Occasionally, there are rides we really want to do, and think you’d love the route, but we just can’t make it there ourselves. The Old Man Winter Rally Dirt Tempo Training Ride on Jan 6th, was one such ride. Luckily, we have lots of other gravel biking friends that we trust to help us review routes! What follows is our first ride post by a guest and our friend, Karen Gross.
This was my first group ride from Rapha, and it was exciting to see how many other people showed up and were interested in gravel riding (150+ riders).
The gravel sections were great- nice and wide, with no big boulders or potholes.
The single track had good rollers, was non-technical and well-maintained.
The weather was great for a January day (minus the wind).
With Boulder in the backdrop you really can’t go wrong (So dang lucky that we live in such a beautiful state)!
They had free beer after the ride at Rapha so you could hang out and mingle with the group.
I was a bit intimidated by the large amount of riders that showed up. The B group was by far the biggest, which caused some traffic problems like bottlenecking followed by the yo yo effect.
The wind was BRUTAL!
Do this ride if you want a free but large group gravel ride experience with options to go with a fast, medium or slow paced group to suit your ability, AND free beer afterwards to share with your new and old friends!
There was a steep section on the single track that still had some snow and was a but slippery, so most people walked down, but if there wasn’t such a big group, you could carefully ride this portion at a slower pace.
Rapha hosts many free group rides throughout the year that you can find on their website. They also have a great little coffee shop inside the store which we love to stop in and order a cortado or a latte.
This ride started from the Rapha Store in Boulder and street parking is easy around the Pearl Street mall area.
Laura & Rose
Laura Karpinski and Rose Barcklow are the creators of Gravel Bike Adventures. Click on the About page to learn more about them.
