other trail users some space, we’re all in this together.

If you’re going for a new PR or training for a specific downhill, ride it at off-times and be aware that your actions impact others’ experience. Take it easy, and ride within your ability levels.

9. Be prepared.

You’ve all ridden with that friend who doesn’t bring a tube or a pump and relies on you to fix their flat. Don’t be that person. Carry basic tools to fix a flat tire, broken chain and make minor adjustments to your bike.

Additionally, know your route, bring enough water and food and be self-reliant. If you have any questions on how to prepare for a ride, ask us!

10. Above all else, Be polite.

You know how your high school football coach always said, attitude is everything? Well, he was on to something. A good attitude can resolve almost any conflict you encounter out there. It’s a privilege to recreate in the great outdoors and on public land and it’s our duty to share it responsibly with our fellow humans.

Smile at the hiker you pass, say thank you to those that yield, and give a shout of encouragement to the kids out there. We’re all in this together, folks.

Words and images by Sports Garage Ambassador Brian Firle.

Meaning, what if you could section the trail into huge days where you only carried what you needed for the day, and then had someone move your gear from night to night? An extremely generous friend volunteered for the position of soigneur/cook/van-driver/camp-host and we sectioned the trail into nine days of riding.

Nine days to cover 550+ miles of high alpine single-track from Denver to Durango, averaging 65 miles a day and 8,000 feet of elevation gain. Seems doable right? Even when I looked at the numbers for the trip, the trail, the whole thing, I thought, “Couldn’t we do this faster?” Is this really going to be that much of a challenge? What if we did it in seven days and made a few days shorter? After all, we wouldn’t be carrying all our stuff.”

After years of racing bikes at an elite level, both on the road and the mountain bike, I thought, “How hard could this be? We’re not racing the thing. You just get on your bike and ride.” I wasn’t really intimated by the idea of riding the whole CT.

I knew it would be hard, but not as hard as it was. By day five when we were crawling through snow and hundreds of down trees on Monarch Pass, I cracked. Not so much physically, but mentally. And that was a surprise to me. If anything, I thought my breakdown would be physical: my back, knee problem, crashing, or the like. But as turned out, it was the mental strength that I felt I lacked.

High alpine days left the crew short of breath, but the views were phenomenal.

Wake up at 6:30am feeling tired and hungover from the previous day of riding – lack of sleep, lack of food, lack of electrolytes. You crawl out of your sleeping bag like a creaky tin-man, put on two puffy jackets (it was cold), get some coffee, and attempt to put food in your mouth and stomach.

Prep your bike, prep your body, get your stuff organized. Try to eat again, try to drink more water. Doing everything you can to replenish the 8,000 calories you burned the day before. Try to eat again. Poop. Get all the food you might need for the day plus a few liters of water and roll out around 8:30am.

Ride some of the most rugged, remote, and challenging single track between 10,000 and 13,000 feet. All. Damn. Day. Imagine taking your longest trail ride you’ve ever done in the high country…4-5 hours maybe? Then double it.

Exhausted, you might get to the campsite by 5pm or 6pm or 7pm, once time 8pm. Fall off your bike onto the ground from exhaustion. Scrounge around for your gear. Set up tent. Wash your butt out with some hot water from a jet-boil. Change clothes, put both puffy jackets back on. Attempt to eat food (which doesn’t go well). You’re starving but you are still at 10,000 feet and you have been eating pop-tarts all day long so your stomach feels terrible. Try to drink more water and electrolytes. Eat more food than you feel like. Poop again. Wipe down bike and prep stuff for the morning. Lube chain, get more food and fill camelback because you won’t want to do it in the morning when its 27 degrees. Go to bed, attempt to sleep at high altitude. Sometimes you sleep hard. Sometimes you don’t.

Wake up at 6:30am, do it all over again. Day after day. Sounds fun right? It was.

Balancing challenges on and off the bike, the CT never ceased to confront us with a new adventure each and every day.

Type one is the easy, low-hanging-fruit fun: movie night, hanging in the backyard with friends, water skiing. But type two fun is reserved for us masochists: mountaineering, bike racing, multi-pitch rock climbing, ultra marathons, and idiots that ride the whole CT in nine days.

This was the blend we were going for: something hard enough that pushed us mentally and physically, but not miserable enough to make it all feel like work. It could be argued either way but I think we found a good balance. 🙂

Either way, I cracked mentally on day five and it took all of one or two days for me to get over the hump. I even yelled at my best bud on the trip with me, telling him that his positive attitude was “dumb as hell.” By day seven, the “queen stage” day through the San Juan Mountains, I was feeling awesome. Tired, albeit, but mentally engaged, filled with gratitude, and enjoying the trail experience to the fullest. I had slowed down a bit internally, not feeling the pressure of getting through the trail as fast as we could to make it to camp before dark. Day seven (from Spring Creek trailhead, outside of Lake City to Silverton), was an epic day. 56 miles and 10k feet of climbing—with a total of 40 miles of continuous single-track above 12,000 feet through some of the highest and most rugged parts of Colorado’s mountains. This was a day that just kept on giving—grinding up the scree fields along the ridge-line and plummeting down the saddles between the peaks. The second you’d touch the high point of the next ridge, down you’d go to the saddle below, only to climb back up to the top of another ridge, or skirt around another peak. There aren’t words to really put to how incredible (and difficult) this day was. The temperature was perfect, cool but not cold, the sun was out, making paintings in the smokey sky and lighting up the colors of every plant on the mountainside.

Cracked and deep in the hurt locker: type 3 fun.

At the final climb of the day, I found myself in the company of two other friends from our trip. At 5:30pm, golden hour, we were standing on the edge of a 12,000 foot ridge, looking down into a valley of yellow and green ferns, maroonish grass, and bright red flowers. It was dead silent. There wasn’t another person probably 50 miles from us. I can close my eyes and still see the sun casting shadows in the warm valley. The little stream that twisted its way through the alpine grasses. And a complete 360 degree view of high peaks in all directions. The whole day felt like we were riding through the sky.

Because it is there and only there can you see the world through his eyes. Just for a moment we get to witness the big-ness of our world and our tiny place in it.

There is only one response that seemed natural at that moment like that: gratitude. Gratitude that I have a body that allows me to take adventures like this. Gratitude that I have loving people around me that empower me to push myself. Gratitude that with all the hurt and pain in the world, we get to escape it for just a few days—to retreat to a wild place and think about nothing other than “should I take the A-line or the B-line?”—the simplest of things.

There are so many stories, both on the bike and off that I could share. It’s crazy to me how novel warm water is after nine days of not having it, how dry your skin can get when you don’t put on lotion every day after a shower, and how amazing fresh lettuce is when all you’ve eaten is pasta and dried meat. How lucky are we that we get to willingly deprive ourselves of such things, only to easily return to them when the trip is over.

Sitting in the living room of my home in Boulder, CO, back to the grind and sometimes mundaneness of everyday life, I take myself back there. I close my eyes and I can feel my beating heart pounding out of my chest as I pushed my bike over Searle Pass. I can see all the valley above the township of Cathedral, where the sun was setting over the mountains and casting beams down to the small farms below. I can feel the dry wind and sand on my face as we detoured on 60 miles of gravel road after Sergeants Mesa. I can feel the burn in my shoulders and hands after descending for 10 miles off high mountain ridge.

In the moment we can pass right though them, remain unaware of the beauty that is set before us and within us, distracted by the beehive in our minds. The reason I go on these adventures is because they center me, challenge me, and expose me to a beauty that I would never have witnessed otherwise: the emotional breakdowns, the body aches, the trail ripping speed, the hi-fives, the “uffdah’s” after a big climb, the crashes, and the “sendable” sections. It’s not just the perfect moments, but it’s the whole journey that entices me out into the woods. I can always know that when I am detached from boujie facets of modern life, that I will experience a beauty otherwise unknown.

My hope is that we all do this in our own way.  Mine tends to look like this Colorado Trail trip, but thats just my prescription. What might yours be?

In June professional mountain biker and content creator Brice Shirbach came to Boulder, Colorado to explore the rugged trails off of Lefthand Canyon and make a film, “Sight Unseen“, for Pivot Cycles.

Brice is based in Delaware, and has cut his teeth racing and riding up and down the east coast, starting in XC but quickly realizing that his sensibilities and body type were much better suited for enduro and gravity riding. Having not spent much time riding in Colorado, Brice decided to create a series of films documenting his experience exploring a few trails across the state. To celebrate the release of the beautiful film, Sports Garage sat down with Brice for a Q&A session about the Boulder section, his impressions of Boulder, the trails, and his bike setup.

We were talking about trying to identify where would be a good fit for the project, Colorado gets a lot of attention but all my riding out west has been in the Pacific Northwest or Arizona, but I’ve never really ridden in Colorado, except for Fruita. But there are so many parts of the state and trails out here that are held in high regard in the mountain bike community, that I thought this would be a great excuse to get out here and sink my teeth into these places. It was perfect because the idea of the series was to push myself on trails that I’ve never ridden before.

When we filmed at Lefthand for the Boulder episode, I rode the Trail429 with an “enduro spec” version. I weigh 195-pounds and I occasionally ride the bike above its paygrade, so I definitely needed a spec that was a little beefier than a standard Trail429.

I had the DPX2 shock and I have the Fox 36 elite fork, I prefer it versus the factory one because of the black stanchions. I have an offset headset so its a little slacker than a standard 429 spec. The wheels and tires are Stans Flow EX3 with Maxxis Assegai 2.5 tires. It is a pretty burly setup and I run downhills casings on all my tires. The Assegai’s, for me, are the best tire of all time. You always get the comment about rolling speed, but to me that’s silly, because if I’m on a tire that is faster in a vacuum, but doesn’t brake as well, I’m not going to go as fast on it than I would on a tire that technically rolls slower but that I’m more confident one.

As I was planning logistics for the shoot Lefthand stood out because it looked like it had some cool fall line trails and long descents with a steady gradient without switchbacks, which generally means you can expect high speed. And when I got into town, I came into Sports Garage and had a chat with Jesse Kruzel, who helped me identify the go-to route on the way down.

Driving out of Boulder you turn left on Lefthand canyon drive and you are immediately in a Canyon. Boulder is densely populated and I was a little surprised by that. But as soon as I was 20-minutes outside of town I felt like I was way out of any population center, which was really nice and reassuring.

As soon as we got to the top where I was going to drop in it was absolutely beautiful. You can see the plains, Boulder, and even Denver. It was so pretty and I was immediately very happy that we decided to pick the location. It is tough when you go out and ride these places blind. There is always a little bit of anxiety about if the trail will be good and how we will make it look good if it’s not, but luckily, we didn’t have to worry about that at all. Right away I knew we made the right decision and the two trails we connected for the descent were just amazing. Super fast, fun and really stunning.

I thought Boulder would be full of fit people and upscale, and it was. I loved the dedication to open spaces, if you are going to have a population center, Boulder does a great job of how you present yourself and achieve a standard of living for a large collection of people.

As far as the trails, the thing I was most concerned about was traction. I just kept hearing the words “kitty litter” over and over again when hearing about the terrain. In Delaware, summers are very humid and the mountains are very old, so there are tons of organic stuff and the dirt is delicious and amazing.

Lefthand isn’t well-represented with content, some grainy POV footage from first-gen Go-Pro, so I didn’t know what to expect outside of loose, dry dirt. Once I started putting rubber to the dirt, that description was certainly real. The traction is interesting, you are definitely drifting, but once you get comfortable drifting, it gets easier.

Lefthand was definitely chunkier than I’m used to. A lot of the trails on the front range are purpose-built and flowy, but Lefthand is just a bunch of old OHV trails that nature is reclaiming. It was really cool and interesting to see what happens when you take the off-road vehicles off and let nature re-take it. I had such a good time, the loose traction was a lot of fun, and the line of sight was amazing since there isn’t a lot of undergrowth. It was loose over loose and just a whole mess of amazing rock gardens. There were sections where you’d want to take it easy but you aren’t going to make a very dynamic video taking it easy and being measured, so I was trying to keep the fingers off the breaks. There were definitely times where I was a little white knuckled.

There is a stretch with the drone shot showing me on a little ridge going straight on a 10-percent pitch so in theory it is a perfect, no brake grade, but underneath my tires was golf-ball-sized rocks over kitty litter. I remember thinking, “I can’t even pretend to hit the brakes now or it will be a total mess.” It was a lot of fun.

Jesse’s advice was great and he was right, if you let yourself go too fast, it can be quite dangerous. It almost seemed to be the antithesis of the other front range stuff, it tends to be purpose-built and flow, jump centric. To have something that is a little more rugged and not built for MTB is pretty sweet, great to get to film on that.

I think some people underestimate how good short-travel bikes are these days. You’ll see conversations on social media where people think you have to go 150mm travel with a 180mm fork. But as the video shows, the shorter travel bikes are built to get loose on, they are just more efficient. So it was cool to show that even on a 120mm 29er you can really get after it.

The riding around the state really shows the diversity available in the mountains of Colorado. I’m looking forward to my next trip back.

Words: Ryan Cross
Photos: Ryan Cross

Sports Garage ambassador Ryan Cross recently took the Switchblade to Grand Junction, CO (pre-pandemic) to put it to the test on steep, technical climbs and challenging desert descents and was remarkably pleased with how it performed.

In the competitive landscape of the modern-day trail bike, it’s not often we see a new player emerge as a true bike of the year candidate. With so many brands serving competitive options for do-it-all trail bikes, how does one stand apart?

Enter: the 2020 Pivot Cycles Switchblade. A completely redesigned frame and upgraded build packages set this bike apart from its predecessor, which was leaned unapologetically towards the cross country end of the spectrum. The new Switchblade got a facelift and the modernized 2020 model outperforms its previous iteration in more ways than one. Sports Garage got an opportunity to check out the new Switchblade at an event in Arizona and covered what is new and what was remained the same for 2020.

First Impressions – it climbs like a champ

My rides at Grand Junction’s infamous Lunch Loops system started with a tough climb. I put the DW platform to work right away and was incredibly impressed with how efficient it felt. On steep, technical climbs where I remained seated, the power transfer to the rear wheel was on par with anything I’ve experienced on a modern suspension platform, leaving me confident and composed on low-speed technical terrain. A reduced offset fork (more on that later) kept the front wheel from wandering and allowed me to navigate through technical climbs with comfort and confidence and predictability.

Where the Switchblade really began to stand out was on the less aggressive, faster, bumpy climbing where consistent out of the saddle efforts were met with a quick, yet efficient, response. Typically, I find that most trail bikes come up short here while dipping too deep in the stroke of the suspension under the force of repeated standing accelerations. When I popped out of the saddle on the Switchblade, I stayed high on the stroke and was able to power up and over rocky terrain efficiently and powerfully. I felt like I got the support I needed from the suspension without a sacrifice in efficiency during out of the saddle efforts and that’s a feeling worthy of praise.

What goes up, must come down.

The Switchblade’s climbing prowess was impressive, to say the least, but it’s unsurprising that the bike goes uphill well given its somewhat cross-country oriented roots. The real test of whether or not this bike would land in the category of other industry-leading trail bikes, was going to be put to test on the descents. And it passed. Boy, did it pass.

With a 66-degree headtube angle, the Switchblade isn’t aggressively slack, but to further tighten up the handling, the 2020 model uses a reduced offset fork (44mm) to bring a little more balance to the front end.

The result? A machine that gives you the stability and confidence of a much longer, lower, and slacked-out bike in a much snappier and quicker handling form. As I whipped down fast and flowy desert singletrack, I felt like the bike was quick and poppy, almost as if it was one step ahead of me when I looked through my next turn.

When it was time for a ledgy descent or a big drop, the Switchblade performed beautifully. The plush suspension platform never had me wishing for more travel and the bike met all the demands I threw at it. Even on the challenging technical trails of Colorado’s Western Slope, I never felt like I found the end of its capabilities.

Build, Sizing and Geometry

The new Switchblade comes in 5 sizes from XS to XL. I’ve always respected Pivot’s dedication to their size run, and their support of smaller riders through the testing and development with pro rider Chloe Woodruff, who’s barely 5 feet tall. I was testing an XL frame and felt perfectly fit for this bike at 6’2”.

While many brands offer a large number of different frame qualities, increasing with price as carbon gets higher and higher quality, Pivot designs around a single frame layup. This means there is only one Switchblade frame, which earns a major fistbump from me.

All builds come with a trusted Race Face remote lever.

As with the previous version of the bike, it can be set up as a 29’er or 27.5+ and uses the Super Boost spacing on the rear wheel with capacity for up to a 2.6” tire. It comes spec’d with Maxxis Minion DHF 2.5” front tire and a Minion DHR 2.4” in the rear. The frame gives enough room for a full-sized water bottle cage (HURRAY) while still accommodating a coil shock.

Clean lines, tidy cables and bolted housing guides.

A couple checks in the aesthetics column come in the form of a wavy chainstay protector (no chain slap here!) and super sleek bolt-on housing guides in the frame. I’m a sucker for clean lines and these made my eyes twinkle a bit.

The new anti-chain slap guard looks great too.

The new Switchblade comes with a flip-chip that allows the bike to be run in two positions. Position A, let’s call it, sits 6mm higher and tightens the head tube angle by half a degree. Position B – actually, let’s call this one “party mode,” lowers the BB and slackens the head tube angle. I rode it in both positions and noticed the subtle differences in each. Frankly, I don’t see this as a dynamic feature that you’d play with mid-ride or even on a day to day basis, but the option to optimize the geometry to your riding style is a major plus. I didn’t feel that party mode was a drawback in the slightest on the climbs and for my preference, the bike would live in this setup full-time.

The 1x-specific frame comes with a slew of build options, with SRAM and Shimano 1×12 drivetrains. The base model is impressively affordable at $5,499. Check out Pivot’s website for full specifications and price breakdown or reach out to Sports Garage and chat with the staff, they’ll be happy to help you.

The Verdict

Categorically, where does the new Switchblade land? It has the DNA of a trail bike with the pedalability of a marathon cross-country bike, but frankly, it does them both so well that it sits in a class of its own. It’s the first bike I’ve ever ridden that blurs these lines with this level of grace, and defines itself as a true (buzzword alert:) quiver-killer.

When buying a new bike, we all have to find something that’s optimized for our style, preferences, and terrain choices. The 2020 Pivot Switchblade checks more boxes than any other bike I’ve thrown my leg over. It’s a bike riders’ bike, the kind of machine that you want to spend hours and hours riding and not get sick of. One that’d be just as aptly suited on the smooth flow of the 401 as the ledgy sandstone of Porcupine Rim. To sum it up, this thing can do it all and is fun as hell to ride. If you want to own one bike that’s going to put a smile on your face on 99% of your rides, this might just be the one.

Don’t just take my word for it, demo one of these things with Sports Garage immediately.